Kadın ev işçilerinin gündelik hareketliliklerini anlamak: Ankara’da bir saha çalışması

UNDERSTANDING FEMALE DOMESTIC WORKERS’ DAILY MOBILITIES: A CASE STUDY IN ANKARA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY HİLAL KARA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF URBAN POLICY PLANNING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS JULY 2016 i Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Meliha ALTUNIŞIK Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science Assoc. Prof. Dr. Osman BALABAN Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science Assoc.Prof.Dr. Mustafa K.BAYIRBAG Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. H.Tarık ŞENGUL (METU, ADM) Assoc. Prof.Dr. Mustafa K. BAYIRBAG(METU, ADM) Assoc. Prof.Tahire ERMAN (Bilkent, POLS) ii I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name: Hilal KARA Signature iii : ABSTRACT UNDERSTANDING FEMALE DOMESTIC WORKERS’ DAILY MOBILITIES: A CASE STUDY IN ANKARA Kara, Hilal M.S. Department of Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa K. BAYIRBAG July 2016, 123 pages This thesis analyzes female urban practices, their mobility patterns and their urban perception emphasizing domestic labour. Regarding conventional wisdom which domestic labour relates to private sphere, female domestic labour has been considered as “invisible”; however, this thesis investigates female domestic workers’ visibility in the public sphere and spatiality in the city because female domestic labour may be seen as the most suitable site to observe all new forms of class and production of spaces. Considering Turkey’s on-going economic, political structure and cultural/politcal attitude toward women, to discuss female domestic workers and their daily practices across the city have ever been so noteworthy. Drawing on qualitative research in Ankara, Turkey through in-depth interviews, this thesis will attempt to investigate urban and spatial practices of women in domestic labour by tracking their daily mobilities. By following 32 women’s urban and daily mobility patterns, their urban stories will be narrated and examined. Keywords: Domestic labour, daily mobility, gendered mobility, urban space iv ÖZ KADIN EV İŞÇİLERİNİN GÜNDELİK HAREKETLİLİKLERİNİ ANLAMAK: ANKARA’DA BİR SAHA ÇALIŞMASI Kara, Hilal Yüksek Lisans, Kentsel Politika ve Yerel Yönetimler Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Mustafa K. BAYIRBAG Temmuz 2016, 123 sayfa Bu tez kadın ev işçilerinin kentsel pratiklerini, gündelik ve mekânsal hareketliliklerini ve onların kenti nasıl algıladıklarını ev içi emeği temel alarak anlamaya çalışmaktadır. Geleneksel düşünüşe göre, ev içi emek yalnızca özel alanla ilişkilendirilirken, onun kamusal alanla ilişkisi daha ikincil kalmaktadır. Bu çalışma ile ev içi emeğin mekânsallığı ve kent mekânı içerisindeki pozisyonu çalışılmıştır zira ev işçileri, yeniden yapılanan ekonomik ve politik yapının üretimi olan sınıfsal ilişkilerin ve üretim mekânlarının en iyi gözleyeni ve süreçleri en iyi deneyimleyen özneler konumundadır. Türkiye’nin yakın zamanda yaşadığı ekonomik ve politik süreçlerin yanısıra, kadına karşı alınan kültürel/politik tutum göz önüne alındığında, kadın ev işçileri ve onların kentsel deneyimlerini anlamaya çalışmak oldukça önemlidir. Tez, Ankara’da yaşayan 32 ev işçisi kadın ile yapılan derinlemesine görüşmelere dayanmakta olup, 32 kadının kent hikâyelerini ve onların gündelik/mekânsal hareketliliklerini aktarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Ev içi emek, gündelik/mekânsal hareketlilik, kadın, kent mekânı v To Female Domestic Workers and Sisters vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It would not have been possible to write this thesis without female domestic workers who did not hesitate to tell me their stories sincerely. They supported and regarded me as their daughters and a member of their families during the fieldwork. Thanks for their endless “motherhood and sisterhood”. Moreover, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa K. Bayırbağ for his patience, advice, encouragements and insight through the all stages of thesis. Without his precious encouragement and understanding, it would not be possible to conduct and end this thesis. I am also indebted to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tahire Erman who has not only contributed to this thesis, but also to enlighten me by her inspring and valuable comments and, I wish to thank to Prof. Dr. H.Tarık Sengül for his crucial suggestions. Furthermore, I gratefully thank to Assist. Prof. Dr. Melih Celik for his advices and guidance. My sincere thanks go to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sonay Özuğurlu Bayramoğlu, Asmin Kavas Urul, and Ayhan Melih Tezcan for their invaluable encouragement and companion. I also like to thank to all my friends who are always by my side with their critical contributions. Without their support, I would not cope with any difficulties. Last but not the least, I would like express my thanks to Fevzi Kılıç with his endless support and patience. I would like to thank my family: my parents Belma Kara and Murat Kara, for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this thesis and my life in general. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM………………………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ iv ÖZ ................................................................................................................................ v DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………….vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………….viii LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER I ................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Aim, Focus and Structure of Thesis .............................................................. 3 Aim ........................................................................................................................ 3 Focus ..................................................................................................................... 5 Structure................................................................................................................ 8 1.2. Methodology of the Research ........................................................................ 9 1.3. The Structure of Interviews ......................................................................... 14 CHAPTER II .............................................................................................................. 19 2.1. Examining City with the Mobility Concept .................................................... 19 2.2. Gendered Mobility as a Key Term .................................................................. 24 2.3. Domestic Labour as a Gendered Class Practice .............................................. 31 viii CHAPTER III ............................................................................................................ 38 3.1. Examining the City through Gender Perspective ............................................ 38 3.1.1. Work and Home Perception of Women.................................................... 41 3.1.2. Spousal Relation Perception of Women ................................................... 45 3.1.3. Sisterhood Relation Perception of Women .............................................. 47 3.2. Examining the City through the Mobility Concept ......................................... 51 3.2.1. Mobility and Urban: The First Arrival in the City ................................... 51 “Ankara is my village” (K13) ............................................................................ 58 3.2.2. Mobility and Urban: Neoliberalization Deepens (After the 2000s) ......... 63 For my child (ren)............................................................................................... 66 Home in Neighborhood ...................................................................................... 71 3.2.3. Mobility and Urban: Involvement in the Labour Market ............................. 74 The Work-Home Trip .......................................................................................... 75 The Impact of Urban Sprawl .............................................................................. 84 The Differentiated Mobilities among Domestic Workers: Doğantepe ............... 94 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 99 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 105 APPENDICES ......................................................................................................... 113 A.TÜRKÇE ÖZET ....................................................................................... 113 B.TEZ FOTOKOPİSİ İZİN FORMU .......................................................... 123 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The Ankara Population by 1985 and 2015 .................................................. 14 Table 2.Key Issues in This Thesis ............................................................................. 30 Table 3. Work Perception .......................................................................................... 42 Table 4.Husbands' employment ................................................................................. 46 Table 5. The Age Range ............................................................................................ 48 Table 6.Motives to Migrate and Work ...................................................................... 53 Table 7. How Their Neighborhoods Where They Lived Changed ............................ 72 Table 8.Farthest Workplace ....................................................................................... 81 Table 9.Workplace Preferences ................................................................................. 83 Table 10.The Change in Workplaces of Workers Who Has Been Working for Longest Term (>30 years) ......................................................................................... .85 Table 11.The Changes of Workplaces by years ........................................................ 88 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Location of Ankara .................................................................................... 14 Figure 2. Workplace and Residence .......................................................................... 16 Figure 3.The Change in Workplaces of Workers Who Has Been Working for Longest Term ............................................................................................................. 86 Figure 4.The Changes of Workplaces by years......................................................... 89 Figure 5.The Mobility Pattern Between 1990 and 2000 ........................................... 91 Figure 6.The Mobility Pattern after 2000.................................................................. 92 Figure 7.The Mobility Pattern after 2010.................................................................. 93 Figure 8.The Mobility of Dwellers in Doğantepe ..................................................... 