The Transformative Power of Feminist Activism: Creating a Temporary Safe Space for Women at the Feminist Night March in Beyoğlu, İstanbul

2022-9
Uşaklılar, Öznur
This study centers around the interrelation between space and gender. It aims to explore how women’s intersecting identities, including but not limited to gender, and the thirdspace dimension of Beyoğlu shape the research participants’ spatial experiences and motivation to attend the Feminist Night March therein. Based on participant observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 participants who self-identify as women, this study endeavors to understand how women’s participation in the march forms their perceptions of safety, attitudes, and actual behaviors in Beyoğlu, through a feminist methodology. In order to better analyze the march’s role, the study covers the participants’ everyday life experiences. In both contexts, they benefit from opportunities in this symbolic and fluid place while facing multiple constraints. Accordingly, Beyoğlu triggers the participants’ fear, anger, trust, and hope. The study reveals that women create a temporary safe space for themselves on their own terms in the city through feminist activism. As part of feminist activism in Turkey, the march appears to be a resilient movement where women take up space in the streets of Beyoğlu after it gets dark, to some extent, at the cost of transgressing the borders of “a woman’s place” in the city. Eventually, findings indicate the transformative power of feminist activism together with the possibilities of thirdspace that shift participants’ everyday fear of verbal, sexual, and physical violence into trust and hope. Nevertheless, regarding their sociodemographic characteristics, the march maintains the research participants’ fear and anger.

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Citation Formats
Ö. Uşaklılar, “The Transformative Power of Feminist Activism: Creating a Temporary Safe Space for Women at the Feminist Night March in Beyoğlu, İstanbul,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.