Strategy and Tactics in Everyday Life: The Case of Karaçay Container City

Abstract

This study investigates the daily routines of individuals residing in a post-disaster container city, with a specific focus on how they adapt and modify their temporary housing units (containers) and the everyday objects that are essential to their daily lives. In particular, it examines the Osmaniye Karaçay Container City, established after the devastating earthquakes on February 6, 2023. It analyzes the transformations within this community through the lens of Michel de Certeau’s concepts of “strategy” and “tactics.” The study presents examples of strategies and tactics developed at both spatial and object levels in post-disaster temporary living environments. Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage—the creative reuse of existing materials—is employed as an analytical tool to interpret these everyday practices. In addition, through Certeau’s notion of “production-consumption relations,” the research explores how container settlements are reshaped through users’ daily practices and interactions with the environment. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the study is based on fieldwork conducted through direct observation. The collected data were analyzed through the lenses of Certeau’s strategy–tactic framework and Lévi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage. Consequently, the study reveals a deeper understanding of how disaster-affected individuals reproduce daily life in temporary shelters and how their everyday practices reshape spaces and objects, thus revealing the socio-spatial dynamics of temporary settlements.