A critical approach to discipline of human geography as an apparatus for state hegemony in Turkey

This study examines the hegemony of political power on the discipline of human geography in Turkey. Throughout the history of the country, human geography curricula have been aligned with the nationalist and hegemonic power politics of state authorities instead of being guided by universal norms, thus ignoring Turkey’s sociopolitical and cultural geography. This is reflected in the contents of human geography text books at the high school and college level. Similarly, the subjects of articles that have appeared in the 12 academic geography journals published in Turkey within the last 71 years also support this claim. The intervention of political power in the academic identity of human geography and the efforts to align human geography curricula with a certain ideological view have resulted in the emergence of apolitical geographers, who remain deaf and blind to social issues. This study analyzes the negative features of human geography education curricula and their political implications in Turkey, and proposes several recommendations.     

Relationship Between Green Areas and Urban Conservation in Historical Areas and Its Reflections: Case of Diyarbakir City,Turkey

City planning is essential for providing physical environment for better community life and for providing green areas, while conserving historical heritage is an important achievement in city planning, particularly for historical cities such as Diyarbakir city. The focus of this paper is to outline how increasing the ratio of green area in the city centre of Diyarbakir, Turkey, with a land-use betterment model exemplified sustainable urbanism. We observed an applied urban design project that included both opening up free space to the public and increasing the amount of available green area. The project addressed an area adjacent to the Diyarbakir city walls, which are important not only for their history but also as reflections of the urbanization process of Diyarbak?r from prehistoric time to the twenty-first century. We have noticed that changes in the design area provided understanding of the city planning by public and supplied more green areas for children and women. Thus, the city became more desirable and more sustainable.     

Towards the New Regionalism Approach in the Metropolitan Governance of Turkey

The Greater Municipality Law (no. 5216) was enacted in 2004 in order to coordinate the governance of metropolitan areas in Turkey. In fact, this law has been a part of the restructuring process of the government in public domain as well as of the centralization and metropolitan governance approaches. However, the evaluation of this law displays many conflicts and uncertainties discussed by this study. Analysing the Law no. 5216, this study explores the case of Izmir Greater Municipality from the aspects of metropolitan governance approaches. The study findings suggest that this law conflicts with the issues of functionality along with its definition of metropolitan area boundaries, has problems related to the boundaries, efficiency and incomes of the district municipalities, causes complexities about the distribution of authority between district municipalities and greater municipalities in an unbalanced structure of responsibility and authority for planning issues, and has uncertainties related to the principles of sustainable planning and participation processes.     

The evolution of the terminology of the basal ganglia, or are they nuclei?

Basal ganglia have been generally used to refer to some subcortical nuclei. However, it is a misnomer since ganglion is a group of nerve cells especially located outside of the brain or spinal cord. We evaluated the terminology of the basal ganglia from historical and terminological points of view.     

The Evolution of the Terminology of the Basal Ganglia,or are they Nuclei?

Basal ganglia have been generally used to refer to some subcortical nuclei. However, it is a misnomer since ganglion is a group of nerve cells especially located outside of the brain or spinal cord. We evaluated the terminology of the basal ganglia from historical and terminological points of view.