Two opposing yet inseparable forces shape the lives, movements, bodies, and health of street dogs and their relationships with humans and other non-human inhabitants: care and violence. This tension defines their births, illnesses, and deaths, underscoring the fragile balance between these conflicting but interconnected dynamics. On one side, violence manifests itself as the state\u2019s destructive power over street dogs, exercised through local governments and fluctuating in intensity over time. Spatial regulations increasingly restrict the freedom of these animals, reinforcing a politics of displacement, isolation, and extermination. Policies and narratives dictate where, how, and under what conditions they should live and die. On the other side, care emerges as a quiet but persistent resistance to state-imposed violence, rooted in the profound affective bonds between humans and animals. Simple yet widespread daily acts sustain and protect street dogs, allowing them not just to survive, but to live. Despite the growing systematization of violence, care and compassion for animals remain the primary force that enables their continued presence in the city, fostering coexistence in defiance of violence.<\/p>\n
Dr. Mine Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m charts the history of street dogs in Istanbul, from 1910 to the present, stemming from her unique PhD research which explored affective and political landscapes that shape the lives of Istanbul\u2019s street dogs. Tracing its origins to the 1910 Hay\u0131rs\u0131zada Incident \u2013 when over 80,000 street dogs were exiled to Oxia, the city\u2019s smallest and most remote island, and left to die \u2013 her research traces the enduring interplay between care and violence encompassing canine lives in the city.<\/p>\n
This keynote lecture brings Athens and Istanbul into the same frame\u2014 as two Mediterranean urban worlds where street dogs have repeatedly become objects of governance, conflict, and solidarity. Dr. Mine Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m traces how debates over public space, \u201cnuisance,\u201d safety, and belonging often crystallize around dogs, and how civic protest and everyday caregiving can counter these pressures through informal infrastructures of care. Between Care and Violence: The Dogs of Istanbul<\/em> explores the persistence of decanisation <\/em>policies, their contradictions and reversals, and the progressive restriction of street animals\u2019 spaces and freedoms despite a longstanding culture of care and protection in two cities.<\/p>\n Drawing on visual archives, newspapers, municipal documents, veterinary records, legal petitions, citizen letters, satirical pieces, laments, and public reactions\u2014alongside oral histories, field notes, and personal accounts\u2014the lecture foregrounds witnessing both as a historiographical method and radical politics. By tracking the echoes between Athens and Istanbul\u2014biopolitical regulation, contested street life, civic resistance, and emergent multispecies solidarities\u2014this talk proposes a wider inquiry into how urban communities negotiate vulnerability, cohabitation, and justice. Here, the archive becomes not only a record of loss, but also a generative site for imagining more just multispecies futures.<\/p>\n Dr. Mine Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m is an academic, researcher in urban and critical animal studies, and an advocate for animal rights. She received her PhD in Politics (2021) from The New School, New York, with a dissertation titled Between Care and Violence: Street Dogs of Istanbul<\/em>, tracing the history and politics of Istanbul\u2019s street dogs from the early twentieth century to today. Her research examines urban animal worlds, myriad entanglements of law, politics, everyday practices in the making of trans-species bonds, affective regimes of labor, killing and caring traversing human and more-than-human worlds. Her work, drawing on ethnographic and historical approaches, has appeared in books, journals, exhibits, and radio broadcasts, bridging academic research with community-based animal rights advocacy.<\/p>\n Her project Between Care and Violence: Street Dogs of Istanbul<\/em> was recently exhibited in Lives of Animals<\/em> at SALT Beyo\u011flu (2025). She is currently preparing a book manuscript of the same title and developing curatorial practices to open research on animals to wider publics.<\/p>\n The lecture will be held in English<\/p>\n Admission is free, online booking essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two opposing yet inseparable forces shape the lives, movements, bodies, and health of street dogs and their relationships with humans and other non-human inhabitants: care and violence. This tension defines their births, illnesses, and deaths, underscoring the fragile balance between these conflicting but interconnected dynamics. On one side, violence manifests itself as the state\u2019s destructive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":93924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-exhibition-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,30],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93926"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94162,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93926\/revisions\/94162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}