Search results for ""Author Fatma Müge Göçek""

Employing a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on gender relations, "Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East" questions long-standing stereotypes about the traditional subordination of women in the region. With essays on gender construction in Iran, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and the Occupied Territories, this collection offers a wide-ranging exploration of tradition, identity, and power in different parts of the Middle East. Seeking to overcome monolithic Western notions of women's life in "the traditional society," the essays in Part I reexamine the assumption that such societies leave little room for female participation. Part II focuses on the reconstruction of identities by women in Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the Occupied Territories.The authors examine the complex variables that contribute to the development of identities - including gender, class, and ethnicity - in various Middle Eastern societies, questioning whether certain identities are more important to women than others. These essays also look at the issue of group identity formation versus the autonomy of the individual. Part III looks at the relationship between gender and power in everyday life in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco, showing how power relations are constantly contested and renegotiated among family members and members of a community, between nations and between men and women. With its collection of enlightened and diverse contemporary perspectives on women in the Middle East, "Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East" is an important work that will have significant impact on the way we look at gender in traditional societies.

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With an estimated population of 35 million, Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without an independent state of their own. The majority of Kurds live in Turkey, where they constitute 18 percent of the population. Since the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923, the history of the Kurds in Turkey is marked by state violence against them and decades of conflict between the Turkish military and Kurdish fighters. Although the continuous struggle of the Kurdish people is well-known and the political actors involved in the conflict have received much scholarly attention, little has been written from the vantage point of the Kurds themselves.Alemdaroglu and Göçek’s volume develops a fresh approach by moving away from top-down, Turkish nationalist macro analyses to a micro-analysis of how Kurds and Kurdistan as historical and ethnic categories were constructed from the bottom up and how Kurds experience and resists marginalization, exclusion, and violence. Contributors looks beyond the politics of state actors to examine the role of civil society and the significant role women play in the negotiation of power. Kurds in Dark Times opens an essential window into the lives of Kurds in Turkey, generating meaningful insights not only into the political interactions with the Turkish state and society, but also the informal ways in which they negotiate within society that will be crucial in developing peace and reconciliation.

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With an estimated population of 35 million, Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without an independent state of their own. The majority of Kurds live in Turkey, where they constitute 18 percent of the population. Since the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923, the history of the Kurds in Turkey is marked by state violence against them and decades of conflict between the Turkish military and Kurdish fighters. Although the continuous struggle of the Kurdish people is well-known and the political actors involved in the conflict have received much scholarly attention, little has been written from the vantage point of the Kurds themselves.Alemdaroglu and Göçek’s volume develops a fresh approach by moving away from top-down, Turkish nationalist macro analyses to a micro-analysis of how Kurds and Kurdistan as historical and ethnic categories were constructed from the bottom up and how Kurds experience and resists marginalization, exclusion, and violence. Contributors looks beyond the politics of state actors to examine the role of civil society and the significant role women play in the negotiation of power. Kurds in Dark Times opens an essential window into the lives of Kurds in Turkey, generating meaningful insights not only into the political interactions with the Turkish state and society, but also the informal ways in which they negotiate within society that will be crucial in developing peace and reconciliation.

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What we understand by the ‘Middle East’ has changed over time and across space. While scholars agree that the geographical ‘core’ of the Middle East is the Arabian Peninsula, the boundaries are less clear. How far back in time should we go to define the Middle East? How far south and east should we move on the African continent? And how do we deal with the minority religions in the region, and those who migrate to the West? Across this handbook’s 52 chapters, the leading sociologists writing on the Middle East share their standpoint on these questions. Taking the featured scholars as constitutive of the field, the handbook reshapes studies on the region by piecing together our knowledge on the Middle East from their path-defining contributions. The volume is divided into four parts covering sociologists’ perspectives on: · Social transformations and social conflict; from Israel-Palestine and the Iranian Revolution, to the Arab Uprisings and the Syrian War · The region’s economic, religious and political activities; including the impact of the spread of Western modernity; the effects of neo-liberalism; and how Islam shapes the region’s life and politics · People’s everyday practices as they have shaped our understanding of culture, consumption, gender and sexuality · The diasporas from the Middle East in Europe and North America, which put the Middle East in dialogue with other regions of the world. The global approach and wide-ranging topics represent how sociologists enable us to redefine the boundaries and identities of the Middle East today.

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