94 xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “I get up at 5 am, I heat the stove. I clean up the house and cook something for dinner. Take the bus at 6 am and then go to Kızılay. Rush to catch up the railway and connecting time (75 minutes in Ankara) you are all sweaty. You should be home no later than 8 am. All day cleaning ... That's 6 pm end of work, if you're going to be late home, your angry husband waits for you. Rush again. No working but commuting consumes us ...” (K1)1 This quotation is taken from one of the stories I will tell, which you may have heard if you ever travelled on the bus at 8 am or 5 pm. Everybody has an urban story. This is especially true for the domestic workers face the challenges of neoliberal urbanization. As the new generation “urban workers”, their story has much to tell us about the tolls the recent waves of urbanization has taken on the weakest links of this new social (urban) order, standing on the intersection of class and gender. Following Roland Barthes’ understanding, I argue that city is the place which emerges from the meaning map of its residents and its borders are shaken or consolidated by the spatial mobilities and also where feelings, experiences, any forms of capital have been encountered or collided. The author of this thesis is a woman, student and has been an urban resident throughout her life. Every single day, “her urban story” has been reconstructed in her eyes by daily practices and also her K1:She is 40 years old and born in Yozgat. She has lived in Doğantepe. She has worked since 2006 in Cukurambar and Or-an. She is only breadwinner because of her husband with disability. She has two boys an university graduate. She prefers employers’s attitude compared to distance between the neighborhoods of workplace and home for the workplace. 1 1 involvement in the labour market as a tutor and a sales assistant for some clothing brands. Gender and class relations have shaped those practices. The author has been working as a private tutor for more than five years so she has regularly visited upper-income neighborhoods2. Wherever she goes, she comes across domestic workers working at the same home (workplace). As a matter of course, they talk about anything ranging from economic difficulties to daily urban transportation, and to the employer’s attitude. With regards to experience, employer’s attitude towards the tutor is very different than that towards her. Even though she (employer) keeps her distance from a tutor, she does more so when it comes to the domestic worker. No matter how different labour positions- mental and material- they have, both suffer from similar tensions; when being late, feeling of discomfort in the street or on the bus, problems arising from uncertain conditions innate to the job, the emotional burden of negative encounters with the employers. To understand women’s feelings and experience during the travel commuting from one’s home (workplace) to her own for very long hours on the bus will set forth a different perspective to examine the socio-emotional costs and impacts of the restructuring era. The distinctive side of this thesis is to investigate urban space from gender perspective specifically female domestic workers who have been linked with the “home” and the “private” and make blurred borders of the polarized city through everyday mobility under the current patterns of urbanization. The neoliberal era may be regarded as one which produces explosion of spaces and displacement of people by other people. In that regard, newly emergent spaces increasingly “fragmented and socially polarized” (Kern & Mullings, 2013) make urban residents more mobile across the city, which results in greater distances that establish urban space formed and bounded by class and gender relations. The urban discussions to date have tended to focus on legal regulations, and governmental issues for analysing impacts of the neoliberal urbanization. The question of how the new urban order produced by these policies and experienced by real people were felt remained intact. And this is especially true for women. However, generally among those discussions, the gender perspective has 2 Angora Evleri, Cukurambar and Cayyolu are residents of upper-income groups and located in the southwest of Ankara and these are workplaces of the author. 2 unfortunately been ignored by scholars or policy makers in both developing and implementing policies just as in analysing them. This study may be envisaged as a story whose author is one of the characters: “de te fabula narratur”. In addition, it is asserted as a brief summary of female domestic worker’s everyday travel and labour story, which cites expressions, experiences of women and at least seeks ways to reflect women’s urban stories from a bottom-up perspective. This study is in quest of mapping of the city emerging from women’s expressions. How the recent waves of urbanization have changed housework as a gendered practice and female domestic workers’ spatial and social mobility are two focal points of this study. Today’s cities are structured as more socially and economically polarized, where distances between workplaces and homes of domestic workers increased and resulted in the proliferation of mobility spaces, deepening contradictory impacts on domestic workers. The recent form of urbanization deepens disabling characteristics of mobility through domestic workers’ being confined to two homes, as workplace and their own home, reproducing gender roles. They seem more mobile but in disabling being depending on the public transportation designed within the male dominated structure, and increasing distances accompanied by with longer commuting time, thus it turns into interruptions on their everyday lives. As the current patterns of urbanization consolidated, to access to the means for survival such as housing, education for children, seeking employment, has been more disadvantageous for domestic workers who are more vulnerable urban residents in terms of gendered and spatial practices. 1.1. Aim, Focus and Structure of Thesis Aim This study aims to mainly reflect upon the urban/gender nexus and to give a bottomup account of recent waves of urbanization through making real lives’ voices heard, and it also aims to shed light on the current patterns of urbanization from the point of view of female urban residents specifically domestic workers. 3 Aforementioned in the introduction part, the author of this thesis has tutored during undergraduate years and she has observed many families as well as class relations learning through experience. She has had opportunity to observe “the other” neighborhood relative to her class position, therefore she has experienced different spatial practices when traveling from her place to “the Other’s”. In any going to “the other” place, she and the domestic worker of the same house (two workers of the same house) have travelled together in company with long conversations composed of similar tensions. These bring about some essential questions necessary to be investigated; how a female domestic worker experiences and perceives the city; when and why she migrated to the city; when and why she become involved in the labour market; how she perceives her own neighbourhood and the neighbourhood of workplace- “another home” are the main questions. Sub-questions could be stated; how she perceives labour; what has changed in the spousal relations as a result of working; how she develops survival strategies; how she perceives public transportation; what happens during each travel commuting between her home and workplace; how she experiences spatial differences as she comes across middle and upper middle class woman everyday; whether boundaries between socially polarized urban spaces will be more deepened or eroded3 in every confrontation. Besides, the first stage of the fieldwork which brings in the mobility concept adds some sub-questions; how mobilities get produced and what is the form of mobility - excluding some or including some, which are depicted by also Cresswell (2008:1-2); “…how do particular forms of mobility become meaningful? What other movements are enabled or constrained in the process? Who benefits from this movement?” When approached to how women perceive and understand the city, Barthes and Lynch’s arguments on the city inspired the thesis in a certain sense. For Barthes (1982), the city is described as “discourse” and “text” speaking to their residents, while for Lynch (1960), as a result of “legibility”, the city is beyond object perceived even enjoyed; it is rather a product of many builders who constantly change its structure in accordance with their reasons. This study aims to understand how female Alkan claimed that: “Space is socially produced, nevertheless; society is spatially produced too. In other words, space is not only ‘empty vessel’ to be filled with ‘water’. Space is sometimes abraded by ‘water’” 3 4 urban residents specifically domestic workers “builds their own cities” (Cantek, 2011:12) through understanding their gendered mobility. Gendered mobility which is a key term to examine the women’s city stands on the intersection of gender and mobility, being socially produced and contextualized phenomenon and results in “enabling “or “imprisoned”4, affects everyday lives (Cresswell&Uteng, 2008:11) 5 .In this perspective, this study highlights the importance of how gender and mobility interact with each other and their influence on women’s everyday lives by questioning how mobilities ‘enables, disables and modifies gendered practices’(Cresswell&Uteng, 2008:1-2) Focus This thesis theoretically focuses on domestic work referring to urban and gender practices through mobility perspective and then empirically analyses those practices of domestic workers after the 1980s, when neoliberal urbanization developed and deepened in Turkey. This study focuses temporally on the process that began in the 1980s and going on until the midst of 2015, specifically between 1985 and 2015. This period has been determined posteriori, because the interviewees focused on this period while talking about their work and urbanization experiences. Although extensive research has been carried out on urban theory, few studies exist which analyse the intersection of gender and urban space and particularly domestic workers’ cities. To reiterate conventional urban theory, it revolves around a number of binarydistinctions: the public and private sectors, the city and the suburbs, work and home, production and reproduction. The latter locations are attached to those of women, the former is assumed “falsely” to be of men (McDowell, 1983:60) McDowell claims further that conventional urban theory neglects significance of domestic labour when defining urban space as “the sphere of collective “…different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway-differentiated mobility; some are in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it” (Massey, 1993:61) 4 As depicted by Fincher, everyday places are where power relations reproduced: “Everyday places like the domestic home, the playground and the community center exhibit power relations that are differentiated and fractured by relations of gender, ethinicity, age, ability and class. They are no different in this form the famously ‘big-P’ political site of public space, the parliament, the city council, and the large unionized workplace...” (Fincher, 2004:49) 5 5 consumption” by focusing on collective consumption rather than privatised consumption and citing specifically Castell’s understanding, and McDowell draws attention to gender blindness of urban theorists due to “being unaware of the importance of the shifting boundaries between collectively provided and individually provided goods and services”. Furthermore, some prominent scholars such as Miranne and Young (2000), Lofland (1990), Spain (2008), McDowell (1999), Rose (2013), Domosh and Seager (2001) and Mackenzie (1989) who attempt to close the gap between gender and urban space, drawing upon the understanding which states that “as women adjust their use of space and time, they create new environments and reconfigure existing ones.” (Miranne&Young, 2000:5) inspired by the development of theoretical focus of this study. Following up their contribution, both concepts (gender and urban space) are directly intertwined, namely; gender is socially constructed and it is identified as a “process” whereby people become gendered (Gilbert, 2000: 66). In parallel to this, space and place are also socially constructed; “Social relations are constituted spatially which is used for indicating that space and social relations are mutually constituted ‘processes’. (Gilbert, 2000: 66) Regarding Miranne and Young’s understanding; it is quite certain that men and women experience city differently because of the gender asymmetries embedded in distinct institutions and local institutional relationships (Miranne&Young, 2000:5) They focus on the differences between women’s and men’s experiences and perceptions of the city, emphasizing spatial constraints experienced by women 6 . The historical background of those attempts to converge urban space and gender dates back to early 1970s. Especially after the 1960s, the maintenance of household economy began to require the existence of two income earners in the nuclear families, bringing women’s labour to the centre of waged and domestic work debate as well as a public and private dichotomy. Women increasingly active in the public sphere in this era had to struggle with dual pressure raising from her economic roles Moreover, they take consideration into cut on public spending’s impact on households and private sphere by right-wing governments since late 1970s and as a result; unpaid domestic labour by women has gained more importance as seen in McDowell’s analysis (McDowell, 1983:60) 6 6 and responsibilities originated from the household. Although women began to earn money resulting in being more visible in the public sphere, the home continued to be perceived as the place of women. This understanding causes restrictions on the presentation of women in the public sphere and results in the maintenance of neglecting “invisible labour”. Some changes in urban space cause shifts in women’s lives, and the change in women’s roles also brings about new forms of organizations and services across the city. Mackenzie elaborated that following the emergence of suburbs, which is the utmost polarized city form; women and men’s spaces have become more polarized. On the other hand, it was also reformulated in accordance with women’s needs by gathering locations of work, places of leisure, education, and health services (Mackenzie, 2002:249-272) As mentioned above, women’s increasing roles in labour market and public sphere have begun to reshape settings of work and working hours parallel to mobility patterns and then it is not difficult to foresee that calls of women to formulate urban space, transportation and house policies come up. It is impossible to ignore these issues during designing cities and policies (Mackenzie, 1989: 256) since; “Space and place are gendered and sexed, and gender relations are spaced’’ (McDowell, 1999:65) Besides, domestic labour particularly waged domestic labour is another focal point empirically focused by this thesis. To define domestic work and worker, the term “domestic work” means work performed in or for a household or households7; and the term “domestic worker”8 means any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship; a person who performs domestic work only occasionally or sporadically and not on an occupational basis is not a domestic worker. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s findings, there are at least 53 million 7 The Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), Article 1 8 This study has not approached nannies and housekeeper sparely because as learned from fieldwork, interviewees who were nannies at the beginning are going on working as housekeeper with same employers and mostly all interviewees have worked as both nanny and housekeeper in certain period of their working life. 7 domestic workers worldwide currently; 83 percent of all domestic workers are women9 which indicate a highly feminized sector. Domestic work related to home remains a key role to determine woman roles and embraced by several feminists as a reason for expelling women from political and social life (Rosaldo, Lamphere, 1974 as cited in Bora, 2012). Nevertheless, Davidoff approaches home and domestic work as a site which not only produces gender roles but also social and political order because these are assumed where gender and class relations intertwined (Davidoff, 2002: 107), which is a departure point of this thesis. Structure The overall structure of thesis takes the form of three chapters, including introduction, theoretical discussion, and case analysis by articulating these in each other on a step by step basis. Chapter 1 as introduction chapter gives brief information about theoretical and empirical focus of this study referring to some key concepts which will be mentioned in the next chapters of the study and, the methodology applied for the fieldwork and case analysis. Besides, the main issues addressed in this chapter are why and how this thesis emerged, main and sub-questions of this thesis, the content and the structure of interviews. Chapter 2 which has been divided into three parts, lays out the theoretical dimensions of the research and looks at how we understand the city, gender and domestic labour within the same context. The first part deals with examining city through mobility concept, considering how different mobilities have emerged as a result of interventions into urban space. Moreover, the second part seeks to explain mobility through gender; gendered mobility and major contributions of this thesis to this key term. Lastly, the third part is concerned with the domestic labour as a gendered class practice and how it turns into contradictory occurrences among women. 9 The Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), Article 1, http://www.ilo.org/global/docs/WCMS_209773/lang--en/index.htm, accessed on 22.03.2016 8 Chapter 3 is the most substantial part of this thesis because all theoretical discussions and the findings of fieldwork will be examined and discussed within this chapter, dividing into two main parts. The first main part explores the perception of work and how spousal relations evolved through women’s working and how they perceive domestic work as employment relation. The second main part investigates the urbanization process of women beginning from the first arrival in the city and then beginning to work, motives to work, urban experiences from the point of view of them with referring to some figures. The last part of this thesis, symbolizing the end of the story presents the summary of key theoretical and empirical findings. 1.2. Methodology of the Research “De te fabula narratur”10 I’ll tell you one thing. It has been a very interesting conversation with you because I think in the course of conversation it’s given me the time… to reflect … on what we are doing and how we are doing it… It has given me a good oppurtunity”, An Interviewee (Rubin&Rubin, 1995: 1) The previous part provided a brief summary and some key terms of this thesis. This part will pose the methodology of research and case study, which is at the core of thesis. This part will also state some methodological discussions and following this, the stages and structure of fieldwork will be elaborated. Blaikie (2007) poses four classical research paradigms; positivism, critical rationalism, classical hermeneutics, and interpretivism. Blaikie summarizes their approach to answering to the ‘big’ question whether the methods of the natural sciences can be applied to the social sciences. Positivism’s answer to this question is so clearly confirmative, which states that all sciences natural or social require epistemology of empiricism. In the positivist model, knowledge is politically and socially neutral and such knowledge is achieved following a precise, predetermined 10 “The story applies to you” 9 approach to gathering information by extracting simple relationships from a complex real world as if time and context did not matter (Denzin, 1989; Lincoln & Cuba, 1985; Rubin & Rubin, 1995). As another paradigm; critical rationalism responds to this question both confirmative and disapprovingly by favoring the use of the same method to advance knowledge and disfavoring the perspective of science within positivism. The third paradigm; classical hermeneutics states “no” to this question concerned with interpretation by advocating irrelevant relation among natural and social sciences. The fourth paradigm it seems more applicable to the aim of this study interpretivism gives a certain “no” arguing that because of qualitative differences in their own subject matters, a different approach is in favour. Having root in hermeneutics and phenomenology, the interpretive model stands in sharp contrast to positivism. (Blaikie, 2007; Rubin&Rubin, 1995) In interpretive research model, social research is not about categorizing and classifying; it is about what events mean, how people adapt, and how they understand what has happened to them focused on the complexity of human life. Time and context are comprehended as constantly changing. To gain and understand values of interviewees are the most important aim of the interpretive research model. Interpretive researchers try to elicit interviewees’ views of their worlds, their work, and the events they have experienced or observed. To reconstruct and understand the interviewees’ experiences and interpretations, interpretive researchers seek thick and rich descriptions of the cultural and topical sites they are studying and try to develop an empathetic understanding of the world of others”(Rubin&Rubin,1995: 35) Nevertheless, some criticisms raised towards interpretative research model: “...of whose meanings are used to construct these ideal types has been a matter of some dispute. Can the observer’s point of view be used to attribute likely meanings or must they be taken from the social actor’s point of view?” by Blaikie. (2007: 131) Despite different class positions I and interviewees have, we found many common things in our urbanization stories. At first, interviewees were surprised by my job as a private tutor and similar tensions we shared despite of my