Neighborhood and kinship relationships among women in Bismil district in Diyarbakir

This fieldwork was carried out in the providence of Diyarbakır in the rural area of Bismil of May and September 2006. The research focuses on the social networks of Kurdish village women. The relation between the family members and the neighbors are analyzed from the women? point of view. The relations between the women in the family or outside the family are adducing the statue roles of each woman. The statuses of the women depend on the age, kinship, marital state, and the number and the sex of her children. All these factors and relations are not constant; thereby the roles of the women are changing throughout their lifetime affecting their status in their home and in public. This research tries to view the dynamics of these relations from a gender perspective.The pseudonym given to the village is ?Kapısız Köyü? which in Turkish literally means ?Doorless Village?. The first reason for choosing this pseudonym is that the relations are so close that women can freely visit each other without invitation. Thus, the pseudonym has a metaphoric meaning. The other reason is that because of the hot climate villagers do not close their doors, but leave them open in the summer; with only a curtain at the door.The questionnaire prepared was re-edited in the field. During the fieldwork, I interviewed 124 women, but only five of them let me use voice recorder. The daily observations, experiences, and memories were used, as the main sources of data collection to highlight and understand the village women?s world.The conclusion of the research connotes that through marriage a woman?s role is changing throughout her life. A woman first becomes a bride, and then by giving birth she becomes a mother, and after years past becomes a mother-in-law. This can be described as a passage from being a servant to being the one who is served. All these life stages have different roles, responsibilities and imply status changes within and outside the family. Every new role is reconstructing the relations among women themselves.