Middle-class lifestyles in Istanbul Class, politics and religion

In a popular café chain in Istanbul, star-patterned nails glide across phone screens as laughter rises between sips of coffee. Nearby, a woman in a silk headscarf leans in, her earrings catching the light. As the call to Friday prayer echoes, some pause in reverence while others continue typing on their laptops. Long coats and high collars sit beside sleeveless dresses.
These ordinary yet telling scenes capture the quiet fault lines of Istanbul’s middle class: how can people who occupy similar structural positions perform their lifestyles in such morally infused, symbolically charged, and visibly divergent ways?
This book explores that question by examining Istanbul’s middle class not as a coherent group, but as a fragmented field shaped by competing values, political allegiances, ideological positions, and cultural norms. Drawing on over two years of immersive ethnographic fieldwork in three middle class neighborhoods with distinct profiles – Üsküdar, Kadıköy, and Ümraniye – it reveals how class, religion, and politics intersect in everyday practices, shaping lifestyle configurations and reinforcing symbolic boundaries.
Moving beyond classic theories that link lifestyle solely to economic and cultural capital, this study argues that politics and religion act as structuring forces that shape habitus just as profoundly. Through detailed observation and in-depth interviews, it traces how these forces shape where people gather, how they dress, what they consume, and the moral frameworks through which they evaluate others.
Blending insights from urban sociology, class theory, and lifestyle studies, this book offers a compelling portrait of Istanbul’s middle class within Turkey’s broader political and economic transformation.