WOMEN AND RESISTANCE IN URBAN SPACE

This article studies women’s resistance and mechanisms of politicisation in marginalised urban areas by focusing on the case of women’s mobilization in the Dikmen Valley neighbourhood. In this mobilisation, the neighbourhood has a decisive role in the emergence of resistance, the development of a collective identity and the politicisation of the inhabitants. Appropriation and preservation of the neighbourhood which is considered by women as the central space for their everyday life and social relations become the main issue of their struggle. After presenting the Dikmen Valley and the evolution of urbanisation in Ankara, the article, drawing of Lefebvre's right to the city and theories on everyday forms of resistance, analyses the emergence of the discontent and the role of the neighbourhood in the resistance and the politicisation of the inhabitants. The focus will be particularly on women as they appear during the mobilisation as a leading power which convinced many other dwellers to join the action and the resistance in the neighbourhood. The article argues that the mobilisation experience in the neighbourhood has empowered women to question the political system, traditional values and gender relations in everyday life.

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