Le mouvement féministe en Turquie, initiateur d'un nouveau cycle de contestation

Abstract

This article consists of an inquiry about the Turkish feminist movement as an indicator of the past and present political stakes (ever since the founding of the nation-state, to the querying movements of the last two decades). The author interrogates the specificity of the totalitarian and oppressive regimes in Turkey through the lens of the local social movements and the diversity of forms of protest. The feminist movement is the first to introduce to the political sphere topics such as sexuality, body, marriage, reproduction, family - i.e. subjects that, until the 1980s, were considered to be private, and therefore non-political. The Turkish example stresses the complex and relational (and thus dynamic) character of the social protest, conceived as both reality and action. Hence, even a society full of constraints imposed by a monopolistic power, although blocking collective action, can create favourable political circumstances for different forms of protest as well as for alliances, even if sometimes only punctual.