Travelling Theory and Women’s Movements in Turkey

Drawing on archival research, this book examines the imagination of Europe in the context of the late Ottoman Empire, focusing on the Turkish and Muslim women’s rights movement to shed light on the complex and often contradictory imaginations of Europe as an object of desire, fantasy, hate and hostility in a non-European context.

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Drawing on archival research, Travelling Theory and Women’s Movements in Turkey examines the imagination of Europe in the context of women’s rights movements in a self-defined non-European setting. It brings travelling theory, poststructuralist feminist theories and orientalist studies together to provide an original theoretical framework for understanding the complex and often contradictory imaginations of Europe. Such imaginations can be an object of desire, fantasy, hate and hostility in a non-European context. This volume sheds light on the manner in which local power dynamics are reproduced, negotiated and subverted during the travel of women’s and feminist movements. With a focus on the late Ottoman Empire, the book questions how ‘Other’ positions can be inhabited by the ‘Self’ and unpacks sexual and normative dimensions of demanding women’s rights in this context. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and gender studies with interests in feminist theory and notions of European and non-European categories.