Walking on Eggshells: Impacts of the Changing Political Conjuncture on Women’s and Gender Studies Centres in Turkey

Abstract

Following the second wave feminist movement, Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) started to institutionalise at universities in Turkey in the late 1980s. The first ‘Women’s Studies Centre’ was established at Istanbul University in 1989. By 2017, there were around a hundred Women’s and Gender Studies Centres (WGSCs) in Turkey, scattered throughout the whole country, both in public and private universities. This article is based on thirteen expert interviews and institutional material collection from theoretically selected seven cases of WGSCs. In the study, we show the significance of several nationally and internationally influential actors, processes, and institutions that altogether prepped the political setting for the institutionalisation and transformation processes of the WGSCs in Turkey in the time span from late 1980s to 2017. We conclude that the field was influenced by international networks and processes up until the 2010s and in the post-2010 period, the main source of political influence having an impact on the institutional landscape of WGSCs becomes domestic political factors. We interpret this as 1) the discovery of ‘gender’ as a political and scientific category in international outlets and its adaptation to the national level; and 2) a growing interest in making the discovery of ‘gender’ visible in the field of higher education. This paper is based on findings of the empirical project ‘Women’s and Gender Studies in Turkey: Institutionalisation and Transformation’ (Jan. 2017-Dec. 2019).