Can cultural tourism be a development strategy for a Roma (Gypsy) Neighborhood?

ATLAS INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON SOCIAL SCIENCES 6., Batumi, Gürcistan, 15 - 17 Mayıs 2020, ss.100-101, (Özet Bildiri)

ABSTRACT

This paper handles an old Roma neighbourhood (Fevzipaşa) in Çanakkale, in relation to the tourism

strategy of the city. Fevzipaşa neighbourhood where poverty, unemployment, lacks of education, lowquality

housing and built environment problems are experienced intensely like many other Roma

settlements in Turkey. Fevzipaşa is also situated in historical core of Çanakkale, which was founded for

defensive purposes in 15th century. Its historical city centre has been under conservation since 1996 and

a part of it is a deprived area where especially the Roma people live and some important monumental

architecture examples are available.

Çanakkale and its close vicinity have a quite rich archaeological heritage. The ancient cities such as

Troy, Assos, and Alexandra Troas as well as the Gallipoli Peninsula, one of the important fronts of

World War I, draw thousands of foreign and local tourists to the region every year. On the other hand,

it is known that the tourists visiting the region use the city as a passing route and do not visit the city

centre. At this point, rendering the historical centre of the city attractive may be an important strategy

in terms of supporting both the local economy and cultural tourism. This paper deals with the conditions

for the Roma neighbourhood to be the main component of the strategy on developing cultural tourism

to be pursued for the historical city centre.

Fevzipaşa neighbourhood has been in the centre of some participatory experiences as of 1990s. A study

was conducted on the neighbourhood under the framework of Çanakkale City Council in 2010-2011 as

a continuation of these experiences. The process and outputs of this study constitute the main data of

this paper. Lasting approximately one year, the study contains the interviews done with the residents of

Fevzipaşa, detailed spatial analyses on the neighbourhood and the search meeting organized with urban

actors (local administration, tourism sector, non-governmental organizations, local university etc.).

Tourism constituted an important topic of discussion in this period. Some opinions have been put

forward that this neighbourhood could earn a touristic nature, moreover this would be a good opportunity

to combat poverty and emphasize cultural tourism. Çanakkale appears to possess the cultural capital and

experience that will make putting this strategy into practice easy.

Keywords: Cultural Tourism, Roma People, Deprived Neighbourhood, Historical Area, Çanakkale