Abstract
ABSTRACT Background: Telling personal stories of violence has been central to recent advocacy efforts to prevent violence against women around the world. In this paper, we explore the use of personal storytelling as a form of activism to prevent femicide in Turkey. This study is part of a broader storytelling initiative called SHAER (Storytelling for Health: Acknowledgement, Expression and Recovery) to alleviate the psychological and emotional suffering of women who have experienced gender-based violence in high-prevalence settings. Objectives: We conceptually explore personal stories of violence as a form of both distributed agency and activism. This conceptual framework is used to answer the following research question in the Turkish context: How do women use their personal stories of interpersonal violence for their own benefit (support) and that of others (activism)? Methods: Our study is based on 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with women who have experienced violence and were purposefully recruited by the ‘We Will End Femicide’ Platform in Istanbul. Interviews were conducted between March and August 2019. We used inductive and deductive thematic analysis to identify instances of personal storytelling at three levels: intrapersonal, relational and collective. Results: Our results show how the use of personal storytelling can provide a means of healing from experiences of violence. However, this process is not linear and is often influenced by the surrounding context including: the listener of the story, their reaction, and what social networks the woman has to support her. In supportive social contexts, personal storytelling can be an effective support for activism against violence: personal stories can provide opportunities for individuals to shape broader discourses about violence against women and the right of women to share their stories. Conclusions: Telling one’s personal story of violence can both support women’s agency and contribute to the collective struggle against violence against women more broadly.
Highlights
Telling personal stories of violence has been central to recent advocacy efforts to prevent violence against women around the world
Telling personal stories of interpersonal violence has been central to advocacy efforts in Turkey, as it has been throughout the world, with social movements such as #metoo changing the landscape of violence against women (VAW) activism and forcing wide spread attention to women’s rights [1]
Women described specific moments of awareness or change in the way they perceived their individual story of violence. This often involved moving away from an acceptance or resignation of the violence towards a recognition of the need to act in order for the violence to stop. These examples of intrapersonal agency hap pened at different levels: some women described becoming aware of the need to change their immedi ate situations while others described an awareness of the broader social norms that condone violence, which highlights the different reasons why women choose to tell their personal stories of interpersonal violence
Summary
Telling personal stories of violence has been central to recent advocacy efforts to prevent violence against women around the world. We explore the use of personal storytelling as a form of activism to prevent femicide in Turkey. Telling personal stories of interpersonal violence has been central to advocacy efforts in Turkey, as it has been throughout the world, with social movements such as #metoo changing the landscape of violence against women (VAW) activism and forcing wide spread attention to women’s rights [1]. Little is known about how women use their personal stories of violence, for what purposes, or why some women choose to tell their story as a means of acting against VAW more broadly. Feminist activists in Turkey have paid considerable attention to femicide [4] – the killing of women because they are women
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