Against the Tide: Gendered Prejudice and Disadvantage in Engineering

Although a balance has been achieved in the overall numbers of female and male students in higher education in the industrialized countries, vertical sex segregation has remained high as male academics and students continued to outnumber their female counterparts internationally. Gender representation is only one façade of gendered disadvantage in engineering, as complex forms of gendered disadvantage occur in social, cultural, psychological and economic layers of life, where women engineering students find themselves swimming against the tide of prejudice. This article draws on comparative and historical data, and a qualitative study with interviews and a questionnaire survey which generated 603 completed responses from female and male engineering students in Turkey. It seeks to reveal the complex and layered nature of gendered prejudice levelled against female engineering students. The findings suggest that linear formulations of gendered prejudice and disadvantage in engineering study are insufficient to account for the complexity of influences on career choice and their concomitant gendered outcomes.     

Turkey and the European Union: Modernizing a Traditional State?

This paper discusses the difficulties encountered when reforms are attempted to the administration of public policy in Turkey. This discussion is timely, since Turkey has recently stepped up its modernization agenda in its drive to gain membership of the European Union. The paper briefly examines the political and administrative structure of Turkey before discussing the influence of the EU on the country's modernization agenda.     

Veiled Representations

This article argues that the political divide between Islamists and secularists is what shapes and manipulates the representation of female sexuality in Turkish media. As manifested in the 2007 post-election debate surrounding veiled women and the g-string, Turkish media have been incapable of reconciling a traditionally western signifier (the g-string) with a quintessential Islamic sartorial symbol (the veil). This alleged irreconcilability of the two symbols in Turkish print media thus indicates, on the one hand, the already existing ideological rift in Turkish society between secularists versus Islamists, but more problematically, it is what alienates the female body from itself, denying it an autoerotic sexuality, and making it the site of bio-political battle.     

Political parties' perceptions and uses of anti‐Semitic conspiracy theories in Turkey

Despite its ever‐present and at times escalating significance, conspiracy theory is an under‐researched topic in the social sciences. This paper analyses the political influence of conspiracy theories by drawing on semi‐structured interviews with the representatives of four major political parties from the Turkish parliament about widespread anti‐Semitic conspiracy theories regarding Dönmes (converts). The findings indicate that right‐wing political parties problematize the secret character of the Dönme community and use the conspiracy theories to express their own ontological insecurities emerging from the Sèvres syndrome. Left‐wing and liberal parties conversely dissociate themselves from the conspiratorial rhetoric. The research concludes that the political parties reject or accept the conspiracy theories rationally and in alignment with their own ontological insecurities; by doing so, they pragmatically confirm their individual ideological perspective.     

The fever that hit Arab satellite television: audience perceptions of Turkish TV series

Turkish television drama series were locally produced products until the early 2000s. Since then, about 70 different titles have been broadcast to audiences in 40 countries, especially in the Middle East, where they comprise approximately 60% of the share in foreign programme broadcasts. This article explores the factors that led to such an attraction by considering the debates around the impact of transnational media products on Arab cultural identity. The authors conducted focus groups and interviews with audiences in Palestine and Egypt and with the producers/distributors of these TV series in Turkey. The data presented here comprise the results of one of the first field-based studies on the reception of Turkish media products in the region. Foremost, the Arab audience response to these Turkish TV series highlights the differences in conceptualisations of ‘modernity’ in the Arab World. Moreover, the data suggest that audiences do not necessarily consider transnational media products as culprits that corrupt cultural identity.     

Changing the Status Quo of Migration and Asylum Policies in Turkey: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Turkey has been experiencing a migration policy transformation in the wake of a new ruling entitled the ‘Foreigners and International Protection Law’ (FIPL). This qualitative inquiry investigates this major change process by focusing on the planned reorganisation which is a result of the legislation process, with the aim of connecting the change process to a change model. The researcher interviewed twenty-seven middle and upper-level managers and experts from the Foreigners, Border, and Asylum Department (FBAD) and Asylum and Migration Bureau (AMB) of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior. Both their implementation of the change process and perceptions on such a transformation period were investigated. The study also examined the change process of the irregular migration and asylum regime within Turkey’s bid for full European Union membership as well as implementation of the draft FIPL. This study provides an example of a policy change process by analysing how governmental practice and legislation have evolved with regard to irregular migration, asylum seekers, and refugees in Turkey. The results noticeably reveal that, instead of seeing irregular migration and asylum as merely a threat to national security or a welfare issue, Turkey has chosen a way of developing a humanitarian approach in both the legislative and administrative fields. This is the first study which attempts to analyse a particular policy change process in the migration and asylum regime in Turkey. The results could influence policy dynamics and set priorities by suggesting policy solutions.     

The emancipated city: notes on Gezi Revolts

The article deals with 2013 revolts in Turkey as an attempt at inventing a link between the particular and the universal. To start with, I briefly discuss the history of Turkish republicanism and the transformation of its relation to secularism, economy and the state. Then I turn to the political dimension of the revolts, focusing on the iconic figures of subjectivity that emerged during the events. In this respect, the practical and theoretical tension between mobility and immobility is emphasized, arguing that it is what constitutes the destabilizing aspect of the revolts in relation to both Islamic neo-liberalism and neo-liberal Islam. This is followed by a discussion of the reactionary views on the revolts combined with a critique of their political-theological leitmotivs. The pivot around which these moves are undertaken and the terms of the discussion are determined is the concept of event.     

Selfish,Vengeful, and Full of Spite: The representations of women who have abortions on Turkish television

This article analyses the portrayal of women who have abortions in four recent Turkish television series, Gümü?, A?k-? Memnu, Han?m?n Çiftli?i, and Öyle Bir Geçer Zaman ki, all of which appeared between 2005 and 2011. It is clear from the varying storylines of these melodramas that the depiction of women who have abortions on Turkish television is decidedly negative. The women who have abortions are seen as defying cultural expectations to place motherhood before all else. They are portrayed as cheating on their husbands, having sex outside of marriage, and prioritizing career over marriage and family. The negative portrayal of women who have abortions in Turkish soap operas perpetuates the discourse on Republican womanhood, which prescribes motherhood as women's national duty and as being at the core of their identity.     

土耳其政治现代化评析

土耳其政治现代化属于“援引型”发展模式 ,并以民族为基础 ,以西方化为中介 ,以世俗化为主要表现形式。这种特征是在内外多种因素的交织作用下产生的。土耳其在政治发展上缺乏一定的连续性与稳定性 ,政变与反政变活动、政府与传统和宗教势力的冲突时有发生 ,在一定范围内还出现了伊斯兰教的复兴。因此 ,虽然土耳其政治现代化已经获得了一定的发展 ,民主化程度也相对提高 ,但其中仍然存在一些潜在的阻滞因素 ,尤为值得关注。