Empowering Housewives in Southeast Turkey

Kübra Zeynep Sariaslan is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK. She previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and she received her PhD from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Introduction: The Continuity of the Gender Regime
Genealogy of a Rhetoric: Empowerment
Culturalist Foundations of Progress
Times of Hope: Context of the Research
An Ethnography of Women’s Praxis: Notes on Methods
Organisation of the Book
PART I – THE ‘SECOND’ HOME: Defining Women’s Place
1. Creating Public(s) in (Re)public(s)
Kemalist Vision of Emancipation: Girls’ Institutes
GAP’s Vision of Empowerment: Multi-Purpose Community Centres
Erdogan’s Vision of Rehabilitation: Family Support Centres
2. Alternative Opportunities
Meanings of Education through Life Stories
Halime: “I am not interested”
Aylin: “I have bigger dreams”
Breadwinner Housewives
Becoming Professionals: Ilknur and Tugba
Dreams of Entrepreneurship
Part II – EMPTY GESTURES: Politics and Expansion of the Party
3. Streams in Mainstreaming
‘Add-Women-and-Stir’ Tourism
A Non-Position in Local Bureaucracy: Mrs. Governor
“Rowing Against Tsunami”
4. Participation without Us
Efsun’s Disappointment: Politics without Critique
Sibel’s Objection to Family: Symbolic Representation in AKP
Expansion of Government in Women’s Praxis: Multiple Belongings, Conflicting Statements
Part III – ONE NEEDLE MANY THREADS: Self-Making Through Women’s Praxis
5. A Project of One’s Own
Selectively Available Funds
A Leader Woman: Life and Words of Aliye
Resisting Male Resistance
6. Building Awareness
“Burning Anger”
Differences Negotiated (or Not)
Hazal’s Pieces: Afterlife of Workshops
Conclusion