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Changing Discourse on Women and Islam in Turkey in Ethnographic Studies

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Changing Discourse on Women and Islam in Turkey in Ethnographic Studies CHANGING DISCOURSE ON WOMEN AND ISLAM IN TURKEY IN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY PETEK ONUR IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2016 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Tülin Gençöz Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Dr. Sibel Kalaycıoğlu Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Dr. Ayşe Nur Saktanber Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. Ayşe Ayata (METU,ADM) Prof. Dr. Ayşe Nur Saktanber (METU,SOC) Prof. Dr. Aksu Bora (HACETTEPE UNI, COMM) Prof. Dr. Elif Ekin Akşit (A.U., ADM) Doç. Dr. Fatma Umut Beşpınar (METU, SOC) I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Petek Onur Signature : iii ABSTRACT CHANGING DISCOURSE ON WOMEN AND ISLAM IN TURKEY IN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES Onur, Petek Ph.D., Department of Sociology Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Ayşe Nur Saktanber September 2016, 304 pages This thesis provides an analysis of the change of ethnographic discourse on women and Islam in Turkey. Based on the theoretical framework of feminist postcolonial theory it analyses the ethnographic studies as texts and focuses on the concepts of subjectivity, subalternnes, otherness, and agency in Muslim women's discursive representations and binarism, Eurocentricism, essentialism in the way discourse is produced. It adopts Michel Foucault’s theorization of discourse, knowledge and power as a methodology to present the power relations embedded in the knowledge production process. My analysis takes the social, cultural and political developments in global and Turkish contexts and the paradigm shifts in the feminist postcolonial theory and Middle Eastern women's studies as structural powers that act on knowledge production. With this analyses I present the influence of these powers and also the pathways of development of a counter-knowledge against the formerly dominant Orientalist and Eurocentric ways of knowledge production. Lastly, by providing a general picture of the ethnographic discourse on women and Islam in Turkey, I present the gaps and shortcomings of the discourse and new areas and issues that need to be addressed in the future. Keywords: Women, Islam, Turkey, Discourse, Ethnography iv ÖZ TÜRKİYE'DE KADIN VE İSLAM SÖYLEMİNİN ETNOGRAFİK ÇALIŞMALARDAKİ DEĞİŞİMİ Onur, Petek Doktora, Sosyoloji Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi : Prof. Dr. Ayşe Saktanber Eylül 2016, 304 sayfa Bu tez Türkiye'de kadın ve İslam üzerine ethnografik söylemin değişimini incelemektedir. Feminist postkolonyal teorinin teorik çerçevesine dayanarak etnografik çalışmaları metinler olarak incelemektedir ve Müslüman kadının söylemsel temsillerinde öznelik, madunluk, ötekilik ve faillik kavramlarını ve bu söylemin üretiminde ikicilik, Avrupamerkezcilik, özcülük kavramlarına odaklanmaktadır. Bilgi üretimi sürecinin içinde saklı güç ilişkilerini göstermek üzere Michel Foucualt’nun söylem, bilgi ve güç kuramsallaştırmasını yöntem olarak kullanmaktadır. Yaptığım inceleme küresel ve yerel bağlamladaki toplumsal, kültürel ve politik değişimleri ve feminist postkolonyal teori ve Ortadoğu kadın çalışmaları alanlarındaki paradigma değişimlerini bilgi ürerimindeki yapısal güçler olarak kabul etmektedir. Bu analizle bu güçlerin etkisini ve önceden baskın olan Oryantalist bilgi üretimi biçimlerine karşı bir karşı-bilginin geliştirilmesinin yollarını sunuyorum. Son olarak, Türkiye'de kadın ve İslam üzerine söylemin genel bir resmini ortaya çıkararak söylemin açıklarını ve eksikleriyle birlikte gelecekteki olası yeni araştırma alanlarını ve sorunlarını sunuyorum. Anahtar Kelimeler: Kadın, İslam, Türkiye, Söylem, Etnografi v To my grandmother and my dear friend Melahat Türkili vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As I started this long journey of thesis work I realized that taking a step back from the field and looking at the produced knowledge from a distance has not been a common research endeavour, particularly in the scholarship on Turkey. I was on a demanding and challenging path, the difficulty of which I realized better as the research progressed. I had to create my own tools, draw my own roadmap, invent my own compass and find out my own directions in order not to lose my way. Throughout this difficult journey Prof. Dr. Ayşe Saktanber has offered me best of her advice, experience, critique, and encouragement with grace and patience. After almost all our meetings I left her room with new perspectives, ideas, and new