Social spaces and the micropolitics of differentiation: An example from northwestern Turkey

Through a focus on the forging of social spaces through difference, this es say shows how the concept of stranger looms large and forms a critical part of people's lives in the ethnographic context of northwestern Turkey. It e xplores how the unfamiliar is thought of in diverse ways, through the metho dological techniques of either vision, reason, or empathy. In this regard, encounters with strangers are not merely about relations between self and o ther, the outside and inside, but about the practices, perceptions, and pol itics of space.