TUBITAK 1001 Support for the Project of our Faculty Member

The project entitled “Title Deed and Passport: Changing Property, Mobility and Urban Nexus in Light of Residence and Citizenship Practices through Investment”, of which Doctoral Faculty Member Aslı İkizoğlu Erensü from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is the principal investigator, Doctoral Faculty Member Sinan Erensü from Boğaziçi University and Associate Professor Ahmet Suvar Aslan from Mustafa Kemal University are the researchers, and Professor Evren Balta from Özyeğin University is the advisor, has been deemed entitled to support. The project was previously granted the right of expedited review within the scope of the 2024 First Term Call of TÜBİTAK’s 1001 Scientific and Technological Research Projects Support Program.

The research project examines the transformative impact of the Residency by Investment (RBI) and Citizenship by Investment (CBI) practices – often referred to as the “golden visa” and “golden passport” – on citizenship regimes and the global mobility hierarchy, and the driving role of cities in these changes. Focusing on the practice that grants foreigners the right to acquire citizenship through real estate investments, which was launched in Turkey in 2017, the research aims to: (i) Compare Turkey’s policies and practices in this area with similar international practices and shed light on the rising competition around global mobility capital, (ii) Trace the paths of intermediary institutions and actors from international fairs to local real estate developers to reveal the infrastructures that make the RBI and CBI programs possible, (iii) Explore the impacts of RBI policies on cities and the motivations and priorities of foreign buyers through case studies using qualitative and quantitative methods in four Turkish cities popular for real estate investment (Antalya, Istanbul, Trabzon, and Yalova).

Positioned at the intersection of urban sociology, human geography, political science, and urban planning perspectives, the research will employ an interdisciplinary approach, using different methods such as policy analysis, expert interviews, event ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and panel data analysis. In addition to the project team, two graduate scholars will take part in the research.