Conditional Freedom: Identifying How Orientalism Informs Structural and Cultural Violence Towards Muslim Women in Turkey

• Main Author: Akrawi, Yousor
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS) 2019
• Subjects: Social Sciences; Samhällsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-22710

This thesis aims to point out the ways in which Muslim women who wear the headscarf are subject to cultural and structural violence, and to discuss how that violence is informed by Orientalism. The study answers the following question: How does Orientalism inform structural and cultural violence against the wearing of the headscarf by Muslim women in Turkey? The theoretical framework applied to this study explores Johan Galtung’s different forms of violence: structural and cultural violence. The study also explores Edward Said’s ideas on Orientalism. In order to investigate the two aims of this study, interviews are conducted with five Turkish Muslim women who wear the headscarf. Moreover, Section E of the Turkish Constitutional Court Ruling regarding the headscarf ban in 1989 is analysed. This is done in order to examine the discourse related to modernisation, secularity and religion, as well as to identify structural and cultural violence, and how it may be informed by an Orientalist perspective. As a methodology, this study adopts a discourse analysis framework to gain a deeper understanding of the data.The findings indicate that there is structural and cultural violence towards Muslim women who wear the headscarf, through both institutional and individual parties. Through the discourse of the participants and Section E of the Turkish Constitutional Court Ruling, these findings show that Orientalist attitude is an underlying factor in these forms of violence.