Browsing by Author "Akyüz, Selin"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Open Access
The conceptualization problem in research and responses to sexual and gender-based violence in forced migration
(Taylor&Francis, 2020) Özçürümez, Saime; Akyüz, Selin; Bradby, H.
The conceptualization of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) has developed rapidly over recent decades and the understanding of SGBV in the context of forced migration continues to evolve. Based on a scoping review of scholarly work and reports by non-governmental organizations and international organizations between 1993 and 2018, this study identifies limitations to the current conceptualization of SGBV, and proposes a re-conceptualization. The paper argues that the existing literature overemphasizes the contexts of war zones and conflict and excludes post-flight settings, and focuses mainly on the victimization of women, excluding other at-risk groups. The tendency to focus on conflict zones and to underline the victim status of women constrains the usefulness of the conceptualization for informing research as well as protection and response. This review considers the multifaceted causes and consequences of gendered vulnerabilities and insecurities that are exposed in forced migration processes in order to make sense of SGBV as a gendered harm. Through a constructivist and de-essentialising theoretical lens, the study proposes to conceptualize SGBV in terms of continuities in forced migration occuring over time in interwoven territories and a variety of contexts from countries of origin to settlement.
Open Access
Erkekliğin Yol Hali: “Sarı Mercedes” ve “Otobüs” Filmlerinde Erkeklik Kurguları
(Ankara Üniversitesi KASAUM, 2017) Akyüz, Selin; Dabak, B.
Bu çalışma Tunç Okan’ın Otobüs (1974) ve Sarı Mercedes (1992) filmlerindeki erkeklik temsillerini analiz edecektir. Filmler, genelde göç, özelde yolda olma hali bağlamında tartışılacaktır. Tartışmanın teorik arka planında Spivak’ın (1992) “madun konuşabilir mi?” ve Maggio’nun (2007) “madun duyulabilir mi?” soruları ödünç alınarak iki film tartışılacaktır. Çalışmanın ana sorusu, eğer erkeğin erkekliği hep başka iktidar formlarının nezdinde, onlarla ilişkili ve onlar tarafından üretiliyor ve aynı zamanda başka iktidar formlarını üretebiliyorsa; bu iktidar formlarının olmadığı ya da etkisinin azaldığı göçme haline bağlı yersiz yurtsuzluk halinde erkeklik kurgusu nasıl kırılıyor ve nasıl tamir ediliyor etrafında şekillenmektedir. Madunun konuşamadığı, kimlik olarak yer bulamadığı, mekan hakimiyetini kaybettiği Otobüs filminde, iktidarın kurumsallaştırdığı aygıtlar üzerinde hakimiyetini kaybetmiş bir erkeklik kurgusu öne çıkmaktadır. Sarı Mercedes filminde ise konuşan ama duyulamayan madun, herhangi bir mekana ait değildir. Kırılmış, çizilmiş erkekliğinin ikamesi arabasıdır ancak filmin sonunda o da “perte çıkmıştır”. Yol aracılığıyla bağlamdan kopup madunlaşan erkeklikler bastırılmış ya da kışkırtılmıştır.
Open Access
Ethnic conflict and gender inequality in education: the case of Turkey
(Routledge, 2018-04) Kılınç, Ramazan; Neathery-Castro, J.; Akyüz, Selin
Although conflict remains a major obstacle to development in many areas of the world, its impact on education has been rarely studied. This article investigates the relationship between conflict and gender equality, focusing on the schooling of the girls in the conflict-ridden regions of Turkey. Patriarchy is the most important determinant of low educational levels among girls in Southeastern Turkey. However, ethnic conflict exacerbates male-dominant traditions and blocks economic development, reinforcing patriarchal norms and limiting girls’ school attendance. Yet, by provoking political mobilization around a Kurdish identity, ethnic conflict may undermine patriarchy and unintentionally promote girls’ education.
Open Access
Geographies of shame: Diachronic and transnational shame in forced migrants with experiences of sexual and gender-based violencd
(Oxford University Press, 2022-06-30) Papoutsi, A.; Phillimore, J.; Akyüz, Selin; Bradby, H.; Goodson, L.; Vaughan, C.
This article investigates the shame that forced migrants bear because of experiences of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Using data from the UK, Turkey, Sweden, and Australia, we focus on shame experienced by women and LGBTQIA+ forced migrants throughout their journey, across borders and cultures. We propose three key ways to understand the complexities of shame from an experiential, temporal, and spatial perspective. First, we discuss how shame, often relating to family honour and stemming from survivors’ experiences in their home country, travels with them over time and space. We then move on to illustrate how prolonged and/or delayed feelings of shame impact on survivors’ self-confidence, self-worth, and trust in people and institutions. Finally, we consider the specific challenges LGBTQIA+ individuals face and how shame affected their settlement prospects. We argue that the SGBV experiences of forced migrants and the associated shame transcend time and space, forming landscapes of transnational and diachronic shame. Our analysis underlines the need for gender and sexuality-sensitive services for forced migrants in countries of refuge, which take into account potential ongoing effects of experiences of violence.
