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Alan Duben has been engaged in fieldwork in urban Turkey since 1969. Until the early
1980s his work focused on issues of urbanization, community and social class in post-World
War II Istanbul. Since that time, he has been undertaking historical research on Muslim
families and households in late 19th and early 20th century Istanbul such as the one pictured
here. This was the turbulent period of transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic.
His work combines the approaches of social/cultural anthropology, historical demography
and social history. He has utilized population records, archival sources, memoirs, novels
and other literary sources as well as retrospective interviews in undertaking this multi-
disciplinary type of research.