being an university graduate, however having talked about common problems from uncertain work conditions and 10 being a woman in the city, interviewees told their urbanization stories unsubtly, so that I did not intervene into their words. In addition to the four classical paradigms, some contemporary research paradigms such as critical theory, social realism, and feminism have been set forth by adaptation or building on classical hermeneutics and/or interpretivism (Blaike, 2007:176). Two of them, critical theory and feminism, are assumed as two of paradigms leading the way to this thesis. Critical theory research model offers the researcher and the researched as engaged in dialogic communication; “a co-participant whose task is to facilitate the emancipation of the victims of social, political and economic circumstances, to help people to transform their situations and hence meet their needs and rectify deprivations” (Blaikie, 2007:201). The latter research paradigm-feminist understanding’s methodology is based upon more listening and less talking focused on part of the society having little or no societal voice. In this methodology11, the reseacher should not be neutral but at least should be a partner to the interviewee. Feminist methodology is not merely focused on what exists at present and one or the other rather it attempts to involve the linkages between how it is done and how it is analyzed. Moreover, within this methodology by abstaining from “abstract discourse”, “direct experience directly related to us” understanding is preferred (Cook, 1986: 3-4). Harding and Hinttkka identify notable characteristics of feminist analysis by rejecting the researcher’s objectivist stance as ‘invisible and autonomous voice of authority’ towards the researched12: “The researcher must place herself or himself in 11 To a certain extent, Cook referred to five principles of feminist methodology become more of an issue to clarify much better feminist methodology; (1) the necessity of continuously and reflexively attending to the significance of gender and gender asymmetry as a basic feature of all social life; (2) the centrality of consciousness-raising as a specific methodological tool and as a general orientation or way of seeing; (3) the need to challenge the norm of objectivity that assumes the subject and object of research can be separated fromone another and that personal and/or grounded experiences are unscientific; (4) concern for the ethical implications of feminist research and recognition of the exploitation of women as objects of knowledge; and (5) emphasis on the empowerment of women and transformation of patriarchal social institutions through research (Cook,1986:5) Cook also claims that to formulate a closed concept of feminist methodology is so difficult because “methodology” itself is trained with positivist schema in the eyes of feminist understanding but it may be stated that feminist methodology is the process of becoming and is not yet a fully articulated stance “What counts as knowledge must be grounded on experience. Human experince differs according to the kindsw of activities and social relations in which humans engage. Women’s experience systematically differs from the male experience upon which knowledge claims have been grounded. Thus the experience on which the prevailing claims to social and natural knowledge are founded is, 12 11 the same critical plane as the subject matter” and to realize this aim, qualitative method is mostly preferred in feminist research especially in-depth interviews because such interviews provides site for “more participatory, non-hierarchical, nonmanipulative and non-exploitative relationship between researcher and the researched” (Blaikie, 2007:174) Besides, this paradigm uses a more open, loosely structured methodology without any dominancy of researcher over the interview. For them, successful interviewing requires shared experience between the interviewer and interviewee otherwise important information will be ignored (Rubin&Rubin, 1995:37), which is also the case with the author of this thesis and the interviewees. Certainly, rather than shared culture, common things between researcher and interviewee may be more rewarding for both sides, nevertheless; if this methodology sees the interviewee as active actor during interview, some ignored and neglecting parts will not impede on the flow of the research, on the contrary; instantaneous reactions and sentiments rather than unspoken words throughout conversation will be more meaningful for both sides. In this regard, interrogating research strategies provide a substantial area and a map leading to seek the answers to “what” and “why” questions. In general, four types of research strategies are used by researchers; inductive, deductive, retroductive and abductive research strategy. Briefly, inductive research strategy begins with collection of data, then data analysis followed by generalizations. The “what” question is answered by this strategy much better than the “why” question. The second strategy –deductive uses the reverse; the data is collected and the matching up theory and data are controlled in case of mismatch, theory is modified or rejected. The third one, retroductive strategy, constructs a hypothetical model at first, then consolidates it by observations, where retroduction means a process of going to data and return to an explanation and iteration of it. The last one - abductive strategy going from an observation to a theory and inferring to the best explanation begins with social world of social actors with first of all, only partial human experince only partially understood: namely, masculine experience as understood by men. However, when this experience is presumed to be gender-free – when the male experince is taken to be the human experience- the resulting theories, concepts, methodologies, inquiry goals and knowledge claims distort human social life and human thought” (Harding&Hinttikka, 1983) 12 the aim to investigate their construction of reality, their way of conceptualization of the social world. By this strategy, social actors’ reality, the way they have constructed and interpreted their activities is embedded in their everyday language so the researcher has to enter their world to understand the motivations bringing about social actions (Blaikie, 2007:10). This thesis adopts an abductive research strategy referring to feminist critical research methodology by in-depth interviews and then the position of the researcher of this study is understood as an “inside learner” rather than an “outside expert” To make conversation with domestic workers and ‘female’ domestic workers requires “inside learner” and “bottom up “understanding because as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, this study emerges from ‘shared experience’ among the researcher and the researched resulting from working in the same places notwithstanding the distinct labour positions. As Marshall and Rossman (1989) claim research design is about planning what the researcher is going to ask, whom s/he is going to ask and why and then designing a qualitative interview work is as same as planning a travel. Designing this thesis and every step of fieldwork could be assumed as planning a travel both in real meaning and metaphorically. 13 1.3. The Structure of Interviews Ankara is the city where fieldwork was held and is the capital of the Republic of Turkey and located in Central Anatolia region with an area of 24.521 km². Figure 1. Location of Ankara Ankara is governed by a metropolitan municipality and is composed of 25 districts. It has experienced rapid urbanization process between 1985 and 2015 temporally focused by this thesis, the urban population raised from 3,306,32713 in 1985 to 5,270,07514 in 2015. As of 1985, female population was 1,603,522 when male population was 1,702,805. As of 2015, female population in Ankara is 2,649,340 while male population is 2,621,235. Table 1. The Ankara Population by 1985 and 2015 1985 2015 Total Population 3,306,327 5,270,075 Urban Population 2,737,209 5,270,075 Rural Population 569,118 0 Female Male 1,603,522 2,649,340 1,702,805 2,621,235 As particularly emphasized, the period between 1985 and 2015 has been derived from statements of interviewees as a part of their urbanization stories. Besides, neighboorhoods were not described before fieldwork, the researcher further reached 13 http://rapory.tuik.gov.tr/21-05-2016-21:48:21-17711859011314188781399153340.html?(accessed 21.05.2016) 14 Address Based Population Registered System, Turkstat 2015 14 to the place through interviewee. Throughout this study, many neighbourhoods in Ankara will be mentioned and Figure 215 indicates the neighborhoods of interviewees’ residences and workplaces which are mostly referred. Generally, Oran, Angora Evleri, Beysukent, Ümitköy, Bağlica, Gaziosmanpaşa (GOP) are neighboorhoods where upper income groups have resided in. The interviewees settled in both peripheral and central districts in Ankara. Women residing in such central districts (Kolej, Seyranbagları, Oran, Çankaya and GOP) and high income group neighborhoods (Bağlıca and Umitköy) have also been working as janitors in the apartment and they do not pay rent. Interviewees are composed of thirty-two women whose age range from 25 to 55 and qualified domestic workers, and none of them is live-in domestic workers. Only one of them has attended a university; but had to drop out. Thirty-one interviewees are primary school graduate. Even though all of them insisted on pursuing further education, their fathers did not allow them to go school and the most of them were forced to marry at the age of between 14 and 17. The researcher went to thirty-two homes, generally interviewees’ homes, at their time of convenience, because they have restricted time for interviews so the researcher went to their houses after they arrived their houses at 8.00 pm. 12 interviews were held at their workplaces by paying regard to absence of employer. Two interviews not being recorded because of interviews’ disallowances were made on the bus. 15 As seen in this figure, Cankaya and GOP have been shown at the same box. Cankaya is not bounded to this area. Cankaya Municipality is consisted of Emek, Bahçelievler, Dikmen and Sokullu neighboorhoods; however, interviewee resided in GOP emphasized if anyone asks where she lives in, she response it; “Cankaya” so this notation refers to this statement. 15 METU Campus Figure 2. Workplace and Residence16 During the trips for interviews, researcher spent approximately sixty hours on the way and on the bus, which avails interviewees’ experiences on daily traveling and this ‘social act’17 leads to this study focus on daily mobility pattern of workers so “the metaphor of travel” is realized in the real meaning. The researcher has also used the bus route Angora Evleri18 for more than 5 times to observe and this study evolved into the aim of analysing women’s daily travel story after those observations. As far as this study tries to show everyday travel and labour story of 32 women, it also tells the researcher’s travel and labour story by calling for “social act”. As Vanderstoep and Johnston argue, qualitative research tries to reveal mapping processes of people at the margins of a culture so this method has become 16 Near neighborhoods are shown in same circle. Denzin and Lincoln (1989) describe the research process itself as a “social act”; research processes are affected by the interpretations of researchers, participants, and contexts and the interactive effects that researchers, participants, and contexts have on each other. 