Description

Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, belonging to the Turkish nation and benefitting from its resources was argued to be reserved for secular citizens. Only those should be allowed to participate in its institutions, such as government jobs and universities. Women with headscarves were presented as outsiders to Turkey, for example, through statements that such women belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran or to Saudi Arabia, and should live there (see also Göle 2002). By excluding women with headscarves from the state sphere, denying them basic civil rights, such as education and employment in civil services, pro-seculars have attempted to unambiguously exclude them from belonging in Turkey.
Recently, shifting class boundaries have seen the rise of an Islamic elite who are impinging on spaces historically reserved for seculars. This new elite are adopting aspects of middle- and upper-class lifestyles. University education is now open to women with headscarves; moreover they are receiving university degrees as doctors, lawyers, and engineers, but are also keeping their religious practices. The rise of the Islamic elite has led many secular political actors and Turkish citizens to see religious people and their politics as a threat to the areas that were primarily perceived as belonging to them. In this context, the headscarf of religious women has become a symbol of threat for seculars and a symbol of political and socio-economic ascent for religious actors. Many had believed that the liberal democratic discourses of the current governing party, Ak Party, would bring a new political era in Turkish politics. Although the liberal democratic politics have enabled women with headscarves to attend universities, this political context is rapidly changing in Turkey, from liberal democratic narratives of the governing party to that of an authoritarian one. What will be the future of Turkish politics? What is the role of Europe in this changing political context, specially the role of Germany? What is the power of religious women, if any, in this political context?

Gökçe Yurdakul is Georg Simmel Professor of Diversity and Social Conflict at the Humboldt University, Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences. She studied Sociology at the Bogazici University and Gender & Women’s Studies at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. She has her PhD from the University of Toronto, Department of Sociology where she received the Connaught Fellowship. Previously, she has taught courses on race, ethnicity, gender and immigration at the Trinity College Dublin and Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. She was affiliated with the Free University, Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies as a post-doctoral fellow. She has published books and articles on immigrant integration, citizenship Islam in Europe and issues of Muslim women in Western Europe and North America. She has written articles for scholarly journals, such as Annual Review of Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and German Politics and Society. For further information, see http:// gokceyurdakul.net