Research and publishing

Center for Spatial Justice (Mekanda Adalet Derneği-MAD) conducts and supports research for fairer, democratic, and ecological living spaces. MAD shares the knowledge gained from field experiences, researches, and observations with the public by producing thematic publications as
well as documentaries, videonews, and data visualization. Research-based publishing that highlights the issues of spatial justice is at the heart of MAD’s activities. MAD carries out action-research that aims for social change, learns from the field, and simultaneously contributes to
the field. MAD aims to strengthen the relationship between local communities, activists, researchers, and civil society actors around specific themes and cases.

Walks

Walking is a major tool to understand and witness the city beyond its visible image. Center for Spatial Justice values experiencing, observing, and interacting with the field on foot, and gets the strength of its word from such testimonies. Some of the best examples of walking practice
at MAD include neighborhood walks, Urban Political Ecology Summer School, and trips to water basins. The act of walking is multi-dimensional. It has central importance for understanding spatial justice and the space beyond its image. It represents the dawn of humanity. It establishes relationship with history, different social groups, and space, and provides the opportunity to obtain first-hand knowledge. MAD centers walking as a research method, a pedagogical approach to formal and informal education, and an embodiment of the act of demanding spatial justice.

Mapping

MAD utilizes the techniques of participatory-mapping and counter-mapping in order to expose unequal power relations, environmental impacts of megaprojects, and public health hazards; and to spatialize struggles for justice in urban and rural spaces and to preserve collective memory.

Documentary and video activism

MAD produces short video-news for social media, short documentaries, and videos as education material and advocacy tools. Moreover, MAD provides technical and training support to video productions of other activists and civil society actors. These contents are produced in the form
of video-news, archival raw footage, and short or long documentaries to highlight the issues of spatial injustices and stories of hope.

Good practices

In addition to developing research, educational, and advocacy activities, MAD also works to develop examples of good practices. MAD is engaged in archiving efforts in order to spread spaces and practices of hope and demonstrates the potentials and possibilities through pilot projects.

Academy

MAD carries out educational and research activities to develop the concept of spatial justice theoretically and empirically. MAD believes that it is necessary to rebuild the academy beyond the boundaries of formal education, outside of hierarchical institutional structures and in relation to social struggles.

Data compilation and visualization

MAD compiles and visualizes data in order to disseminate knowledge more effectively to more people. This method, widely used in the contents that MAD creates, is crucial to spatialize a given issue, digitize data for future studies, produce new data, and initiate new discussions. The data is shared with the public through MAD video-news, publications, and social media accounts. The design of knowledge is as important as its production for it to be more understandable and accessible to various target groups. Other tools such as accessible archive, data digitization, spatialization, and infographics.

Cooperation

MAD puts cooperation at the center in all its work. It brings together transdisciplinary knowledge, innovative methods, and universal expertise to document, visualize, campaign, and increase the visibility of local disputes in cooperation with local urban and environmental initiatives.