Gender and the formation of late modern national subjectivity in Turkey: Islamic and Kurdish women in local politics

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the self-narrations of the AKP and the BDP women local representatives and argues that a distinct female national subjectivity is constructed and performed throughout these narrations. Late 1990s is usually referred as a turning point in Turkish politics characterized by the electoral successes of the Islamic and Kurdish movements. The rhetoric of both these movements involves references to their political projects about redefining the bonds of nationhood in Turkey that is conceptualized in various terms such as ‘new Turkey’, ’peoples of Turkey’ making peace and ‘normalization of Turkish politics’ to name some. The two political parties, namely the AKP and the BDP (now HDP) have introduced different constructions of ‘alternative’ national collectivity in this context. Patriarchal characteristic of the founding ideology of Turkish modernization is one of the issues that these two parties problematize in their alternative constructions of nationhood. The ‘woman question’ has been defined as one of the central issues in the party programs of both the AKP and the BDP. They are also the parties where high mobilization of women is observed. The questions that will be discussed throughout this study are: What kind of female subjects are produced throughout the actualization of these programs of two parties, do these subjects subvert, transform or reproduce patriarchal national authority? Focusing on the difference between the two, different notions of patriarchy that plays a constructive role in the formation of national subjects in this context is examined.