Our primary hypothesis will be that Izmir’s culture and political economy were purposefully manipulated by the Ottoman and European centers and their various representatives in their quest for dominance, but that these found themselves consistently resisted and thwarted by Izmir’s cultural and institutional dynamic. We will posit that this distinctly crosscultural urban culture had its own political economy, with its own logic and trajectory.
From this primary hypothesis immediately follows another – which holds
that the image of Izmir as a segregated and administratively neglected ‘city’ was a façade. Willfully constructed by the Ottoman and European centers and their local representatives, it was maintained to hide from view a world of crosscultural compromise and mutual dependencies. This hidden ‘middle ground’ and the urban culture it fostered, differed significantly enough from that in other Ottoman places of crosscultural trade to effectively constitute a distinct urban cultur