Timeless Life in the Grand Bazaar: The Rise and Fall of Turkey’s Marketplace

laphamsquarterly.org

55 pointsanm892 comments

One thing that struck me as I read this was the idea that I had always assumed that the loss of authenticity in markets was a modern thing, that they had changed to be more accommodating to tourists as time went by and as the volume of tourists increased.

But it seems like even well over a century ago at least some of the merchants were selling more of an appealing facade of their culture aimed at tourists in the markets.

That makes sense. But even if the trinkets were just a facade of culture, they were at least more unique back then. I visited the Grand Bazaar about 6 years ago and remember seeing the exact same mass-produced products in many of the shops. Globalization & mass manufacturing made the trinkets you can find in the Bazaar a lot more homogenous :-/

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