Regulating Marriage and Intimacy for Syrian Refugees in Izmir, Turkey

• In Event: Intimate Publics and Gender Politics in the Transnational Middle East

Abstract

“So what, I can’t wear a sexy bra because I came to this country as a refugee?” stated Leila, a 30-year-old Syrian refugee in Izmir, Turkey in 2017. This article engages with gendered, sexed and classed processes which render refugee sexuality, desire, fertility and reproduction as abject, or queer, in Turkey. In particular, I examine how the gendered desires, aesthetics, and reproduction of Syrian refugees play out within local and national social and class hierarchies. Through ethnographic research I also consider Turkish refugee family planning discourses—and institutional initiatives which border on medicalized violence—from Syrian women’s perspectives

Presenter

• Mija A Sanders, University of California, Los Angeles, Gender Studies