17 18 Angora evleri is a neighborhood resided generally by upper-income groups located in the southwest part of Ankara. 16 the “favoured methodology for those scholars doing Marxist, feminist, gay and lesbian, and cultural studies19” The form of the interviews can be regarded as both structured and informal. “An informal interview allows the researcher to go with the flow and create impromptu questions as the interview progresses” (Vanderstoep, Johnston, 2009:225) Whereas there is set of prescribed questions, depending on interviewees’ attitude, some interviews took an “informal” form sometimes, interviewee told her story uninterrupted by the researcher, which presented much more data than the structured ones. Considering questions of the interview, the first group of questions is composed of participants’ history; her hometown, when, how and why she migrated to the city, her education, marital status, when she got married, whom she is married to, the number of household, and information about her children. By these questions, the interviewee is encouraged to talk about herself with her expressions. These questions are critical for the flow of the conversation, which may be called as “the meeting stage”, during which the researcher also gives information about herself by telling her story. Questions are followed by the husband’s position in her eyes. This part is composed of some questions related to the husband’s present and past jobs as well as workplaces, the type of transportation for everyday mobility. Throughout this part, spousal relations are tried to be comprehended in general; interviewees’ senses toward their husbands implicitly shows the power relations in the household is understood clearly. The last part of the questions seeks to understand women’s labour perception; what she is doing at the workplace, how she perceives work; whether she likes her job or not, whether she would rather have another job instead of the existing one, how she balances housework in her own home with those in her workplace (another home- as “A qualitative perspective assumes that knowledge is constructed through communication and interaction; as such, knowledge is not “out there” but within the perceptions and interpretations of the individual. In short, knowledge is constructed or created by people. A qualitative perspective assumes that you cannot analyse and understand an entity by analysis of its parts; rather, you must examine the larger context in which people and knowledge function. This concept is called the social construction of reality. (Vanderstoep, Johnston, 2009:166) 19 17 they call as their workplaces), which transportation type is preferred by her and how long traveling takes; what the everyday fare is, whether she has any friends and what they are talking about during traveling, whether Ankara is a secure city, she wishes her children would live in Ankara in the future, there is any place to spend time for leisure activities, any places; shopping mall, cinema or anything else are some questions and as well as responses voiced by interviewees. The main aim of this part is to understand urban practices and experiences of women resulted from their labour and gender positions. Towards the end of questions, the aim is to understand their senses and expectations about the future for both themselves and foresight devoted to the city. Following up interviewees’ urban experiences, the figures and tables showing the mobility patterns based on the change in the workplaces, the urban sprawl, work perception and spatial perception of interviewees will be involved in the next chapters, which aims to narrate female domestic workers’ urban stories. 18 CHAPTER II “Every story is a travel story - a spatial practice.” Michel de Certeau Chapter 2 lays out the theoretical dimensions of this thesis, and looks at how we analyse the concepts of urban space (city), mobility, gender, class, and domestic labour by articulating these with each other. The main questions addressed in this chapter are: a) How has ‘socially polarized’ and ‘fragmented’ spaces emerged; b) What would the contribution of mobility concept be in analysing spatial fragmentation and social polarization as a major outcome of the current patterns of urbanization; c) How do we examine the mobility and urban relation through gender perspective; d) How do we examine the intertwined relation among gender and class within urban space particularly focusing on domestic labour and its spatiality. 2.1. Examining City with the Mobility Concept The significant contribution of this thesis committed to explore the city perceived as urban space across which urban residents are socially and spatially mobile, stemming from female domestic workers’ everyday stories. Before discussing the city referring to mobility, it needs to briefly refer to the main arguments on the city. Robert Park, Ernest W. Burgess and Louis Wirth who are foreground scholars of the Chicago School20 mainly discussed urban residents’ relations with each other and the In Gottdiener’s statement, the assumptions of Chicago School are summarized as following:“….the early work of Chicago School might qualify as a version of political economy in nonmarxist sense, because of its emphasis on the effects of economic organization and competitive processes in explaining aggregate patterns of social behaviour…and contemporary understanding of it emphasized upon symbiotic relationships or the mutual dependence between unlike organisms,…and commensal relationships or the cooperation due to supplementary similarities within the same species because ‘we all have to eat from the same table’ with emphasis on equlibrium-seeking systems which further 20 19 environment. They tried to understand the effects of urbanization over individuals 21 and analyze influences of city’s distinct parts on one another and on the habitants by seeking “the order” and abstaining from any different movements which lead to disorder. In their assumption, the city is the man’s city, not the woman’s. Lefebvre, Castells and Harvey who critically attack to Chicago School examined the city as urban space where class conflicts and economic inequality emerged and identified the city as a direct reflection and/or production of those inequalities in addition to offer solutions to those. Continuing along those arguments, how urban space is produced; how polarized urban space is formed unequally were preeminent questions by those scholars. To exemplify, Castells investigates how urban problems emerged rather than how urban space is produced. In his understanding, the city is where collective consumption and reproduction of labour power are generated. Cities have delivered services for reproduction of labour power to meet the collective consumption needs for education, health, housing, and facilities (Castells, 1979: 445): What is an ‘urban area’? A production unit? Not at all, in so far as the production units are placed on another scale (on a regional one, at least). An institutional unit? Certainly not, what is, then, what is called an urban unit? Or, more generally, an urban area? This term of social and administrative practice designates rather - It would be easy enough to agree- a certain residential unit, an ensemble of dwellings with corresponding ‘services’. An urban unit is not a unit in terms of production. On the other hand, it possesses a certain specificity in terms of residence, in terms of everydayness denied a view of society as possessing various problems arsing from its class nature and which ignored the effects of racism, economic inequality and uneven spatial development in settlement space… In sum, Chicago School posed three theoretical assertions: the efficacy of the biological analogy, the use of social Darwinist principles to explain human behaviour, and the relegation of symbolic values to the realm of social psychology as secondary to the primacy of economic competition.”(Gottdiener, 1988: 29,37) Connections within city habitants have been “more transitory, less stable and superficial” in the thoughts of both Wirth, Park and Burgess. Regarding Park’s thoughts, as city develops, the oppurtunities of the individiual man for contact and for association also multiply even this connection becomes transitory and less stable. With the growth of transportation and communication, the mobility of individual man has increased besides the distinction of the urban population’ residences tends to establish the mobility of individual man (Park&Burgess, 1984:40) 21 20 In fact, conflicts in everyday life and reproduction of space through everyday activities have been focal points in Lefevbre’s analysis. In his assumptions, everyday life isgenerated through the interrelation of social and economicspaces. Several practices reiterated not only shape urban life but also produce/reproduce the political space. Within this framework, urban spaces have evolved into resistance sites. The power of everyday life comes from its cyclical characteristics and continuity which becomes ordinary and lived not even noticed. urban spaces embedded in complicated, mysterious and veiled face of the everyday city, the reality hidden by simplicity and in rationality of repeated actions, routines and habits that reiterated insistently by urban residents (Lefevbre, 1971:21): Yet people are born, live and die. They live well or ill; but they live in everyday life, where they make or fail to make a living either in the wider sense of surviving or not surviving, or just surviving or living their lives to the full. It is in everyday life that they rejoice and suffer; here and now.. Due to the fact that female domestic workers who are more vulnerable relative to other urban residents have already accessed to need for survival such as sheltering, education for children, seeking employment bounded by gendered and spatial practices, they are also disadvantageous to develop survival strategies since their first arrival in the city and as neoliberal urbanization deepens, they have been more challenged by those (spatial and gender) restrictions. Industrialization, urbanization, and capitalism compel individuals to involve in public sphere which leads them to look for new homes beyond their own homes and urban residents come across new homes/spaces to spend leisure times, shopping, walking etc. through which they can reproduce themselves. Urban spaces as spaces of everyday life involved implicit facet of power relations which includes both site of consent and resistance through discourse, representation, images and symbols (Goffman, 1959; Sennett, 1996, 1999; Lefevbre, 1991, 1998) Given Lefevbre’s description of “capitalist globalization as an intensely contradictory integration, fragmentation, polarization and redifferentiation of