Justine Issavi

My research focuses on how the space and spatial organization of Neolithic/Central Anatolian societies, such as Çatalhöyük, reflect and in turn create that society’s cultural identity and social relations.  I would like to examine how important social categories are constituted and continually reproduced in the architectural landscape and spatial organization of external spaces, especially discard areas or middens, throughout these sites.  I would like to challenge the accepted perception of middens as mere passive recipients of trash, and instead investigate the role of middens as active resources that both constitute and are constituted by social networks