Turkey

Enacting Intersectional Multilayered Citizenship: Kurdish Women’s Politics

Citation:

Erel, Umut, and Necla Acik. 2020. “Enacting Intersectional Multilayered Citizenship: Kurdish Women’s Politics.” Gender, Place & Culture 27 (4): 479–501.

Authors: Umut Erel, Necla Acik

Abstract:

Focusing on the institutional aspects of the Kurdish women’s movement in Turkey since the 1990s the article shows how it established a consciousness within the Kurdish national movement that gender equality is a cornerstone of democracy and ethnic rights. We frame this through theories of enacting intersectional multilayered citizenship and identify three key interventions: autonomous women’s assemblies, women’s quotas in pro-Kurdish rights parties and the cochair system where all elected positions within the pro- Kurdish parties are jointly occupied by a male and female. These have achieved a better representation of women in formal politics, rendered gender equality and sexual violence legitimate subjects of politics and contributed to establishing an aspiration for a more dialogic political ethos. While the women’s movement’s close affiliation with the Kurdish national movement has been highly effective, it also in part circumscribes gender roles to fit its agendas.

Keywords: gender politics, Kurds, Kurdish national movement, Co-chair system, middle east, women's movement, women's quota, women's political representation

Topics: Citizenship, Ethnicity, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Quotas, Political Participation, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2020

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Gender and Framing: Gender as a Main Determinant of Frame Variation in Turkey’s Anti-Hydropower Movement

Citation:

Yaka, Özge. 2019. “Gender and Framing: Gender as a Main Determinant of Frame Variation in Turkey’s Anti-Hydropower Movement.” Women’s Studies International Forum 74 (May-June): 154–61.

Author: Özge Yaka

Abstract:

Framing literature has so far failed to construct gender as an analytical category that shapes the ways in which we perceive, identify and act upon grievances. This article builds on the insights of feminist theory and employs the conceptual vocabulary of the social movement framing perspective in maintaining gender as a main parameter of framing processes. Drawing on ethnographic research on local community struggles against hydropower plants in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, this article maintains the centrality of gender to framing processes. It analyzes the gendered difference between men’s macro-framings and women’s cultural and socio-ecological framings, which is rooted in their differing relationships with their immediate environment, as well as with the state and its institutions. The article maintains that the framings of women, which represent the immediacy of the environment, are more effective in gaining public support and shaping movement outcomes. In this sense, constructing gender as an important determinant of “frame variation” is essential not only to reveal women’s frames that are largely silenced through and within the mechanisms of social movement organization, but also to stress their centrality in shaping repertoires of contention, public reception and movement outcomes.

Keywords: gender, social movements, framing, Turkey, hydropower

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2019

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Women's War: Gender Activism in the Vietnam War and in the Wars for Kurdish Autonomy

Citation:

Chaguri, Mariana Miggiolaro, and Flávia X. M. Paniz. 2019. "Women's War: Gender Activism in the Vietnam War and in the Wars for Kurdish Autonomy." Sociologia & Antropologia 9 (3): 895-918.

Authors: Mariana Miggiolaro Chaguri, Flávia X. M. Paniz

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This paper debates women’s activism in two events: the Vietnam War (1954-1975) and the historical Kurdish struggle for autonomy (known as “Kurdish question”). We hypothesize that the reorganization of gender roles during the conflicts marks the meanings of wars and configures what we call a woman for the times of war, that is, a woman who transits across the spaces of public confrontation, armed conflict and domesticity. The approach outlined here is structured into three parts: the first and the second ones present aspects of both conflicts by pointing to possible convergences and differences between them; we also present the variety of networks of participation and activism of women in both cases. In the third and final part, we discuss the interfaces among the production of gender, war, and ideas, crossing a manifold of narratives, experiences, and stories that reveal different dimensions of wars and nations, and the diversity of the regimes of ideas that attached to them.

