Turkey

Heroines of Gendercide: The Religious Sensemaking of Rape and Abduction in Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean Migrant Communities

Citation:

Mutlu-Numansen, Sofia, and Ringo Ossewaarde. 2015. “Heroines of Gendercide: The Religious Sensemaking of Rape and Abduction in Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean Migrant Communities.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 22 (4): 428-442. 

Authors: Sofia Mutlu-Numansen, Ringo Ossewaarde

Abstract:

This study seeks to understand a diaspora community narrative of rape and abduction suffered during the genocidal massacre of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and its aftermath. Based on interviews with 50 Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean migrants in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, whose families are from the village of Bote, known as one of the ‘killing fields’ in southeast Turkey, the article explores the ways in which descendants remember the ‘forgotten genocide’ of Aramean, Assyrian and Chaldean communities in 1915. The research reveals that the descendants of survivors make sense of the sexual violence experienced in Bote mainly through a religious narrative and that, for them, the genocide is, in spite of all the sufferings the males had to go through, a feminized event. In their gendercide narrative, the abducted and raped women are identified as the ‘heroines’ of the genocide.

Keywords: Armenian genocide, feminization, gendercide, migration, narrative, post-genocide, sexual violence

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Conflict, Genocide, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2015

Legal Violence Against Syrian Female Refugees in Turkey

Citation:

Kivilcim, Zeynep. 2016. “Legal Violence Against Syrian Female Refugees in Turkey.” Feminist Legal Studies 24 (2): 193–214. doi:10.1007/s10691-016-9323-y.

Author: Zeynep Kivilcim

Abstract:

Turkey hosts the world’s largest community of Syrians displaced by the ongoing armed conflict. The object of this article is to explore the damaging effects of a hostile legal context on female Syrian refugees in Turkey. I base my analysis on scholarship that theorises immigration legislation as a system of legal violence and I argue that the Temporary Protection Regulation and the Law on Foreigners and International Protection that govern the legal status of refugees in Turkey inflict legal violence on Syrian female refugees. This legislation keeps them in the regime of temporary protection and prevents their access to international protection. The temporary protection regime serves furthermore as the main determinant for other forms of legal violence inflicted by various actors. I explore the effects of the Turkish government’s inaction in terms of preventing and sanctioning the abuse of Syrian female refugees as unpaid sex and household workers. I show that the extended legal limbo on the conditions of employment of Syrian refugees secures female Syrians as the most precarious workforce for Turkey’s various sectors. Finally I claim that the forced confinement of Syrian beggars in refugee camps is instrumentalised for their disciplinary regulation.

Keywords: Legal violence, Syrian refugees, Temporary protection, Turkey

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, International Law, Sexual Violence, Violence Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Syria, Turkey

Year: 2016

Integrating Sexuality into Gender and Human Rights Frameworks: A Case Study from Turkey

Citation:

Ilkkaracan, Pinar, and Karin Ronge. 2008. “Integrating Sexuality into Gender and Human Rights Frameworks: A Case Study from Turkey.” In Development with a Body: Sexuality, Human Rights and Development, edited by Sonia Corrêa, 225–41. Zed Books.

Authors: Pinar Ilkkaracan, Karin Ronge

Abstract:

Offers insights into contemporary challenges and transformative possibilities of the struggle for sexual rights. This book combines the conceptual with the political, and offering examples of practical interventions and campaigns that emphasize the positive dimensions of sexuality (WorldCat)

Annotation:

Development with a body: making the connections between sexuality, human rights, and development / Andrea Cornwall, Sonia Corrêa and Susie Jolly --

Development's encounter with sexuality: essentialism and beyond / Sonia Corrêa and Susan Jolly --

Sexual rights/human rights ---

Sexual rights are human rights / Kate Sheill --

Sex work, trafficking and HIV: how development is compromising sex workers' human rights / Melissa Ditmore --

The language of rights / Jaya Sharma --

Children's sexual rights in an era of HIV/AIDS / Deevia Bhana --

The rights of man / Alan Greig --

Human rights interrupted: an illustration from India / Sumit Baudh --

Gender and sex orders -- Discrimination against lesbians in the workplace / Alejandra Sardá --

Ruling masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa / Kopano Ratele --

Gender, identity and travesti rights in Peru / Giuseppe Campuzano --

Small powers, little choice: reproductive and sexual rights in slums in Bangladesh / Sabina Faiz Rashid --

Social and political inclusion of sex workers as preventive measure against trafficking: Serbian experiences / Jelena Djordjevic --

Confronting our prejudices: women's movement experiences in Bangladesh / Shireen Huq --

Sexuality education as a human right: lessons from Nigeria / Adenike O. Esiet --

Terms of contact and touching change: investigating pleasure in an HIV epidemic / Jill Lewis and Gill Gordon --

A democracy of sexuality: linkages and strategies for sexual rights, participation, and development / Henry Armas --

Integrating sexuality into gender and human rights frameworks: a case study from Turkey / Pinar Ilkkarancan and Karin Ronge.

