War, Patriarchy and capitalism: A case study on Syrian women in Turkey

In this Master's thesis, the relationship between war, capitalism and patriarchy were examined over the sample of Syrian women in Turkey who escape from the civil war in Syria. In this sense, generally the concepts of gender and patriarchal capitalism will be emphasized. The Syrian women who have escaped from the war in the hope of starting a new life are becoming vulnerable to sexual exploitation and human trafficing, as well as during migration, in refugee camps or with their "other" identities accompaniying them outside of the refugee camps either, under difficult economic conditions while trying to survive in poverty. Especially, Turkey's infrastructure hasn't been sufficient enough to afford a great quality of mass migration influx as it was in 2011 and the Syrians legal status could not be determined until publication of the Temporary Protection Regulation on 22 October 2014 lead to confront Syrian women with violence, poverty, exploitation and abuse in patriarchal capitalist chaotic atmosphere. In this sense, in-depth interviews were conducted with 24 Syrian women living in provinces of Şanlıurfa and Bolu. The field work was supported by reports of civil society organizations and the effect of patriarchal capitalism on the women's struggle for life, their gender and identity experiences have been tried to be analyzed. The differences in war and migration experiences of women affect their spatiality. The influence of patriarchal capitalism on Syrian women is seen being used as cheap labor and as commodification of female body. The patriarchal social structure and social oppressions reinforce the victimization of women Syrian and Turkish either. Therefore, it was tried to reveal the interaction between the Turkish society and Syrian refugees by looking local people's window during the analysis.