Minority heterotopias: the cortijos of İzmir

This article introduces the cortijos of İzmir and discusses them as heterotopic places. Originally belonging to the Sephardi Jewish residents of İzmir during the Ottoman times, cortijos were one or two-storey buildings organised around a courtyard, with shared facilities such as toilets and kitchen. The Sephardi inhabitants of cortijos were among the poorest in their community and each family lived in a small single room opening out onto a courtyard. After the immigration of the majority of the Sephardis to Israel in the 1950s, these buildings started to be occupied by equally poor migrants from Eastern Anatolia. In time the demographics of the inhabitants changed even more, replacing families with single, aged and unemployed individuals. Despite changes in the resident profiles, the heterotopic features of cortijos were neither changed nor challenged and only oscillated between heterotopias of crisis and heterotopias of deviation. With a special focus on a documentary photography exhibit on cortijos, titled Kortejo/Aile Evleri, this article discusses their heterotopic features, both in relation to their history and to their current condition. The article concludes by highlighting the new-found public and municipal interest in these buildings after their aestheticisation through photographic images. This new interest suggests an appropriation of the cortijo into the needs and expectations of the consumer society.