Construction of sexuality in the narratives of well-educated young women in Turkey

• Main Author: Esin, Cigdem
• Published: University of East London 2008
• Subjects: 300
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.532876

This research examines the complex and antagonistic discourses and practices interwoven in the domain of sexuality for well-educated young women in contemporary Turkey. In this light and following Foucault, I see sexuality as a social and cultural construct interrelated with power relations,structures of domination, and practices of submission and resistance - a grid of intelligibility that Foucault has defined as a dispositif. The analysis particularly focuses on how the discourses around virginity make connections, or are juxtaposed with, several other cultural and political discourses in the operation of power relations surrounding women's sexuality, within the context of Turkish modernity. The thesis uncovers the multiple layers of the constitutive process of young women's sexuality in Turkey. It draws on the sexuality narratives of eighteen well-educated young women and six of their mothers who are members of two generations in Turkish modernisation: the Daughters of the Republic and the Daughters of Feminism. The distinct yet connected consciousnesses of these generations are created by two important socio-political shifts in the history of modern Turkey: the introduction of the Turkish modernisation/westernisation project, and the emergence of second-wave feminism. As a Foucauldian approach to narratives of sexuality, the innovative methodology of this thesis traces marginalised stories, exploring the interrelations between life-histories, historically specific truths, knowledges, and discourses in the micro realms of sexuality. Deploying a narrative analysis in working with women's individual stories, this methodology also unfolds the multiplicities in the constitution of these stories, including the positionings of both the researcher and the participants.