Reframing 1960s Istanbul and the Multiple Scales of Imperialism in Conversation with James Baldwin

In popular discourse, James Baldwin's decision to spend time in the 1960s in Istanbul is framed as a fabulous tale of “escape” from the racism and homophobia in America with the implicit understanding that Turkey was free from such violence. Recent scholarship has engaged instead with how Baldwin's transnational life informed his thinking on the scales of imperialism and particularly on the relevance of a comparative approach to dissect overlapping and multiple practices of imperial power. This essay attempts to situate the conditions of 1960s Istanbul within these inquiries. It draws attention to a particular sociopolitical dynamic unfolding in the city at the time—the relationship between the Cyprus dispute and the deportation of the Greek citizens from the city—and positions it within overlapping circuits of imperial power. It suggests that this moment offers some questions about the conditions from which racism might emerge and the scales of racism, and it takes the frame of urban space to consider the interpenetrations of power in conversation with Baldwin's understanding of imperial and racial violence.