KÜÇÜKESAT MAHALLESİNDEKİ 65 YAŞ VE ÜZERİ BİREYLERİN MEKANSAL, ZAMANSAL VE SOSYAL YÜRÜME PRATİKLERİ ÜZERİNDEN MAHALLENİN OKUMASI

The current literature on walking behaviours of elderly residents suggests that several factors related to built environment, social life and city’s rhythm affects walking practices of elderly residents in an urban space. In light of this, the thesis focuses on walking not only as a tool to reach target destination but also as a spatial, temporal and social practice. Differing from the stationary urban planning approaches which adopt a bird’s eye view in planning, the study aims to analyse walking practices of a group of elderly residents in the street level through their tactics in response to spatial and temporal challenges. As one of the central neighbourhoods of Ankara, Küçükesat is characterized with vibrant commercial and residential area and high population of elderly residents which make this space a convenient field area. In this fast paced and central neighbourhood, tactics of participants to negotiate their everyday practices are analysed through everyday life concept of Michel de Certeau. Under everyday life concept, their trajectories in the city through walking allows for a reading of the neighbourhood under the concept of pedestrian speech act. Drawn on Henri Lefebvre, a rhytmanalysis of the participants’ walking practices and the city enables the analysis to embody a temporal dimension as well. The findings demonstrate how the experience of the city and walking practices of participants are shaped by current pedestrian infrastructure, public transportation network, rhythm and social texture of the city.