SU Gender organized the second International Gender Studies Conference in Turkey on December 7-8 at Minerva Han. In the conference, attended by many academics, researchers, and civil society representatives from Turkey and abroad, 58 papers were presented in panels addressing politics, subjectivity and resistance, migration, literature, art, sexuality, innovative research approaches, psychology, health, family, violence, and many other topics. The total number of participants in the conference, which included 14 sessions and 5 workshops, was over 350.
SU Gender Director Zeynep Gülru Göker, who stated that they aimed to create a platform where current research on Turkey and gender in Turkey is presented and discussed, and at which researchers come together at regular intervals, said the following on behalf of the Organizing Committee, “The papers presented at the conference we held last year and the applications received this year, the rich program that emerged and the diversity we saw in this hall showed that we have achieved this goal from the very beginning and made us very happy. The applications received for this conference alone and the papers to be presented here over the course of two days bear witness to the analytical depth, methodological richness, and critical capacity of the studies conducted in the field of gender, and show how deep-rooted, rich, and strong academic production in the field of gender studies in Turkey and on Turkey has become.
The opening speech of the conference was given by Ayşe Kadıoğlu, a faculty member at Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and a member of the SU Gender Advisory Board. In her speech entitled Feminism in the History of Individuals, Ayşe Kadıoğlu addressed topics such as the West and East of feminism, the ways in which gender codes dominate our lives, and the phenomenon of living a feminist life, based on Mes’adet Bedirhan’s life story and writings, as well as her previous works. For Ayşe Kadıoğlu’s 2024 article examining the life and writings of Mes’adet Bedirhan, see.
In parallel sessions held throughout the conference, we listened to current research conducted from a gender perspective in areas such as literature, politics, migration, sexuality, psychology, health, medicine, family, motherhood, violence, art, and media. We held discussions on research methods and innovative research approaches. In the workshops, we had the opportunity to discuss in depth how campuses are experienced as a living and socializing space by queer individuals, the diversity of queer migration experiences in Turkey, looking at a defined urban space through the eyes of women, the fight against gender discrimination and the role of academic-civil society cooperation in this fight, and field research experiences in the fields of gender and sexuality. You can access the detailed program of the conference and the abstract booklet containing the presentations on the website.
Dicle Koğacıoğlu 2024 Article Award Panel and Award Ceremony
On the first day of the conference, we organized the Dicle Koğacıoğlu Article Award Panel and Ceremony, which is being held for the 15th time this year in memory of our university’s former faculty member, sociologist Dicle Koğacıoğlu in order to support gender-focused studies in Turkey and encourage young researchers. This year, following the evaluation made by the jury consisting of Emine Fişek, Yağmur Nuhrat, and Ezgi Güler, the article award was given to Melis Berk, a student in the Sabancı University Gender Studies PhD Program, and the incentive support was given to İrem Sumru Müftüoğlu, a graduate student from Humboldt University Berlin, and Yunus Emre Yaşadı, a PhD student from Anadolu University. Following the panel moderated by Nükhet Sirman, the awards were presented to the article authors.
Şirin Tekeli 2024 Research Award Panel and Award Ceremony
On the second day of the conference, we held the Şirin Tekeli Research Award Panel and Award Ceremony, which we have been organizing since 2017 in order to contribute to the survival, sharing, and diversification of the rich legacy left by Şirin Tekeli. This year, in the panel organized for the 7th time, Işıl Bayraktar, who received an award last year, and Burcu Sarı Karademir and Selver Şahin, who received incentive support, presented their research outputs. At the end of the panel, moderated by Yıldız Ecevit, we watched a section from Şirin Tekeli's speech at the international conference on gender studies held at METU in 2015. Following the panel, the 2024 award results were announced. This year, the jury, consisting of Ayşe Betül Çelik, Nurcan Özkaplan and Demet Lüküslü, selected the research proposal of Sinem Bal, a postdoctoral researcher at Boğaziçi University, for the research award. The research proposal of Yağmur Çağatay, who is continuing her doctoral studies at Cambridge University, was selected to receive incentive support.