Encountering the self on the pole: Recreational pole scene in Türkiye

This thesis offers an embodied, spatial, and affective exploration of the process of becoming a recreational pole dancer in Istanbul, Turkey. Moving beyond the dominant academic discourse that frames pole dance within a simplistic empowerment/oppression binary, this research draws on autoethnographic and ethnographic methods to investigate the embodied, affective, and communal dimensions of the practice. Grounded in the author's position as both a pole dancer and a researcher, the study is structured in three core chapters. First, it examines the disciplined body of the pole dancer, arguing that the rigorous training and navigation of pain are not merely repressive but are transformative technologies of the self that enable creative and queer expression, blending masculine-coded strength with feminine aesthetics. Second, it investigates the pole studio as a produced space, detailing how its material conditions and spatial arrangements foster a sense of safety and community. Finally, it explores the affective bonds formed through shared vulnerability, practices like spotting, and collective rituals, arguing that these circulations of trust and sensuality orient dancers toward each other and generate a queer feminist counterspace. The thesis concludes that becoming a pole dancer is an ongoing, negotiated process where discipline, space, and affect intertwine. It demonstrates that the pole studio functions as a site of queer feminist world-making, where dancers actively reshape their bodies, relationships, and the meanings of femininity, strength, and community, holding the apparent contradictions of the practice in a productive and dynamic tension.