BEYOND FAMILY WARS

Based on research carried out last year, this talk will examine how to approach the concept of culture from an anthropological perspective and whether the family can be considered as a space of culture. Expressions of aspirations and dreams about the family in testimonies of religious and secular interviewees of the research will be compared to how the same subject is handled by religious and secular NGOs. A critical examination of popular discourses of social/cultural polarization will be employed through key questions such as whether the family has evolved into a conflict between two “neighborhoods” and if so; how and in which context it occurred. 

Nükhet Sirman is a retired anthropologist from Boğaziçi University Department of Sociology.  She conducted research and published articles on family businesses in agriculture, feminist movements, nationalism and the formation of the modern family in Turkey, the concept of honor and honor killings, violence against women and gender studies, oral history, emotion and affect studies, culture and TV series studies. She has worked for various feminist organizations including Ankara Thursday Group [Ankara Perşembe Grubu], Women’s Library [Kadın Eserleri Kütüphanesi], KA-DER, Amargi, and Women’s Initiative for Peace [Barış İçin Kadın Girişimi]. Sirman is a founding partner of Dissensus Research and Consulting where she conducted research on a variety of topics including experiences and institutional policies of violence against women, violence and poverty, sexual harassment and mobbing in the performing arts, women’s fertility and body experiences, data and statistics of gender and violations of the right to live.

Part of a program on culture wars and cultural hegemony.

We thank Postane for providing the venue as part of their “complementary events program”

KIRIK’s 2023/24 programs are supported by the SAHA Sustainability Fund.