Open Access
Married to Anatolian Tigers: business masculinities, relationalities, and limits to empowerment
(Routledge, 2019-09) Akyüz, Selin; Sayan Cengiz, F.; Çırakman, Aslı; Cindoğlu, Dilek
This paper examines business masculinities and relationalities of empowerment in the everyday life experiences of male entrepreneurs and wives of entrepreneurs in three urban centers in Turkey: Gaziantep, Konya and İzmir. We take gendered power inequalities as structural and relational, and empowerment as a complex, multifaceted process. Based on a relational understanding of gender roles, we scrutinize men’s and women’s decision making areas in an attempt to understand normalized and internalized patriarchal values and assumptions, as well as explicit or implicit challenges against such values. We argue that gendered experiences of entrepreneurs and women married to entrepreneurs offer a complementary analysis of nuanced empowerment strategies in the background of seemingly contradictory currents such as economic globalization, transforming masculinities, rising conservatism and reinforced gender hierarchies.
Open Access
The political economy of women's cooperatives in Turkey: A social reproduction perspective
(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2022-10-28) Çınar, Meral Uğur; Çınar, Kürşat; Öncüler-Yayalar, Emine; Akyüz, Selin
The article analyzes the viability of women's participation in women's cooperatives in Turkey. The prospects are evaluated by focusing on the sustainability of the cooperatives' economic activities as well as the recruitment and continued participation of individual women members. Taking a feminist social reproduction perspective, the article seeks to understand the underlying dynamics of women's participation in cooperatives, as this perspective enables us to analyze this participation as a process and captures the permeability between women's social reproduction duties, women's relationship with the state, and the economic market. Based on countrywide, semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of women's cooperatives in Turkey, we find that familial constraints as well as governmental policies and practices challenge women's economic development aspirations in the cooperatives, while social class deeply informs the challenges faced as well as the resources available to and strategies developed by women. The resulting analysis demonstrates that familial, social, and political issues related to social reproduction need to be addressed prior to focusing on the impact of cooperatives on women's empowerment. This is essential to ensuring the success of women's cooperatives and the continued provision of meaningful opportunities for women's participation.
Open Access
Political manhood in 2000's Turkey : representations of different masculinities in politics
(2012) Akyüz, Selin
This dissertation mainly questions the constructions of different masculinities in politics in Turkey. It re-reads the different representations of political manhood with reference to the AKP, the CHP and the MHP between 2000 and 2008. In order to reveal the embeddedness of masculinities and politics, this dissertation analyzes not only gendered discourses of the given political parties but also their leaders, namely, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Deniz Baykal and Devlet Bahçeli. With the guidance of Pierre Bourdieu’s analytical tools, especially, on the basis of the congruent relation between habitus and the field, this dissertation questions different representations of masculinities and identifies typologies of masculinities, namely ; (1) Neo-Muslim, (2) Kemalist/Secular, and, (3) Nationalist. With reference to the patterns of masculinities in Turkish political culture, this study argues that the gendered nature of the politics, in general, political parties in particular, use and reproduce dominant masculinist strategies. In politics as a field, leaders experience the praxis of being man rather than their ideological engagements; leftist, rightist or Islamist.
Open Access
When Syrian ‘girls’ meet Turkish ‘boys’: mapping gendered stories of mixed marriages
(Routledge, 2019-02) Akyüz, Selin; Tursun, Özgün
This article explores the gendered experiences and negotiations of Syrian refugee women throughout forced migration processes and the different strategies during family formation that both Turkish men and Syrian women develop in mixed marriages. Its aim is to unravel fluid gendered experiences that are different from ‘reported’ stereotypical stories in the media and ‘constructed’ in the society. By doing so, we argue that the partners’ narratives in these mixed marriages enable us to map the intricate ways in which agency is used and echoed gendered experiences of couples in forced migration and family formation. We conducted in-depth interviews with eight couples voicing different narratives on how they have negotiated with forms of hierarchies, discourses and how they have refined and transformed their refuge. The incorporation of agency into our analysis unpacked (1) heterogeneity of the spouses and their experiences; (2) potential gendered spaces/discourses to be transformed/refined; and (3) nuances of multifaceted impacts of forced migration. Hence, other than macro studies and tantalizing framings in media, this research offers a dynamic reading of gendered experiences to contribute to the growing literature on Syrian refugees.
Open Access
"Where are they doing politics?" Women's cooperatives as sites of constellations of power
(Routledge, 2021-03-12) Akyüz, Selin; Çınar, K.; Bekaroğlu, E. A.; Osmanbaşoğlu, G. K.
Being more spatially accessible and offering more channels, the active participation of women in local politics is more likely than in national politics. On the other hand, active political engagement in local politics may render women as more marked and may lead to her public credibility being defined through her sexuality. This work analyzes the underrepresentation of women in local politics in Turkey by giving voice to elected women of local elections in 2009. By emphasizing regional differences and local specificities within Turkey, this work scrutinizes the virile structure of local politics and dynamics through 120 in-depth interviews conducted in different parts of Turkey.