2000, Mojab 2001. Finally, the diversity of Kurdish
culture calls into question any attempt to general-
ize the situation of “Kurdish women.” Not only do
women’s lives differ across class and rural-urban
environments, but Alevism, a Muslim religion
practiced by 30 percent of Kurds in Turkey, plays a
critical role in shaping attitudes and practices
regarding gender relations and women’s education
among Kurdish communities in Turkey (Wedel
2001).
There are few published accounts of gender rela-
tions or women’s lives among Turkey’s ethnic
minorities. Only a small number of survey-based
and ethnographic studies have attempted to por-
tray the lives and social relations of Kurdish and
Arab women in Turkey. Ethnographic work with
Kurdish women migrants in Istanbul has given
voice to women’s experiences of migration and
urban life (Wedel 2001, Secor 2004). For many
Kurdish, Arab, and other women in Turkey, the
armed struggle between the militant PKK (Kurdish
Worker’s Party) and the Turkish state reconfigured
the conditions of their lives in the 1990s. While
Kurds had long been among those migrating to
Turkish cities in search of economic and educa-
tional opportunities, this decade saw these num-
bers swell to include thousands of refugees. Many
migrant Kurdish women describe encountering dis-
crimination in urban neighborhoods, workplaces,
and schools. At the same time, the city opens new
channels for women’s education, economic inde-
pendence, and political participation. For example,
the 8 March World Women’s Day demonstrations
in Istanbul have been an important site for Kurdish
women’s political mobilization. Finally, like other
ethnic minorities in Turkey, Kurdish women find
themselves struggling with questions of assimila-
tion, solidarity, and identity in a context of ongoing
uncertainty as to what it means to be an ethnically
marked citizen of the Turkish Republic.
Bibliography
P. A. Andrews (ed.), Ethnic groups in the Republic of
Turkey, Wiesbaden 1989.
D. Cindo(lu and I. Sirkeci, Variables that explain varia-
tion in prenatal care in Turkey. Social class, education
and ethnicity revisited, in Journal of Biosocial Science
33 (2001), 261–70.
N. Göle, The forbidden modern. Civilization and veiling,
Ann Arbor, Mich. 1996.
A. Gündüz-Hoçgör and J. Smits, Linguistic capital. Lan-
guage as a socio-economic resource among ethnic women
in Turkey, paper presented at the meeting of the ISA
Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobil-
ity (RC28) in Mannheim, Germany 26–28 April 2001.
A. Içduygu, D. Romano, and I. Sirkeci, The ethnic ques-
tion in an environment of insecurity. The Kurds in
Turkey, in Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (1999), 991–
1010.
western europe 695A. Kadıo(lu, The paradox of Turkish nationalism and the
construction of official identity, in Middle Eastern
Studies3 (1996), 177–94.
D. Kandiyoti, Emancipated but unliberated? Reflections
on the Turkish case, in Feminist Studies3 (1987),
317–38.
M. K. Mirzeler, The formation of male identity and the
roots of violence against women. The case of Kurdish
songs, stories and storytellers, in Journal of Muslim
Minority Affairs20 (2000), 261–9.
S. Mojab (ed.), Women of a non-state nation, Costa Mesa
2001.
A. J. Secor, “There is an Istanbul that belongs to me.”
Citizenship, space, and identity in the city, in Annals of
the Association of American Geographers94:2 (2004),
352–68.
H. Wedel, Siyaset ve cinsiyet. ÷stanbul gecekondularında
kadınların siyasal katılımı, Istanbul 2001.Anna J. SecorWestern EuropeIntroduction
Muslim women of immigrant origin have had a
particular experience in Europe as the interplay
between gender and their ethnic and religious back-
grounds has presented obstacles from both external
society and from within the Muslim family struc-
ture itself.
Research about Muslim identity in Europe sug-
gests that younger generations of Muslim women
might increasingly be drawing on Islam as a posi-
tive means of differentiating themselves from oth-
ers. Thus, how they express their religion differs
from the way in which Islam has been practiced by
their parents in the transplanted context.Muslim women as immigrants
Many women who accompanied their immigrant
husbands to Europe had little choice in the matter.
In some ways, these women were the most visible
immigrants in their new societies, seen around
communities as they performed their daily tasks of
shopping and taking their children to school. It was
through them that many Europeans had their first
contact with Muslims.
This high degree of visibility and the obvious dif-
ferences in appearance sometimes gave rise to racial
prejudice and discrimination, be it due to their reli-
gion, clothing, or their color, combined with the
fact that they were women.
Some of the prejudice and discrimination was, in
part, linked to the way in which Muslim women
have been seen by non-Muslims. What is often seen
as a religious difference and attributed to Islam is
actually a product of cultural or national differ-
ences. Indeed, for the immigrant women themselves,