Women and Public Space in Turkey

Turkey's process of `modernisation' developed rapidly during thesecond half of the twentieth century. New social and legal reformswere institutionalised and political and economic changes located thecountry as a more liberated, `Western-style' society. Women and Public Spacein Turkey provides a hist [...]
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Turkey's process of `modernisation' developed rapidly during thesecond half of the twentieth century. New social and legal reformswere institutionalised and political and economic changes located thecountry as a more liberated, `Western-style' society. Women and Public Spacein Turkey provides a historical understanding of women's experiences of thismodernisation between 1950 and 1980, a vital period in which their participationin urban public life expanded through higher education and employment. SeldaTuncer examines the precise conditions that enabled women to leave the homeand reveals how they perceived and experienced urban public space and socialrelations. Drawing on interviews with two generations of women from Ankara,and using personal family photographs, this book provides invaluable insights intowomen's engagement in secular modern life within the predominantly Muslimsociety of Turkey. Tuncer specifically focuses on women's everyday experiencesand discusses how the relationship between women and public space was actuallycontrolled and regulated by different notions of `domestication', especially in themicro-politics of daily life. This book sheds new light on the gendered processesof nation-building, socio-cultural transformations and the crucial connectionsbetween gender, modernity and the urban experience in a non-Western context.