Homes in Mardin: Women’s Daily Life Narratives and Reproduction of Space in Pandemic Times

Abstract

The pandemic has transformed our daily lives and domestic responsibilities and drastically redefined gender roles within the household. Compared to before the pandemic, domestic practices and routines have changed to varying degrees according to individual households. Taking the historic city of Mardin as a case study, this research aims to understand how women’s experience within the home has changed during the pandemic and to discuss how daily life has been reproduced in different housing typologies. Along with its unique topography, the coexistence of different ethnicities and religions in the region for centuries has affected Mardin's urban development and social and spatial character. Today, Mardin has an urban landscape consisting of various housing typologies where traditional and modern ways of domesticity coexist: traditional stone houses, country houses, apartments, and gated communities. In the three-month period after the onset of the pandemic (between March and May 2020), in-depth interviews were conducted via Zoom with women living in these four housing typologies, coming from different marital and employment statuses. Everyday narratives of the aforementioned individuals, through Lefevbrian's perspective, have been discussed to fully understand how domestic routines and practices have changed compared to pre-pandemic times. In every city, the productivity of women on a daily basis is placed in the context of social production. This study aims to offer an insight into the effect of the pandemic, drawing parallels between subjective and local, and universal conditions and their overall impact.