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:
Este artigo problematiza a participação e debate o ativismo de mulheres em dois eventos: a Guerra do Vietnã (1954-1975) e as guerras pelo Curdistão (1923 em diante). Como hipótese, sustentamos que tais lutas podem ser lidas a partir do esforço comum de tornar inteligível e nomear um conjunto variado de experiências que, reorganizadas a partir ou em função do conflito armado, produzem novas mediações entre gênero e nação. O artigo está dividido em três partes: nas duas primeiras, são apresentados aspectos dos dois conflitos apontando eventuais convergências e diferenças; na sequência, observam-se as variadas formas de participação e de ativismo de mulheres existentes nos dois casos; finalmente, são debatidas as interfaces entre a produção do gênero, da guerra e das ideias, percorrendo uma multiplicidade de narrativas, experiências e relatos que apontam para a dimensão heterogênea das guerras, das nações e, portanto, do regime de ideias que deve acompanhá-las.

Keywords: gender, war, nation and nationalism, post-colonial feminism, gênero, guerra, nação e nacionalismo, feminismo pós-colonial

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Civil Society, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Nationalism Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia Countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam

Year: 2019

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Gender and Climate Change Disclosure: An Interdimensional Policy Approach

Citation:

Ararat, Melsa, and Borhan Sayedy. 2019. "Gender and Climate Change Disclosure: An Interdimensional Policy Approach." Sustainability 11.

Authors: Melsa Ararat, Borhan Sayedy

Abstract:

This paper investigates the impact of corporate boards’ gender diversity on voluntary public disclosure of climate change risks in an emerging economy context in which environmental regulations are weak and markets are ineffective. The investigation relies on data from the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) as a corporate sustainability reporting initiative supported by institutional investors, based on a sample of Turkish firms that were invited to disclose their climate change risks and greenhouse gas emissions over the period of 2010–2019 through the CDP platform. We report that the presence of women on board committees, as a proxy for their active involvement in corporate governance, increases the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure. We, on the other hand, found no evidence of a positive impact on climate change reporting with women’s overall representation in boards. These findings lend support to board reforms that aim to increase effective representation of women on boards for the better management of sustainability risks and responsiveness to stakeholder demands in countries where legislators are reluctant to introduce climate change reforms.

Keywords: climate change disclosure, boards of directors, corporate governance, gender diversity, controlled firms, Emerging economies

Topics: Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Gender Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2019

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Exposing the Lack of Gender in Climate Change Campaigns: Evidence from the UK and Turkey

Citation:

Külcür, Rakibe, Susan Buckingham, and Nicola Ansell. 2019. "Exposing the Lack of Gender in Climate Change Campaigns: Evidence from the UK and Turkey." Dokuz Eylul University The Journal of Graduate School of Social Sciences 21 (3): 923-42.

Authors: Rakibe Külcür, Susan Buckingham, Nicola Ansell

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

While the implications of climate change on women have been documented in the Global South, gender differentiated impacts of climate change in the Global North and in Turkey are relatively ignored on the political agenda. Here it is argued that this is partly due to invisibility of gender in Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs) and their failure to acknowledge the importance of gender sensitivity in their policies. ENGOs’ role in shaping environmental policies have been recognised. This article reports on the research conducted on ENGOs in the United Kingdom and Turkey. Comparative case study research, applying qualitative methods were adopted to collect information. This paper aims to explore the gendered nature of ENGOs’ campaigns and discuss the reasons of the invisibility of differential impacts of climate change on women and men by the ENGOs.

TURKISH ABSTRACT:

İklim değişikliğinin cinsiyet bağlamındaki farklı etkileri az gelişmiş ülkeler (Küresel Güney) için yeterince araştırılmıştır, fakat bu konu, Türkiye ve gelişmiş ülkelerdeki siyasi gündemde büyük ölçüde gözardı edilmiştir. Bu çalışmada, bu durumun nedenleri arasında, çevre alanında faaliyet gösteren sivil toplum kuruluşlarının (ÇSTK) çevre politikalarında, cinsiyet faktörünün önemini gözardı etmelerinden kaynaklandığı savunulmaktadır. ÇSTKlar, siyasi ajandayı etkileyen baskı grupları arasındadır. Bu nedenle de toplumları etkilemede önemli görevleri bulunmaktadır. Bu makale İngiltere ve Türkiye’de ÇSTKlar üzerine karşılaştırmalı kalitatif araştırma yöntemi kullanılarak yapılan bir araştırmaya dayanmaktadır. Makale, ÇSTKların iklim değişikliği ile ilgili çevre kampanyalarını inceleyerek, iklim değişikliğinin kadınlar ve erkekler üzerindeki farklı etkilerinin ÇSTKlarca gözardı edilmesinin nedenleri üzerinde düşünmeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Keywords: climate change, environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs), feminist research, UK, Turkey, gender, İklim Değişikliği, Çevre Sivil Toplum Kuruluşları (ÇSTK), Feminist Araştırma, İngiltere, Türkiye, Toplumsal Cinsiyet

