Pinar Dokumaci (UCD) Repression, Resistance, and Relational Reimagination: Secular-Pious Divide in the Women's Rights Movement in Turkey

Pinar Dokumaci (UCD) Repression, Resistance, and Relational Reimagination: Secular-Pious Divide in the Women's Rights Movement in Turkey Department of Politics and Public Administration, Spring 2023 Seminar Series April 12, 2pm, Appellate Court, Glucksman Library Abstract: This paper aims to raise the question of a possible transformation of the relationship between secular feminists and pious feminists in Turkey beyond the dialectics of repression and resistance and the common forms of separatism and dissent that characterize the current AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) period. In so doing, this paper argues that a potential long-term collaboration between the two women’s groups as equal partners and by mutual consent would be a powerful act of collective resistance to the broader political climate of silencing and repression and an opportunity for reclaiming both the secular and the pious beyond binary ethics of otherhood that can enable both women’s groups to re-imagine their feminist relationship in more plural terms.