superimposed social spaces” (Brenner, 2000:361), and the emphasis on the everyday life as the medium and site of urban experience leads to a more noteworthy 21 understanding of the female domestic workers’ urban experiences. In other words, because of their mobility across the city for a long period of time, they are witness to the transformation of a city, which are strategically important arenas restructured/reformed by any forms of political and economical (re)structuring, therefore their urban experiences also may be depicted as a city’s story. As mentioned before, this thesis aims to give a bottom-up account of recent patterns of urbanization through making real lives’voices heard, therefore the pillars of “neoliberal urbanization”, which underpin theoretical framework of this thesis requires to mention in brief. Neoliberalism first emerged during the late 1970s as a response to the crises of Keynesian welfare regime and results in “the breakdown of accumulation regime, the shift from the government to the governance, extension of unregulated market disciplines; competition and commodification across society”, and uneven spatial development (Peck, Theodore & Brenner, 2009: 50-2), which shaped by two moments; “destruction” of old industry centres and arrangements and creation of a new market-oriented and commodified rule/centres. In this perspective, current cities are strategically central project sites where market-driven socio-spatial transformation generated through implementing intertwined two moments; creative destruction. According to Peck, Theodore and Brenner’s scheme, neoliberal urbanization applied such mechanisms “restructuring the welfare state, privatization of the local public sector and restructuring urban housing markets, reworking labor market regulation and then transformations of the built environment and urban form” through moments of destruction and creation. To illustrate, national and local welfare services replaced by creation of community-based sectors and private approaches to basic services shifted welfare regime to workfare regime, which is a key mechanism to restructure the welfare state. Furthermore, the old forms of housing like low-rent shelter evolved into new forms of housing trends; “creation of speculative investment in central-city real estate markets”, as expansion of informal economies and, flexible, temporary and contingent forms of employment replaced public funded education opportunities and training programs for the disadvantaged. Urban planning perspective for community oriented turned into the ‘highest and best use’ (2009:61) by construction of mega urban transformation projects (UTPs), mega 22 events promoting competitiveness among the cities, emergence of privatized and secure spaces for elite consumption patterns as well as displacement of poor and working class. The goal of the mechanism to transform urban space is to mobilize it as an arena for market-oriented growth, therefore neoliberal cities are deregulated, fragmented and privatized in both spatially and socially. In that regard, cities produced by political and economic restructuring influenced overwhelmingly everyday practices of urban resident especially female workers being more mobile and vulnerable. Increasingly fragmented cities deepen distances and spatial segregation across urban space (Yasar, 2010) because middle and upper classes prefer moving from the centre to the periphery and working class has to live in cheaper places; it may be squatter’s house or janitor’s apartment at the centre, which is one of the conclusions reached in this research. Workplaces as homes of middle and upper class homes concentrated in some neighboorhoods of the city-in our case increasing move to west and southwest neighbourhood on the periphery and their own homes at the centre makes female workers’ everyday travel story more challenging for them. As the distance between home and other home (workplace) increases, their connection with the city becomes more restricted and delimited by the daily travel which takes long hours on the bus. Their everyday mobility across the city, preferences of consumption, transportation patterns, and forms of urban space usage have also been constrained. In fact, female domestic workers, who seem more mobile across differentiated and polarized urban spaces compared to other female urban residents have been affected in various aspects. At first and foremost, they are women and suppressed by male dominated cities, places and the work organization. Secondly, their workplaces and work are more “invisible” and “flexible” relative to conventional production places and mode of production, which leads to more exploitative forms of employer-employee relations. Last but not the least, due to the fact that they are more mobile across the differentiated and fragmented spaces, they come across individuals from the middle and upper classes through everyday mobility. The growth of segregated city has increasingly stressed on their everyday mobility across the city. The magnitude and pace of the transformations summarised into the terms globalization and neoliberalism brought in radical changes in the configuration of 23 urban space. Urban space is reconfigured in accordance with turning points in the economic and spatial structure, then as capitalist structure has reshaped its form, it becomes more polarized economically and socially. This polarization has been a result of increased mobility of capital (Brenner, 2000:369) and humans (van Houtum, Olivier Kramsch and Wolfgang Zierhofer, 2005:4), while it has further emphasized “mobility” of urban residents. It is certain that reconfigured and rapidly polarized urban space22 has become the scene where urban residents are much more mobile in line with “growing polarization in their occupational23 and income structures” in everyday lives. There are two main types of polarization, the first one is polarization of social and spatial division of labour, which results in decline of middle class and expansion of highand low- paid jobs and the second one is division of work between households through the jobs needed to service the high-income workers, both at work and at home (Hamnett, 1994) which results in urban residents’ being more mobile within urban space. The backbone of this thesis underpins reconfiguration of urban space/scale which has directly impacted urban residents’ mobility pattern as substantive part of everyday live. 2.2. Gendered Mobility as a Key Term As referred briefly in the previous part, mobility is a multi-faceted phenomenon and it is a key concept to analyse urban space regarding gender perspective since it bears overarching influence on women’s existence in urban space, which could be both empowerment and imprisonment (Uteng, 2011; Massey, 1993) Before the 1980s, mobility phenomenon was approached from “physical movement (urban planning, “The population of the city is normally distributed like an egg, widest in the middle and tapering off at both ends; when it becomes polarized the middle is squeezed and the ends expand till it looks like an hour glass. The middle of the egg may be defined as intermediate social strata . . . Or if the polarization is between rich and poor, the middle of the egg refers to the middle-income group . . . The metaphor is not of structural dividing lines, but of a continuum along a single dimension, whose distribution is becoming increasingly bimodal” (Marcuse, 1989 as cited in Hamnett, 1994) 22 23 Hamnett (1994) stated the emergence of clusters of employment in newly emergent cities. The one of these; high level business services employing people for clerical tasks and another composed of domestic services, private security, restaurants and entertainment which serves the former exeplimlify occupational segregation in these cities. 24 geography and transport) on one hand and a change in social status (sociological construct)”. After the 1980s, this understanding evolved into scientific discourse addressing space, place and locality as a cultural and social category; “the cohesive nature of social and spatial mobility, contending that a change in geographical/spatial mobility patterns affects the individual space of options and action, thus producing varying terrains of social mobility (Uteng, 2011: 6). Furthermore, it is evaluated as the ability to move between different activity sites such as from home to a bank or workplace accordingly it is perceived as determining factor of individual’s movements through the course of their everyday lives at micro scale (Hanson,Kwan, 2008:XV) Mobility, too is a socially produced phenomenon; “mobility as a movement that is socially produced, is variable across space and time, and has visible effects on people, places, and things, and the relationships between them” (Cresswell, 2001:20) and also it is identified as “the performance, real as well as symbolic” (Sørensen,1999) What is more, mobility is uneven: “…different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility; some are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it” (Massey, 1993:61 as cited in Uteng, 2011: 9) Mobilities have been differentiated depending on both class and gender. Considering the mobility scheme, mobility as a potential action which is unevenly distributed, is characterized based on class and also gender; “feminine mobilities are different from masculine ones” (Uteng and Cresswell, 2008). This research has also followed up those arguments because mobilities of female employers and female domestic workers have relatively common characteristics through gender perspective in one sense. Class based mobilities entirely differentiates one from another in other sense. To exemplify, employer (employee) owns a car with driving license and she is not informed about routes of bus, and the cost of public transportation; while female worker does not own a car and the latter has to be informed about the fare, schedule of public transportation24. This is summarised from author’s experiences. In one of the workday of the researcher, she came across with domestic worker of same home. Employer asked the author: “…. wanted me to give her 10 Turkish liras for fare. Is it true? Do you think that she would deceive me?” Employer did not know 24 25 Transportation gives good foundation to understand the interaction between spatial mobility for negotiating daily lives and other forms of mobility (social, economic, political etc.) through tracing everyday mobility patterns specifically ‘gender and transport’ as envisaged by Law (1999:568): “it is a better way to address ‘gender and transport’ is through reframing the issues of transport as part of a larger project, namely, analysing the social, cultural, technological, infrastructural, political and financial geographies of mobility” (emphasis added) considering the fact that female domestic workers consume almost 4 hours for transportation while commuting between home and work in an ordinary day in the light of fieldwork. The mode and patterns of transportation of women are directly related to Law’s conceptualization which associates transportation with social, cultural, infrastructural, political geographies of mobility. As