Postdoctoral researcher Bermal Küçük in the Journal Gender and Society on Feminist movements in Turkey

The Barry Pashak postdoctoral researcher at the Social Justice Centre, Bermal Küçük, published an article in the journal Gender & Society.

The title of the article is Rhizomatic Transformations of Feminist Politics and Subjectivities in Contemporary Turkey.

Here is a preview of the article: 

The Feminist Night March in Istanbul in 2018 captured international attention when it appeared on the front page of The New York Times. This recognition stemmed from the unprecedented scale of the demonstration, marking it as one of the largest feminist mobilizations in recent years. In a political climate of protest suppression, the march emerged as a powerful manifestation of collective dissent in Turkey. Over the past decade, the growing visibility of feminism in Turkey has become apparent not only through the large-scale participation in the Night March but also through more widespread forms of engagement across political and cultural landscapes. Feminism has increasingly shaped the contours of leftist paradigms, accompanied by a proliferation of cultural and political productions across digital and nondigital spheres. Yet this momentum has not led to a parallel rise in autonomous feminist organizations. On the contrary, key organizations that had once served as influential hubs of feminist politics—such as the Socialist Feminist Collective, Amargi, and the Istanbul Feminist Collective—ceased their activities by the mid-2010s.

This article addresses the apparent phenomenon whereby growing engagement with feminism coincides with the erosion of conventional feminist organizations. It examines how feminist politics is taking shape beyond conventional organizational forms, situating this transformation within the broader socioeconomic and political landscape. This examination is guided by the following questions: Can we identify the emergence of new political practices within contemporary feminist movements? If so, how do these forms signal a transformation in the social composition, political practices, and subjectivities of actors compared with those of earlier periods of the movement?

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About the author:

Bermal Küçük is a 2025-26 Barry Pashak Postdoctoral Fellow at the Social Justice Centre. She received her PhD degree in Sociology from Koç University with her dissertation analyzing the transformation of feminist politics and subjectivities in Turkey in the post-2000 period, particularly under the economic and political crises alongside significant opportunities arising from the expansion of higher education, digitalization and urbanization. This dissertation was honoured with the Şirin Tekeli Research Award, organized by Sabancı University's Gender and Women's Studies Center of Excellence.

Her academic work and research interests are profoundly shaped by her longstanding engagement with feminist politics and activism in Turkey.

During her postdoctoral stay at Concordia, Bermal organized an international workshop on feminist movements across geography. Her talk is available online on the Social Justice Centre's YouTube channel.