The transformation of domestic labour of women in beypazari: Experience and transmission

Abstract

Women's labor has always been among the special and important topics in the history of women's studies and our daily life. The transformation of domestic labor has found a place in the academic literature of various disciplines, as women started their working life in the public sphere. This study was written based on the results of the field studies conducted in the Beypazari district which the first example in the context of the transformation of women's domestic labor. With the development of tourism in Beypazari, a transformation narrative has emerged that women started to sell products such as wrapping, baklava, and flatbread produced in their homes, on stalls, and shops, thus gaining their economic freedom. This transformation narrative has been featured in many news and videos in media outlets. In this narrative, it is seen that women are presented as a collective category, and information about their subjectivity and everyday lives is not given. In this study, I focused on the effect of the aforementioned narrative of transformation on the spatial transition, public and private manifestations, and dressings of women in their daily lives. I discussed issues such as how women who sell in stalls and shops are involved in the labor processes, the resistance practices they develop in daily life, the relations between women, what is the impact of women's mobility in public spaces, and the impact of their sales in stalls and shops on the daily life of the city. In the study, I aimed to reveal that the Beypazari transformation narrative is not monophonic and that each of the women's experiences, dreams, actions, and practices of resistance are different from each other, based on the concepts of gender, public sphere-private sphere, household labor, wage labor, and daily life. I aimed to present the structuralist discourse analysis based on discourse analysis.