Law depicted, over the last twenty years, feminist geographers have focused on more “gender and transport”. Along this process, two main research areas emerged: the constraints resulting from fear of male sexual violence and the mode of women’s travel to and from employment. Those developed in parallel with two streams of feminist scholars. One is “broadly defined radical feminist tradition foregrounded sexuality, identified rape as a central mechanism of oppression and used a methodological approach based on women’s experiences, and then the other one is drawing on Marxism foregrounded work (both paid and domestic), identified social relations in the household and workplace as central mechanisms of oppression” (Law, 1999:569-70) The latter constitutes the focus of this study. Returning the issue of “gender and transport”, a clear line among men and women has existed in term of transportation emerging from “differentiated access and attitudes to private and public transport, differences in patterns of commuting and employment, differences in child and elder care responsibilities and finally the differences emerging from the contextualisation of traditional female roles” (Uteng,2011: 11) Uteng summarizes certain key debates upon women’s mobility patterns which will be embraced to case study throughout next chapter so in Table 2, I offer the key issues revised in my work, with reference to/in comparison with Uteng’s framework. anything about public transportation and how domestic worker had to use three vehicles for workhome trip. Considering 2.5 liras for one use, 10 liras are short of affording the travel cost. 26 Uteng (2011:13) examines gendered mobility specifically in the developing world within the perspective highlighting two division; firstly ‘urban, educated, middle class’ versus ‘urban, educated, low income’ women and secondly ‘rural and semiurban areas’ versus ‘cities and metropolises’. She argues that mobility socially and gendered characterized is shaped depending on the existence of disparity between those divisions. For example, low income women in urban areas spend more time traveling on slower modes of transport (by foot) and slum women are more constrained by time and poverty, whereas middle-income women are relatively constrained as a result of inadequate public transportation, which does not develop in parallel with the expansion of urban areas and “booming satellite townships” (Uteng, 2011:15) Law’s suggestions on gender and mobility complete Uteng’s framework because he focuses on daily mobility through the gender and transport relation. According to Law’s conceptualization, gender is described as a social category occurring in social relationships by gendering division of labour and activities; access to resources and also symbolic code. Law attempted to produce some themes; gender division of labour and activities, gendered access to resources, gender as a symbolic code25, gendered built environment and gendered subject identities26 to explain gendered daily mobility and gender-transport literature. Gender division of labour and activities, gendered access to resources are the most significant themes in theoretical framework of this thesis. 25 Beside the key themes discussed above, gender as a symbolic code is stated briefly that male and female is like pair; “mind/body, nature/culture, work/home, city/suburb, and public/private” as former is linked to male and latter to female. Transportation is also coded male/female in private transport/public transport; former is linked to male and then the latter to female. In this study, women with whom interviewed attacked critically to the view of private as female; public as male. They were aware of spatial constraints and segregation resulted from gendered division of activities and gendered access to resources. In fact, they were tired of being encompassing in gendered based works at their own home and other home; being associated with “the home”; being discomfort in male-dominated cities and buses.The last theme is gendered built environment which includes design of public transportation in mode (buses and cars), the form of service delivery (routes, timing, costs). Generally, women are more depended on public transporation compared to men. Women’s complex household activities and responsibilities compel women to make multiple stops and because of lower income, they have to use public means of transportation (Peters, 1999) 26 Gendered subject identities is another theme which involves the relation of construction of subject identities and social and discursive construction of bodies and then in geographical sense, in parallel to disabilities, gender and age, the use of space has formed. Some research stated that girls since early ages confined to limited neighborhood area for playing and they limit their trip especially in later hours (Hart, 1979; Katz, 1993 as cited in Law, 1999) 27 The theme of gender division of labour and activities indicates that distinct characteristics of men and women’s work temporally and spatially have direct influence on travel and mobility behavior. Women are under the pressure of paid employment and domestic work, so their mobility has been more curtailed by timespace constraints, and it is the same in non-work daily activities such as going out, shopping, socialization. In this research, women are under pressure of time-space constraints specifically for socialization, because they do not spend time with their friends due to workload at their own home and other homes as workplace. Since work-home trip is the time when and traveling where she has the opportunity to talk about work, spousal relations, children etc. While conducting fieldwork, the researcher has been faced with many constraints, yet to convince interviewees of the time was the most challenging one. At the beginning, they stated that they did not have time and then they invited the researcher to make the interview generally after work at 8 or 9 pm. The researcher and interviewee made the interview while the latter was cooking or occupied in doing other housework, this case draws explicitly temporal constraints on women in itself. A female domestic worker woman who spent the whole day-of eight-nine hours at work (another home) and 4 hours on the way has been suppressed by the spatial constraints which results in minimizing her relation to the city. Gendered access to resources is another theme. Access to resources, significantly time, money, skills and technology which overwhelmingly impact travel behavior- mode of transportation, where and when she enables to use transportation, also determines the social meaning of mobility (Law, 1999: 578): Gendered norms of domestic responsibility, overlaid on temporal rhythms of childcare and domestic work, and on spatial patterns of segregated land-uses, and combined with inflexible service hours, and minimal public transport, generate timespace constraints that restrict the mobility of those responsible for this work (mainly wives and mothers). This study corresponds with Law’s arguments, because all interviewees have to deal with the childcare and domestic work burden on them. Moreover, within this fieldwork, women are also under the twofold pressure of domestic work at another home and work-home trip taking for long hours. Their flexible work hours do not match up with inflexible bus schedule or bus routes and bus capacities do not meet the demand. Generally, their workplaces are far away from their own homes and they 28 are dependent on public transportation in our case. Thus, as both gendered division of activities and gendered access to resources restrict their mobility, bus schedule and inflexible routes irrespective of gender perspective also influence them in a negative way, which will be detailed in the next chapter. Law also remarks overarching effects of change in the temporal rhythms of work and home as a result of economic restructuring by highlighting few studies on how temporal/spatial patterns have changed and impacts of economic restructuring on these. This study analyzes female domestic workers’ city by emphasizing the spatial/temporal patterns, particularly focusing on how economic restructuring changes those patterns. As quoted by Law, lack of money confines daily mobility even though low income urban residents have to “undertake long-trips as a coping strategy” (Wolch, 1993). One of the findings in the next chapter regarding the determinants affecting female domestic workers’ workplace preferences involves differentiated workplace preferences depending on the interviewee’s economic position. This is because low income workers (women as only income earner because of being divorced/husbands’ disabilities/being unemployed) do not have the possibility to make a choice for closer or farther neighborhoods and they commonly go to farthermost place, whereas relatively higher income workers (existence of two income earners/ regular salary because of husbands’ occupations-public officials) have a chance to prefer closer neighborhoods. Besides, women’s work perception and employment/sister relation with employer is another significant component determining women’s mobility across the city, which means that mobility is a multi-faceted phenomenon determined by many factors and determining many things. It needs to discuss work perception of interviewees; therefore, we will seek to analyse domestic labour as a gendered class practice. 29 Table 2.Key Issues in This Thesis Uteng’s key issues (Uteng,2011: 11-2)  Different trip distance, transport mode as a result of familial maintenance activities’ burden on women  Spending more time on household activities and less time on leisure and more frequent but short trips for women to men  More complex trip scheduling and chaining, creating more spatiotemporal constraints on their activity participation if there are dependent children in the home  Less able to adjust schedules and travel patterns to accommodate alternative schedules or transportation modes and their fulltime employment  Seeking employment closer to home for low-income women as a result of childcare obligations  Gendered labor market factors has influenced on mobility, resulted in a differentiated geography of opportunities for men and women.  Security issues to limit mobility; adoption of self-imposed precautionary measures by women Key issues in this thesis  Public transportation is the only place where female domestic workers interconnect and share daily work experiences, besides daily wage of a domestic worker and the measurement of the economic value depending on neighborhood is determined by exchanging ideas among women on the bus.  