MODO VGM EN SUPERFICIE

Leisure spaces contribute to the creation and expression of social identities. Use of leisure spaces reflects how particular individuals and groups do gender, and how, in leisure spaces, gendered subjectivities are constructed, maintained and reproduced. In the sixth chapter, I looked into how the Turkish-Dutch and Turkish respondents do gender through using leisure spaces, and accounted for the differences between the two groups.

The dominant idea regarding veiled pious Muslim women is that they are characterized by powerlessness and fixity, and have a very limited range of motion, especially with regard to accessing and using spaces of leisure. The chapter shows that, while a specific understanding of embodied integrity governs their mobility and use of leisure spaces, they can by no means be characterized by fixity and powerlessness. It is shown that, both in the Netherlands and Turkey, use of leisure spaces is mapped according to issues of propriety, primarily differentiated by use of alcohol, sexual divergences and the night-time economy. This sometimes resulted in avoiding certain places (university bars in the Dutch context and drinking hubs in I·stanbul), or moving around them selectively, as well as taking painstaking care in using leisure spaces at night time. Using such spaces especially at night time is perceived as damaging to these pious womens’ sexual and bodily integrity, as Deeb and Harb have shown for Beirut (2013), also noting for the Dutch context the social control exerted on the community’s women. My findings also confirm the prevalent idea that women’s fear of crime limits their movement in the night time (Valentine, Holloway and Jayne, 2010). In response, women resort to creating safe spaces for leisure, as in the example of Turkish women’s parties in the Netherlands, or in the example of opting for the relative safety of shopping malls in Turkey or choosing to stay indoors. Thus, the notion of embodied integrity was governed by ethical Islamic behaviours (i.e. particular attention to alcohol), social conventions of Turkish constructs of propriety, as well as more universal notions of female safety and security.

Discourses of belonging also affected use of leisure spaces. Sometimes, the respondents feared discrimination or perceived themselves as unfit for certain

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places dominated by the native Dutch or secular Turks, in line with the finding of Peters and de Haan regarding the division of Utrecht’s public space along ethnic, racial, gendered and classed lines (2011). Such divisions also applied to restaurants or eateries, as the ways in which food is consumed is also a function of drawing boundaries (Jansen, 1997). Accordingly, respondents negotiated belonging and claimed other places for leisure. I have shown how, in the Netherlands, the respondents claimed parks, as they experience city centres as exclusive spaces (Peters and de Haan, 2011; Komen and Schram 2005). In Turkey, they claimed malls as convenient and comfortable leisure spaces, as well as carving out conservative living and leisure spaces, as in the Başakşehir example.

Use of leisure spaces is dependent on people’s opportunities of mobility and movement. What also contributes to the respondents’ use of leisure spaces are the dominant gender regimes of the Netherlands and Turkey with regards to women’s mobility. The data showed that, contrary to the idea that Turkish-Dutch women are not allowed to go places, they have more mobility than they would have in Turkey due to the women-friendly spaces and ideas about the Netherlands being safer. While negative ideas about women’s mobility and use of leisure spaces is associated with conservative small towns in Turkey, this is not reflected in the mobility of respondents in I·stanbul or the whole of the Netherlands. One striking finding the chapter manifests is that while Turkish women would be thought of as having more power, thus more mobility, due to their dominant position of having social and cultural capital in Turkey, in effect, their mobility-induced power is diminished due to local constructs and structural factors around mobility.

In conclusion, in all the studied domains of education, work, social interaction, living arrangements and leisure, respondents are engaged in a construction of a gender identity and a religiously pious identity, through multiple ways at different levels. These identities are constituted through the constant changing outcome of the interaction of norms and ideologies on the one hand and practices and lived experiences of everyday reality on the other hand.

The respondents are highly skilled in acting in ways and manners in accordance with what is necessary in a particular situation, accommodating the exigencies of different identities as student, prospective participant in the Dutch economy, pious woman, dutiful member of the Muslim community and family. Identities are constantly negotiated and reworked. Neither the fact that they study, nor the fact that they wear a veil is sufficient to establish themselves as a career woman or as a pious woman. Such identities are always in a process of continual creation. Accordingly, the many norms regulations in the respondents’ lives are constantly adjusted and adapted to their immediate circumstances and needs. For example, in order to land a job in the Netherlands, a pious student might shake hands of the opposite sex, challenging the not-handshaking norms of a pious

female identity. At the same time, by landing a job, they challenge the predominant notion of the Muslim female as a non-worker. The constellation of identities are not given, they are works in progress.

The comparison I have undertaken between the Turkish-Dutch and Turkish respondents manifests both similarities and differences. While the respondents in both settings hold similar views on issues and adopt similar ethical values, in practice there are differences in how these views and values play out in everyday lives. Often times, these depend on the structural differences between the two locales. However, there are also unexpected outcomes: while the Netherlands is regarded as a more women-friendly setting in comparison to Turkey, and that the respondents are spatially more mobile in Dutch settings, it turns out that respondents in Turkey are more oriented to life outside the home sphere and more oriented towards using their education in high level jobs.