challenges to face which had enormous contribution not only to this thesis study but to my academic development and my world view. I owe her my deepest gratitude for her academic and personal support. I am very much thankful and honoured that Prof. Dr. Ayşe Ayata, Prof. Dr. Aksu Bora, Prof. Dr. Elif Ekin Akşit and Assoc. Prof. F. Umut Beşpınar have accepted to be part of the evaluation process of this study. Their comments and critiques have opened up new paths of development of my analysis and helped to give the final shape to this thesis study. I could not have find the strength and patience to continue the years of effort to finish this thesis study without the support of my family. I would like to thank my mother Çağlan Becan and my father Can Becan for their endless support throughout my life. Especially towards the latest stages of the submission of my thesis I felt their support everyday with me. They cooked lots of meals brought pots of dishes and various food every week. I cannot forget the night at which they, intuitively knowing that I was tired and hungry, brought me fresh orange juice, sandwiches, coffee and soup, when my grandfather was at the hospital. They even bothered to read through boring academic texts and became the editors of this thesis. What else could they do?! I am grateful for being daughter. My husband, my best friend, my life companion Can Onur has been with me since vii ten years. He encouraged me to do a PhD and witnessed all the ups and downs of these years. With his surprising attitudes to hardships of life he always shifts my mood, makes me push my limits, and cheers me up too. I feel very lucky for sharing a life with this unique man and I am utterly thankful to him for making me a stronger person. Şemistan or Şemis, the cutest cat in the world, my little friend… My source of happiness and positive energy. She was with me all through my tired and sleepless nights and became my sunshine in the depressive mornings. I owe her special thanks and many hours of play. If I conducted a fieldwork for this thesis I would have a chance to meet and touch the lives of many people whom I have not known before but who would perhaps become lifelong memories. Dealing with texts for so many years perhaps made me a desk job sociologist but I still feel that I had the chance to have an insight about many special women scholars who made enormous contributions to the knowledge on women and Islam and who gave many women a voice that will be heard, hopefully, forever. This is a chance for me to pay respect to their valuable works and dedicate this thesis to them and the field they opened up. Lastly, I would like to send my greetings to a colleague whom I never met. For me Hilal Özçetin was only the name of the author of an article that I planned to include in this study. Towards the latest weeks of the thesis study I checked on the Internet to see whether she had any further publications and learned that she was a fresh PhD graduate in Canada when she was diagnosed with a terminal cancer in a short time after she defended her thesis. She passed away after a few weeks’ time –at my age. Her PhD thesis was titled Dressing up Ahlak: A Reading of Sexual Morality in Turkey because she was very much effected by the murder of Özgecan Aslan. I was deeply sad having learned all these and could not sleep that night. So my dear friend, this thesis is also dedicated to you. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM………………………………………………….…..…………………iii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………..…….……………iv ÖZ……………………………………………………………...………………………v DEDICATION…………………………………………………..……………………..vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………....………...………..vii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………….…………………………….…………………...…1 1.1. The Background and the Setting…………………………………………...5 1.2. Organization of the Chapters……………………………………………..23 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK……………………...………..……………..26 2.1. Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Postcolonial Theory………………………………………………...……………………….27 2.2. 20th Century Orientalism, the Critics of Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism………………………………………………………………34 2.3. Feminist Postcolonial Theory………….……..……….………………….56 2.4. Discourse on Muslim Women in the Muslim Middle East and North Africa……………………………………...…………………………….…….62 3. METHODOLOGY AND THE KEY CONCEPTS…………..…………………90 3.1. Discourse, Knowledge, Power and Foucaultian Discourse Analysis….........................................................................................................90 3.2. Methodology in Practice.............................................................................98
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