Covid19 and the Outbreak Narrative: How the Turkish State Produces and Obscures Gendered and Sexual Vulnerabilities

Abstract

How do the state institutions in Turkey (dis)articulate gender politics? How does the institutional discourse disintegrate gender politics? Where, when, and how do the institutions locate discourse of gender and sexuality into politics of pandemic? Where do institutions become silent? This thesis offers a feminist reading of the pandemic politics and discourse in Turkey; specifically, it analyzes the gendered tensions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Investigating the impacts of the pandemic discourse of the state on gender politics, I aim to unpack the state rhetoric where the official outbreak narrative generates a particular gender narrative. Observing that the state discourse obscures the gendered impacts of the pandemic, I work on locating the pandemic responses and discourses in Turkey. Approaching to politics of discourse as an issue of power and knowledge where power appears through the continuity of knowledge production, I elaborate on how an institutional discourse interprets, incorporates, articulate and disarticulate gender and sexuality overtly and covertly. As unpacking the discursive struggle of the state for mastery in gender and sexuality discourse, I demonstrate how the state reshapes and redirects the narratives on gender and sexuality within the politics of outbreak. Keywords:...