Extending the 'private' sphere

Conservative women's politics of charity in Turkey

Bibliographic Data

ID3608534
AuthorsAyşe Dursun (0000-0002-1799-1627, University of Vienna, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume28
Issue8
Pages948-959
Publication date2019-11-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09589236.2019.1653269
OpenAlexW2972790726
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited37

This paper puts forward the thesis that conservative women, organized through charity NGOs, extend the ‘private’ sphere in Turkey’s current neoliberal-conservative environment by contributing to the discursive privatization of poverty and social protection in general. The starting points for the current study are the feminist movements that challenge patriarchy but also the observation that organized conservative women in Turkey actively contribute to patriarchal structures. This paper considers two Istanbul-based NGOs run exclusively by women. It studies their politics of charity against the overall policy environment under the ruling AKP; characterized by a meshing of neoliberalism with religious conservatism. Privatization of poverty and social protection is intrinsic to neoliberal restructuring and its constitutive ideology, conservatism, in Turkey. This paper shows that Islamically oriented conservative charity NGOs, run by women, reinforce rather than challenge neoliberal-conservative patriarchy. They do so by emphasizing women’s roles as ‘natural’ caregivers and discursively extend the ‘private’ sphere to depoliticize (female) poverty and promote community-based charity

Conservatism · Ideology · Patriarchy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Private sphere · Public sphere · Restructuring · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society