Creating Shopping Malls as Postcolonial Spaces through Leisure Time Discourses: The Example of Shopping Malls in Istanbul

Abstract

In this article, we will stress the construction of space and leisure time through the everyday practicing in shopping malls in Istanbul. This analysis aims to focus on the practice in shopping malls within the discussion of leisure time and space in order to develop a post-colonial critique in terms of daily life practices. By looking at the five shopping malls in Istanbul, this work claims that on the one hand experiencing shopping malls leads to the creation of self-colonizing subjects, and on the other hand creates new ways of pointing “others” as a “colonial” project. In other words, even if the subjects of neoliberal world try to practice the modern, Western life style in search for recognition within the hegemony of Eurocentric ideologies, at the same time this process creates them as “colonizers” who attempt to ascribe binary oppositions by referring to class, status and social differences.