Topics: Gender, Rights, Human Rights, Sexuality Regions: Africa, MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2008

Invigorating Democracy in Turkey: The Agency of Organized Islamist Women

Citation:

Aksoy, Hürcan Aslı. 2015. “Invigorating Democracy in Turkey: The Agency of Organized Islamist Women.” Politics & Gender 11 (01): 146–70. doi:10.1017/S1743923X1500001X.

Author: Hürcan Aslı Aksoy

Abstract:

The Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, henceforth AKP) came to power in 2002 with the promise of consolidating democracy and strengthening civil society to further Turkey's bid to join the European Union (EU). To this end, in its first term in the parliament (2002–2007), the AKP implemented a set of political reforms that lifted the restrictions on political and civil rights such as the freedom of assembly, associations, and expression and improved the rule of law (Kubicek 2005; Müftüler-Baç 2005). The AKP, as it has promised in its election campaigns, also engaged civil society into policy-making processes. In the initial years of the AKP, diverse civil society actors gathered on broad civil society platforms and worked with the AKP government to consolidate Turkish democracy (Keyman 2010; Kubicek 2005). Although the Islamist segments of civil society began to integrate into the secular political sphere and to voice their demands more freely, Islamist women's civil society organizations (CSOs) have not fully benefited from this transforming political atmosphere under the AKP.

Topics: Civil Society, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Transitional Justice, Political Participation Regions: Africa, MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2015

A Gendered Analysis of Violence, Justice and Citizenship: Kurdish Women Facing War and Displacement in Turkey

Citation:

Gökalp, Deniz. 2010. “A Gendered Analysis of Violence, Justice and Citizenship: Kurdish Women Facing War and Displacement in Turkey.” Women’s Studies International Forum 33 (6): 561–69. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2010.09.005.

Author: Deniz Gökalp

Abstract:

This article examines the impact of armed conflict on Kurdish women in southeastern Turkey. I conceptualize women's agency in relation to their political consciousness and capability to seek justice in legal, political, socio-economic, and cultural terms. I argue that Kurdish women's agency stems from several phenomena: their experiences with the war, displacement, and the city; their politicization as a result of their peculiar relationship with the Turkish state, based on mutual suspicion and fear; and their propinquity with the Kurdish ethno-nationalist political organization through ethnic propaganda and mobilization. I further point out the complications involved in women's resocialization and politicization in ethnicized terms, questioning the possibility for turning an ethnically-assertive and exclusive form of women's agency into an emancipatory, inclusive, democratic force.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Citizenship, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Violence Regions: Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2010

'Honour’-Based Violence in Kurdish Communities

Citation:

Gill, Aisha K., Nazand Begikhani, and Gill Hague. 2012. “‘Honour’-Based Violence in Kurdish Communities.” Women’s Studies International Forum 35 (2): 75–85. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2012.02.001.

Authors: Aisha K. Gill, Nazand Begikhani, Gill Hague

Abstract:

While there is a considerable body of literature dealing with various forms of violence against women, comparatively little research has explored the phenomenon of ‘honour’-based violence (HBV) within the Kurdish diaspora. This paper seeks to challenge both dominant understandings of HBV and the institutional structures that underpin its context-specific practice as a method for controlling and subjugating women. In doing so, the paper draws on original research involving thirty-four in-depth interviews with stakeholders working to address HBV in Kurdish communities in Britain: the interviewees included police officers, prosecutors, staff from government bodies and staff from women's non-governmental organisations. After exploring the role of ‘shame’ and ‘honour’ in Kurdish communities, and how value-systems predicated on gendered understandings of these concepts give rise to HBV, the paper offers a number of recommendations for improving policy and practice, especially in relation to police responses.

Topics: Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Justice, Post-Conflict, Torture, Violence Regions: Asia, Middle East Countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey

Year: 2012

Authenticating Gender Policies through Sustained-Pressure: The Strategy Behind the Success of Turkish Feminists

Citation:

Marshall, Gul Aldikacti. 2009. “Authenticating Gender Policies through Sustained-Pressure: The Strategy Behind the Success of Turkish Feminists.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 16 (3): 358–78.

