Hauptinhalt

Zeynep Kuyumcu (Gothenburg University): Navigating the Margins for a Space for Queer-Feminist Muslim Activism in Turkey

Veranstaltungsdaten

Public Talk

Contouring the Margins: Queer-Feminist Muslim Activism and the Reimagining of Religious Subjectivity in Turkey 

This presentation introduces the transformative agency of queer-feminist Muslim activism within the broader landscape of feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements in Turkey. Situated at the nexus of state-sanctioned Sunni-Islamic hegemony and a burgeoning anti-gender populist movement, the Havle Women’s Association (HWA) occupies a unique site of resistance at the crossroads of Islamic faith, feminism, and human rights. In doing so, HWA’s work proposes a critical shift in existing epistemologies of queer-feminist knowledge production while deconstructing patriarchal and exclusionary interpretations of Islam to carve out a space for intersectional religious subjectivity.

Focusing on the cultivation of decolonial feminist praxis, this talk examines how HWA’s activism challenges state-sponsored Islam-referenced patriarchy while simultaneously redefining the parameters of religious identity. Grounded in seven years of volunteer work and activist-observation, Kuyumcu illustrates the pioneering approaches Havle has developed, such as the “localization of feminism”, a framework that decolonizes intellectual and academic discourses surrounding the veiled body, piety, and Muslim womanhood. By moving beyond theoretical critique, this presentation showcases a mode of queer-feminist praxis that reconciles contemporary and deep-seated divides, offering a vital democratic counter-force to the global rise of anti-genderism and religious authoritarianism.

Short Biography

Zeynep Kuyumcu (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg and an Istanbul-based queer-feminist activist. Her doctoral research explores the spiritual and sexual subjectivities of LGBTIQ+ Muslims within Turkey’s contemporary climate of religious authoritarianism and anti-gender politics. Her academic interests are situated at the nexus of the anthropology of Islam, secularism, and decolonial-feminist praxis. Since 2019, she has been an active collaborator with various feminist and LGBTIQ+ collectives, most notably the Havle Women’s Association, Turkey’s first self-identified Muslim feminist organization.