Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey: Gender, Power and Resistance under the Kemalist Regime

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global and International History presents “Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey: Gender, Power and Resistance under the Kemalist Regime” by Sevgi Adak, aAssistant professor of Gender and Middle East Studies and Head of Research at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London.

The veiling and unveiling of women have been controversial issues in Turkey since the 19thcentury. It was with the advent of local campaigns against certain veils in the 1930s, however, that women’s dress turned into an issue of national mobilisation in which gender norms would be redefined. This lecture will give an overview of these anti-veiling campaigns that took place in interwar Turkey. It will situate the Turkish case within a wave of anti-veiling campaigns that were organized across the ‘Muslim world’ at the time, from Albania to Soviet Uzbekistan, and explore this global historical context within which the meanings of veiling and unveiling were formed. Drawing on the Turkish case, the lecture will unpack the intricacies of the modernisation process and provide a nuanced reading of the gender order envisioned during these campaigns, by especially looking at the various ways women responded to them.

To join this webinar, please use this Zoom link or visit the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs events.