Browsing by Subject "political Islam"
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(2017)The rise of the political Islam has been affecting every sphere of life in Turkey during the last decade. The policies of the Turkish government and the discourses of the current Turkish president, Erdoğan aim to control the female participation in public space. However, the change in gender roles in space does not always evolve simultaneously with the political trend. This situation can be seen among the female artisans and artists of the Samanpazarı district of Ankara. Women are the main social actors who transform the area with the participation in the district and with the work they do. This thesis analyzes the everyday life of the female artisans and artists in the Samanpazarı district of Ankara, Turkey. The data was collected during a period of three months of ethnographic fieldwork. Different methods were used during this period. Participant observation and interviews were the main methods. In addition to these, gender map was sketched to understand the gendered use of space. The historical background of the area was also investigated. The aim of the thesis is to examine how female artisans and artists started to participate and to create businesses in the abandoned trading center of Ankara. The thesis also aims to investigate the period after female artisans moved in the district, because this is the period during which the area has gained a new identity and, the social and economic relations have changed. The main result of this thesis is that women used traditional craft skills and the history of the area to create a space for themselves and to participate in Samanpazarı. After they moved in, they started to gain more control in the area through the social and economic relations they created.
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(2022)Violence against women is a deep-rooted global injustice, yet it is less often scrutinized as a category of political economy. In this research relating to human rights advocacy in Pakistan, I seek to do so. I study the ways in which local women's rights organizations attempt to hold state to account for eliminating the malice and removing its structural causes. In particular, I examine how feminist constructions of VAW and advocacy practices towards curbing it take part in the politics of development. The research is based on fieldwork which I conducted in the mid-2010's in urban Pakistan. Interviews with 17 informants representing 12 women's rights groups, NGOs and government agencies constitute the primary data. I use ethnographic lens in mapping the organizational field, yet my main deconstructive method is critical discourse analysis. The research is underpinned by post-development theory, postcolonial feminist critique, anthropology of modernity and feminist violence research. The findings consist of three discourses and two developmental logics. Each discourse explains VAW as an issue of individual infringement of rights and a question of state structures with a distinct orientation – those of gender equity, legal protection and political reform. The discourses are rooted in 'human rights developmentalism' and neoliberalism, yet they are still locally contingent in varied ways. The developmental logics of 'saviorism in solidarity' and 'commonsense hope' render visible ways in which the organizations deploy civilisation narrative and an unquestioned hope in aid's capacity to deliver 'development' as political resources. I argue that the discourses construct VAW by reference to apolitical notions of 'backwardness' not only to justify organizational advocacy practices that center upon delivering "higher awareness and morals" to the "ignorant masses". Instead, such notions contribute to building a counter discourse to the misogynous state ideology as well as an alternative political space that enables women's rights organizations persevere in Pakistan. While the discourses fail the 'beneficiaries' of aid by upholding empty developmentalist promises, they nevertheless do not exacerbate VAW. The research suggests that development ideologies, albeit contributing to global inequalities, may serve as meaningful political tools for undoing local adversities.
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