Taking off headscarves: Religion and diverse subjectivities in Turkey

In Turkey, the presence of women wearing headscarves in public spaces has been problematic in various ways since the 1960's. Until the second half of the 2010s, headscarf bans in public spaces were applied and lifted numerous times. Today, the headscarf is permitted in public spaces; however, "the problem of the headscarf" still exists in different ways. Just like the problem of the headscarf, the profile of Muslim women has also changed. With these changes, the meaning of "the women who took off their headscarves" transformed from the students and working women who had to take off their headscarves to continue their careers and academic studies, into young and proud women who willingly took off their headscarves. The aim of this research is to contextualize and historicize the experiences of the women who took off their headscarves today. How they navigated and negotiated their subjectivities, presences in public spaces, and their headscarves in today's Turkey is analyzed while showing the continuities and ruptures, similarities and differences between the previous generations of headscarved women and the women who wore and then took off their headscarves today. The intertwined relationship between religious beliefs, lifestyles, public space usage, and self-expression is examined. Twenty- two semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in order to understand how the women who took off their headscarves perceived their experiences.