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, NGOs Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey, United Kingdom

Year: 2019

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Invisible Lives: Gender, Dispossession, and Precarity amongst Syrian Refugee Women in the Middle East

Citation:

Canefe, Nergis. 2018. "Invisible Lives: Gender, Dispossesion, and Precarity amongst Syrian Refugee Women in the Middle East." Refuge 34 (1): 39-49.

Author: Nergis Canefe

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

This article attends to the connections between neo-liberal and neo-developmentalist labour regimes, asylum and immigration management, and the exploitation of undocumented, refugee, and migrant women, based on the experiences of Syrian refugee women in Turkey. The concept of precarity is explored as a selectively applied strategy by states to people who lack “status” or who are unable to benefit from “membership rights.” Forced migrants, illegal migrants, and asylum seekers are directly implicated in highly precarious work experiences at the bottom end of labour markets across the Global South, becoming trapped in forced labour and human trafficking arrangements. The article establishes a link between extreme forms of migrant labour exploitation in precarious life worlds and gender-based profiling of life chances.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:

Cet article concerne les connexions entre les régimes de travail néo-libéraux et néo-développementistes, la gestion de l’asile et de l’immigration, et l’exploitation de femmes migrantes, réfugiées, sans papiers, à partir du vécu de réfugiées syriennes en Turquie. Le concept de précarité est exploré en tant que stratégie appliquée de manière sélective par les états aux personnes qui n’ont « pas de statut » ou ne peuvent pas bénéficier de « droits d’appartenance ». Les migrants forcés, les migrants illégaux et les demandeurs d’asile sont directement concernés par des expériences de travail fortement précaire au plus bas des marchés du travail sur l’ensemble des pays du Sud, et deviennent alors prisonnier du travail forcé et du trafic d’êtres humains. L’article établit un lien entre des formes extrêmes d’exploitation des migrants au travail dans des contextes de vie précaires et un profilage des opportunités de vie en fonction du genre.

Keywords: political economy of crisis, precarity, forced migration, gender and migration, gender and precarity, Middle Eastern States

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Political Economies, Trafficking, Human Trafficking Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Syria, Turkey

Year: 2018

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A Gendered Approach to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

Citation:

Jane Freedman, Zeynep Kivilcim, and Nurcan Özgür Baklacıoğlu, eds. 2017. A Gendered Approach to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. New York: Routledge.

Authors: Jane Freedman, ed. , Zeynep Kivilcim, ed. , Nurcan Özgür Baklacıoğlu, ed.

Annotation:

Summary:

The refugee crisis that began in 2015 has seen thousands of refugees attempting to reach Europe, principally from Syria. The dangers and difficulties of this journey have been highlighted in the media, as have the political disagreements within Europe over the way to deal with the problem. However, despite the increasing number of women making this journey, there has been little or no analysis of women’s experiences or of the particular difficulties and dangers they may face.

A Gendered Approach to the Syrian Refugee Crisis examines women’s experience at all stages of forced migration, from the conflict in Syria, to refugee camps in Lebanon or Turkey, on the journey to the European Union and on arrival in an EU member state. The book deals with women’s experiences, the changing nature of gender relations during forced migration, gendered representations of refugees, and the ways in which EU policies may impact differently on men and women. The book provides a nuanced and complex assessment of the refugee crisis, and shows the importance of analysing differences within the refugee population.

Students and scholars of development studies, gender studies, security studies, politics and middle eastern studies will find this book an important guide to the evolving crisis.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Forced Migration, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, International Organizations Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Lebanon, Syria, Turkey

Year: 2017

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Reconsidering Nationalism and Feminism: the Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey

Citation:

Al‐Ali, Nadje, and Latif Tas. 2018. "Reconsidering Nationalism and Feminism: The Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey." Nations and Nationalism 24 (2): 453-73.

Authors: Nadje Al-Ali, Latif Tas

Abstract:

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side-lined, constructed as ‘inauthentic’ and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender-based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender-based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women’s movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women’s rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.

