Exploring the Emotional Dynamics of Beyoğlu’s Transformative Urban Atmosphere Through Music Ecosystems

Abstract

This study traces how music-related everyday practices have shaped Beyoğlu’s affective atmosphere in the wake of spatial changes since the 1990s. Although emotions began gaining ground in urban research in the early 2000s, they had long been excluded or marginalised. Empirical research has often relied on methods that objectify emotions, rather than engaging with their embodied and affective dimensions. Drawing on field observations, in-depth interviews and sensory methods, this study proposes an approach that treats subject and method as an integrated whole—treating emotions as spatially entangled and grounded in embodied ways of knowing. Addressing a gap in the local context, it offers a case from Turkey and contributes both theoretically and methodologically to the expanding field of affective geographies.