A comparison of elements establishing the relationship between social memory and place in the cinema of the Turkish-Greek population exchange

Elif Vurucular Kesimci

Journal of Design for Resilience in Architecture and Planning, 2025, vol. 6, issue 3, 491-509

Abstract: In the age of mass migration, displacement, and the increasing number of refugees and migrants, more people are forced to leave their homelands every day. Refugees who are compelled to abandon their countries become disconnected from their homeland, history, and identity, losing their sense of belonging and often having no place to return to. One significant historical example of "displacement and place-making" is the population exchange between Anatolian Greeks and Turks in Greece, formalized by the "Convention and Protocol on the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed on January 30, 1923. Those who were forced to leave their homelands struggled to establish a sense of belonging in their newly settled regions. The population exchange and the consequent forced displacement, as well as the efforts of individuals to construct a new sense of place and belonging, have been reflected in cinema. This study examines the Greek film Rembetiko, the Turkish film My Grandfather’s People (Dedemin İnsanları), and the Turkish-Greek co-production Roza of Smyrna (İsmail ve Roza), all of which address the population exchange. The analysis focuses on the spatial representation of displacement in cinema, spatial memory, and the sense of belonging, particularly in relation to the places abandoned by those who experienced the exchange and their initial impressions of the new settlements. The study also examines the spatial factors influencing place-making and the post-memory transmission of the exchange experience to subsequent generations. This study aims to reveal how forced displacement—a critical, contemporary, social, and political crisis—is echoed in cinema, shedding light on the places that were abandoned and reconstructed by displaced individuals.

Keywords: cinema; place-making; population exchange; social memory; sense of belonging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://drarch.org/index.php/drarch/article/view/283 Abstract page (text/html)
https://drarch.org/index.php/drarch/article/download/283/193 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:etk:drarch:v:6:y:2025:i:3:id:283

DOI: 10.47818/DRArch.2025.v6i3179

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Design for Resilience in Architecture and Planning from Mehmet Topcu
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dr. Havva Alkan Bala, Çukurova University Faculty of Architecture (Çukurova University Faculty of Communication 3rd floor) Saricam / Adana, Türkiye ().