CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Baytok, Cemre Su |
|---|---|
| Title | Integrating the 'Transforming' City into Feminist Activism: the Urban and Gender Politics in the 2000s in Turkey |
| Summary | This thesis scrutinizes the interrelatedness between urban and gender policies in the last decade in Turkey and argues that the feminist movement has to integrate the transforming urban site into its political agenda. I refer to the 2013 Gezi Uprising throughout the thesis as an inspiring example of the creation of an alternative living together of different social and political groups, which led to a new understanding of space. First, by focusing on the neoliberal and neoconservative policies of the consecutive AKP governments since the early 2000s, I bring together neoliberal and neoconservative radical transformations of the urban site, particularly in Istanbul, and new forms of women’s subordination in this period. Secondly, I examine feminist politics in Istanbul in the last decade. The categories of women’s bodies, labor and identities constitute the primary realms for the feminist movement through which feminists develop their struggles. I argue that women also experience the city in relation to these intertwined categories and I raise some questions regarding the role of space within feminist politics. I contend that although feminists in Turkey since the 1980s have contested how space is gendered, they have not carefully elaborated on the gendered impacts of the neoliberal and neoconservative transformation of urban spaces. In this regard, I refer to the Gezi Uprising which highlighted how women’s freedom in the larger sense depends upon women’s presence in public spaces, since patriarchy depends upon spatial control over women. In this thesis, therefore, I examine the ways in which neoliberalism and neoconservatism, in collaboration with patriarchy, reorganize both women’s lives and urban spaces in relation to each other. On the basis of that examination I argue that the feminist movement in Turkey has to make the spatial reorganizations that have taken place in the last decade an intrinsic part of its resistance in order for women to get control over their bodies, labor and identities. Hence, I hope this thesis will contribute to underscoring the significance of reclaiming public spaces as one crucial aspect of women’s liberation. |
| Supervisor | De Haan, Francisca |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/baytok_cemre.pdf |
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