Close-Reading Belongingness Experience of Non-Traditional Muslim Women in Türkiye : Reçel Blog
Toklucu, Dilrübai Kübra (2023)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023042638999
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023042638999
Tiivistelmä
This thesis is a result of a quest to understand and to plead young, educated, Muslim women’s struggle for recognition in Türkiye in contemporary times. It emerged from my will to reflect on a personal experience as a young Muslim woman from Türkiye. Moreover, my desire to contribute to women’s empowerment, in general, has helped me to form this work. Thus, in this thesis, I analyze data from Reçel Blog (RB) through the close-reading method as well as utilize part of my own experiences via the autoethnography method.
RB is a blogging site that has been founded and run by a group of non-traditional Muslim women in Türkiye since 2014 to have a space for “women, especially for Muslim women to give voice to their daily experiences, their perception of social issues, their interests, curiosities, troubles, hopes, concerns, and struggles” (Reçel Blog, 2014). In this study, I utilize RB posts shared between January 2022-February 2023 to discuss the forms of social exclusion non-traditional Muslim women face in Türkiye.
Merging social exclusion and recognition theories, I argue that in Türkiye non-traditional Muslim women’s access to the main activities of the society in different spaces (public, secular, religious) is impaired. This issue is closely related to social recognition. Muslim women are denied proper social recognition which is a fundamental factor for one to be present in the social encounters, activities, and spaces as oneself. Therefore, in their case, missing social recognition and not being able to participate in activities of society without tiptoeing around entrenches their social exclusion. Moreover, it is a vicious cycle: being excluded impairs Muslim women’s self-realization process and not being able to reproduce themselves through various social encounters disempower them to resist against lack of social recognition. I conclude my study by discussing that RB is a tool used by non-traditional Muslim women to create their narratives to confront social exclusion and misrecognition in Türkiye.
RB is a blogging site that has been founded and run by a group of non-traditional Muslim women in Türkiye since 2014 to have a space for “women, especially for Muslim women to give voice to their daily experiences, their perception of social issues, their interests, curiosities, troubles, hopes, concerns, and struggles” (Reçel Blog, 2014). In this study, I utilize RB posts shared between January 2022-February 2023 to discuss the forms of social exclusion non-traditional Muslim women face in Türkiye.
Merging social exclusion and recognition theories, I argue that in Türkiye non-traditional Muslim women’s access to the main activities of the society in different spaces (public, secular, religious) is impaired. This issue is closely related to social recognition. Muslim women are denied proper social recognition which is a fundamental factor for one to be present in the social encounters, activities, and spaces as oneself. Therefore, in their case, missing social recognition and not being able to participate in activities of society without tiptoeing around entrenches their social exclusion. Moreover, it is a vicious cycle: being excluded impairs Muslim women’s self-realization process and not being able to reproduce themselves through various social encounters disempower them to resist against lack of social recognition. I conclude my study by discussing that RB is a tool used by non-traditional Muslim women to create their narratives to confront social exclusion and misrecognition in Türkiye.