Author: Gul Aldikacti Marshall

Abstract:

The model of “boomerang effect” only partially explains the dynamics of the international and national activism of Turkish feminists. When their demands were not met by the state, feminists reached out to the United Nations and the European Union. However, rather than bypassing the Turkish state as it would be expected by the boomerang model, they kept pressuring the state. This political strategy, which I call sustained-pressure, helped feminists claim responsibility and success during and after the gender policy changes of the 2000s in Turkey. Establishing the indigenousness of the need for change eased ultra-nationalist opposition to external pressure.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2009

Women and Civil Society in Turkey: Women's Movements in a Muslim Society

Citation:

Çaha, Ömer. 2013. Women and Civil Society in Turkey: Women’s Movements in a Muslim Society. Burlington: Ashgate.

Author: Ömer Çaha

Abstract:

Focusing on three important interrelated issues, Women and Civil Society in Turkey challenges the classical definition, developed in the West, of civil society as an equivalent of the public sphere in which women are excluded. First it shows how feminist movements have developed a new definition of civil society to include women. Second it draws attention to the role of women in the modernization of Turkey with special reference to the debate on the possibility of an indigenous feminist movement. Finally, it underlines the contribution of feminist, Islamic and Kurdish women's movements in the transition from an ideologically constructed, uniform public sphere to a multi-public domain. Giving attention to the influence of diverse women's movements over Turkish political values this book sheds light into the issue of how a feminine civil society has been constructed as part of a plural public space in Turkey. Omer Caha argues that this new public realm is the product of values and institutions which have been developed by diverse women's groups who have succeeded in eliminating the traditional barricades between public and domestic spheres and in steering women into public life without sacrificing their own values.

Annotation:

Table of Contents

1. Civil Society in Modern Political Thought and Feminist Reaction

2. Women and Civil Society in Turkish Politics: From Past to Present

3. The Feminist Movement in Turkey During the 1980s.

4. The Feminist Movement from Streets to Institutions

5. The Islamic Women's Movement

6.  The Kurdish Women's Movement

7. Concluding Remarks: Women's Movements and Feminine Civil Society in Turkey 

Topics: Civil Society, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2013

Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East

Citation:

Visweswaran, Kamala, ed. 2013. Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

Author: Kamala Visweswaran

Annotation:

Summary:
In the twenty-first century, political conflict and militarization have come to constitute a global social condition rather than a political exception. Military occupation increasingly informs the politics of both democracies and dictatorships, capitalist and formerly socialist regimes, raising questions about its relationship to sovereignty and the nation-state form. Israel and India are two of the world's most powerful postwar democracies yet have long-standing military occupations. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey have passed through periods of military dictatorship, but democracy has yielded little for their ethnic minorities who have been incorporated into the electoral process. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (like India, Pakistan, and Turkey) have felt the imprint of socialism; declarations of peace after long periods of conflict in these countries have not improved the conditions of their minority or indigenous peoples but rather have resulted in "violent peace" and remilitarization. Indeed, the existence of standing troops and ongoing state violence against peoples struggling for self-determination in these regions suggests the expanding and everyday nature of military occupation. Such everydayness raises larger issues about the dominant place of the military in society and the social values surrounding militarism.

Everyday Occupations examines militarization from the standpoints of both occupier and occupied. With attention to gender, poetics, satire, and popular culture, contributors who have lived and worked in occupied areas in the Middle East and South Asia explore what kinds of society are foreclosed or made possible by militarism. The outcome is a powerful contribution to the ethnography of political violence. (Summary from University of Pennsylvania Press)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Occupation, Secessionist Wars, Conflict, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Violence Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Bangladesh, India, Israel, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey

Year: 2013

Bombshell: The Many Faces of Women Terrorists

Citation:

Bloom, Mia. 2011. Bombshell: The Many Faces of Women Terrorists. London: Hurst Publishers. http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/bombshell/.

Author: Mia Bloom

Abstract:

The ultimate stealth weapon, female terrorists kill on average four times more people than their male counterparts. But why are more women drawn to terrorism than ever before? Do women volunteer to be terrorists, or are they coerced? Does women’s participation in terrorism have any positive impact on their place in society?

In Bombshell, Mia Bloom seeks to understand what motivates women and to redress the gap in our understanding of women’s roles by interviewing women previously involved in terrorist groups. Bloom provides a unique and rare first-hand glimpse into the psychology, culture and social networks of women who become terrorists. Bombshell takes an in-depth look at women involved in terrorism in Chechnya, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, the UK, and the USA.

Drawing on primary research and secondary literature, Bloom examines the increasing role of women in terrorism, and considers what it means for the societies from which they come.

(Hurst Publishers)

Keywords: gender studies, terrorism

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Femininity/ies, Terrorism Regions: Africa, MENA, East Africa, Americas, North America, South America, Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe Countries: Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America

Year: 2011

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