Keywords: ethnic nationalism, feminism, Kurdish women's movement, middle east, PKK, Turkey

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Nationalism Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2018

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Inhabiting Difference across Religion and Gender: Displaced Women's Experiences at Turkey's Border with Syria

Citation:

Dagtaș, Seçil. 2018. "Inhabiting Difference across Religion and Gender: Displaced Women’s Experiences at Turkey’s Border with Syria." Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 34 (1): 50-59.

Author: Seçil Dagtaș

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

The global refugee crisis gives new urgency to questions of gender and religion in contexts of displacement. This article adopts and contributes to an intersectional feminist reading of gendered displacement by examining the daily lives of a diverse group of displaced Syrian women at the southern borderlands of Turkey, a country hosting the world’s largest population of refugees today. I argue that the vernaculars of hospitality and border crossings surrounding these women’s lives assemble gendered practices and religious discourses in ways that rework and transcend their citizenship and identity-based differences. These assemblages, moreover, derive significant insight from women’s labour and everyday networks at the local level, which often go unnoticed in public debates. Research that shifts focus from institutional governance to women’s everyday sociality allows intersectional feminists to capture the nuances of displaced women’s agency and the contingencies of their dwelling and mobility in the Middle East against the de-historicized representations of victimized refugee women.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:

La crise mondiale des réfugiés confère une nouvelle urgence aux questions de genre et de religion dans les contextes de déplacement. Cet article adopte, et alimente, une lecture féministe intersectionnelle des déplacements sexospécifiques en étudiant la vie quotidienne d’un groupe divers de femmes syriennes déplacées dans les territoires transfrontaliers du sud de la Turquie, pays qui accueille aujourd’hui la plus grande population de réfugiés au monde. J’argumente que les particularités de l’accueil et des passages de frontières qui rythment la vie de ces femmes conjuguent des pratiques sexospécifiques et des discours religieux d’une façon qui repense et transcende leur citoyenneté et leurs différences identitaires. De plus, ces particularités conjuguées permettent de dégager de nombreuses informations sur le travail des femmes et les réseaux quotidiens au niveau local, qui passent souvent inaperçues dans les débats publics. Les travaux de recherche qui déplacent leur intérêt de la gouvernance institutionnelle à la vie sociale quotidienne des femmes permettent aux féministes intersectionnelles de saisir les nuances des actes posés par les femmes déplacées et les imprévus concernant leur logement et leur mobilité au Moyen-Orient, les uns et les autres étant à mettre en perspective avec les représentations hors contexte historique des femmes réfugiées victimisées.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Discourses, Religion Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Syria, Turkey

Year: 2018

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Middle Eastern Women between Oppression and Resistance: Case Studies of Iraqi, Palestinian and Kurdish Women of Turkey

Citation:

Khodary, Yasmin, Noha Salah, and Nada Mohsen. 2020. "Middle Eastern Women between Oppression and Resistance: Case Studies of Iraqi, Palestinian and Kurdish Women of Turkey." Journal of International Women's Studies 21 (1): 204-26.

Authors: Yasmin Khodary, Noha Salah, Nada Mohsen

Abstract:

Wars and conflicts have had a profound impact on women and gender in the Middle East. In this article, we aim to highlight the various ways in which the ongoing oppression and conflict in the Middle East shape the responses of the Iraqi, Palestinian and Kurdish women of Turkey and the object of their struggles. We go beyond the 'Orientalist' discourse, which depicts Middle Eastern women in armed conflicts as solely vulnerable and helpless victims, to discuss the resisting roles played by the Iraqi, Palestinian and Kurdish women of Turkey. Middle Eastern women have played and continue to play major roles in responding to society, gender and state oppression. While the Iraqi women in this study voice their resistance through conventional actions and wide civil-society activism that transcends the local level, the Palestinian women engage in unconventional unarmed or peaceful resistance through Sumud and cultural resistance as well as armed/non-peaceful acts of resistance. Finally, in the face of Turkish state oppression, the Kurdish women of Turkey also deploy non-peaceful resistance through becoming active fighters and engaging leadership positions in the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Keywords: Iraqi women, Palestinian women, Kurdish women, resilience, resistance, oppression

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Combatants, Female Combatants, Conflict, Gender, Women Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Turkey

Year: 2020

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