Kadin Ci̇nayetleri̇nde Semboli̇k İkti̇darin Kri̇zi̇

Abstract

This study sheds light on the questions of how symbolic meanings come to emerge and signify certain representations of femininity as "worthless" (so as "worth" killing) in the processes leading to femicide. Given that both international literature and the studies on Turkey largely deal with femicides through quantitative approaches, our study contributes to ever-expanding body of literature through a qualitative research. In doing so, we go beyond oversimplification of understanding the justifications of women's murder, the processes of lethal violence, and social and cultural context of femicides by means of utilizing qualitative research. Grzyb's (2016) influential work that relies upon Bourdieusian conceptual tools, namely symbolic power and symbolic violence, largely frame the study, which is based on the analysis of the judicial records of murdered women in Diyarbakır. From this vantage point, this study suggests that there exists a significatory process relying upon symbolic power mechanisms that give meanigns to murdered women as lacking submissiveness, docility and respectability in diverse ways. This form of symbolic violence constitutes the crisis dynamics of symbolic power. In consequence, lethal violence ends up as a strategy to restore and reinvigorate symbolic power.

Provocation defence for femicide in Turkey: The interplay of legal argumentation and societal norms

“…Femicide is only one form of gender-based violence. Discourses on femicide reflect dominant social norms on ‘proper’ female behaviour (Sancar, 2013), and legal deliberations and rulings on femicide are platforms where such discourses are visible (Ural and Çabuk-Kaya, 2018). Law becomes complicit in femicide through provocation.…”