More complex trip chaining (two or three bus/subway for one route of work-home trip) and longer hours on the way as a result of fragmented and polarized growing cities, which is a product of economic and spatial restructuring  Seeking employment farther or closer to home for low income women depending on economic conditions; relatively low income women seek employment farther  Neoliberal economic restructuring increases informality especially for women and transforms the meaning of domestic work  Security issues push women to adopt precautionary measures; such as a large umbrella with her  Spousal relations and employeremployee relations intertwined with women-women relations are also a determinant of gendered mobility (how reached to workplace or any place/where)  Work providing mobility for women also constraints their mobility because of its “domesticity”  There are certain spatial mobility differences among female domestic workers in accordance with the age, work term, spousal relations, the employer-employee relationship, and the household income 30 2.3. Domestic Labour as a Gendered Class Practice The assumption behind this part is that domestic labour is the utmost site where class and gender relations have been intertwined. Therefore, this section mentions domestic labour briefly, which may be regarded as background information for the first part of next chapter analysing labour perception of interviewees. This part explores how domestic labour is affected by economic restructuring, and how current urbanization dynamics has changed housework as a gendered class practice. The debate on class and gender dates back a long time and developed contradictorily among Marxists and feminists. According to Heidi Hartmann (1974), while Marxist analysis provides essential insight towards laws of capitalism and historical development, categories of Marxism such as class are “sex-blind” according to feminist analysis. Feminist analysis propounds systematical analysis for men and woman relation particularly while it is blind to history and it has not been sufficiently materialist. Thus she suggests to benefit from both Marxism from its historical materialism and feminism from its describing patriarchy as a social and historical structure in order to understand development of capitalist societies and women in the capitalist structure. According to one of the main Marxist arguments, capitalism generates distinction of home/famial/personal life vs. workplace and then requires both waged labour outside, women to do housework for reproduction of waged workers. The role of women in the capitalism is the reproduction of labor force. It seems that women produces labour for capitalism rather than for men (Hartmann, 1974:4)27 27 In this regard, Mariarosa Dalla Costa mainly argued that women not only reproduces labour force through housework and also produces surplus value so women should demand wages for housework, which increased consciousness of women in women movement toward housework. Dalla Costa suggested that women are capable of leading to struggle against capitalism by demanding wages for housework and refusing to involve in labour market and also they may lay foundations of new society. Moreover, Dalla Costa accepted that men will resist emancipation of women and women will have to struggle against men. For Hartmann’s interpretation, Dalla Costa argued that women’s struggle is revolutionary because of its anti-capitalist rather than feminist and then she quested: “Who benefitted from women labour” and responded: “Surely capitalists and also men as husbands and fathers who benefitted from personalized services at home” Her main critique towards Marxists is neglecting housework in the early term and two more recent approaches emphasizes the importance of housework such an extent they undermine women’s actual situation in the labour market so they spend less time for analysing men and women relations. For her; “While our ‘problems’ have been elegantly analyzed, they have been misunderstood.” (Hartmann, 1979: 7) 31 Hartmann focuses on feminist problematique as men and women relations, yet domestic labour propounds another gender based relation: women and women relation which makes anything more complex: While housework reproduces gender roles as a site of similarities for women, waged domestic work may be asserted as a site of differences for different experiences generating from class. Two women from different class come across and while they struggle to gain power through distinct strategies developed within everyday life, class differences reproduced in their eyes. Unpaid and invisible characteristics of domestic work makes waged domestic work more complex and contradictory, which is beyond just employment relation…Even though waged domestic worker either nanny or housekeeper do same housework of employer, she reproduces upper and – middle class employers’ social position. Also upper and –middle class produces their own position through differences among herself and ‘the other’ (Bora, 2012:70, my translation) The middle-class ideal of the leisured wife, for example depended on the labour of her working-class sisters (McDowell, 1983:62, emphasis added) Employer-worker relationship for domestic work has developed contradictorily for both worker and employer. For the worker, she does the same housework at both her own home and the other home-workplace, gaining wage from one of them, while she has an employer as a woman. At the beginning, “employment” relation could be operated more apparently yet as time goes by, it turns into a sister relationship exceeding worker-employer relationship in some cases or vice versa. For the employer, she employs a woman to do the housework or childcare, which makes private sphere to hybrid public sphere reshaped by market mechanisms, because at the first stage of employment, both the worker and employer set out their conditions to make an employment contract composed of daily wage, insurance, fare etc. The general understanding stated that with development of capitalism, production is realized to a large extent through institutions outside the home, while women take up activities of reproduction inside the home. Ferhunde Özbay argued that this assumption is vastly valid for Western countries yet for developing countries such as Turkey, these categories; inside-outside for production-reproduction cannot be applied. This is because a large of group of women work in agricultural sector in which production and reproduction activities are not clearly separated. Furthermore, 32 women in the cities take part in production by working at home because of their new responsibilities related to reproduction (Özbay, 1995: 90) McDowell calls this “commodification of domestic labour”: …just as women’s entry into the labour market raises questions about the overall structure of the class hierarchy and the degree of polarisation between classes, the growing importance of commodified domestic labour-especially childcare in which middle class women buy services from typically working class women to facilitate their own labour market participation-also raises new questions about class divisions and class contacts between women (as it is usually women who organise childcare and other forms of home servicing such as cleaning) both within and outside the spaces of the home (McDowell, 2006:839-40) Growth of childcare, cooking and cleaning services result in the rise of “the new servant class” which is described by Lowe and Gregson (1994). Within the respect to their framework, “domestic service is being reconstituted by middle class”. Domestic works of middle class is not only depended on sexual division of labour. It is constituted to generate employment for female labour class. As a result, domestic works have been transferred to another female working class from middle class women which occurs polarized women roles peculiar to middle class and working class (Lowe, Gregson, 1994) as understood, when domestic works consolidate woman roles for one side in the sister relationship, it reinforces the class positions of worker and middle class. Besides that, another sparkling point emerges from domestic labour because when domestic work is commodified, employer (middle class woman) incorporated another woman into her family through hiring someone. In Domosh and Seager’ arguments, employer and employee relations are complex not only because of crossing the public/private divide and also “you paid members of the family” (Domosh, Seager, 2001: 31) Most of nannies whom geographers Stiell and England (1997) interviewed in Toronto stated they have been exploited in their work-most often because of the imprecision of employee-employer relations that take place at home and contrary to this, employee treat them “like one the family” (2001:32), which may be grasped through the case study of this thesis. Having examined domestic workers and middle class women relationship, Özbay (1995) goes on to interrogate three distinct changes peculiar to middle class; the changes in public space understanding, newly emerging consumption forms, and 33 alterations in the education system. Coming to the 1980s, with growing of free market economy, advertising, mass communication, consumption relations of urban residents of Turkey has undergone a change quantitatively and qualitatively. Shopping malls combining entertainment and shopping, big markets, and bazaars which are newly emerging consumption places provided another place than home by reconsidering women’s socialization during the global economy era. The boom in convenience food decreased significantly spending time in the kitchen by women, that cut down on time spending time at home, as well (Özyeğin, 2005: 69-70) While consumption patterns of middle class families have undergone a change, their housing and settlement patterns have also changed. Middle and upper classes prefers moving from the centre to the periphery, which are designed and commercialized with more secure environment covered by the walls (Yasar, 2010:26) Recent patterns of urbanization responses to those demands and creates more polarized and fragmented spaces within the city bounded by the walls/borders which creates a new round of mobility for domestic workers. Their mobility and entrapment is a result of this new spatialization of the middle class, whose consumption orientation revolves around the female members of this class. Following up Özyeğin’s arguments (2005), another significant change in Turkish society is rise in the privatisation of education at certain levels. Fierce competition among parents for the best school requires to devote close attention to child’s noneducational and educational activities. The most prominent task of mothers is composed of seeking the best tutor and determining best preparation courses which enhances women’s public space through taking place in the competition among other women. On the other hand, middle class woman has tend towards a different consumption form which give importance to health and beauty, therefore rapidly increase interests on cosmetics and beauty products occurred by going along with health, family journals being exhorter, creating “woman stereotype”. New middle class woman consciousness based on body expelled them from domestic work and draw into “hire a woman” which is a key point to separate traditional woman (domestic workers) and modern woman (middle class woman/employer) (Özyeğin, 2005:71) New middle and upper class women residing in more secure environment need professional 34 assistance for housework and the best worker require to be hired. Middle and upper class women have been challenged by finding a worker and her being convinced to such a farther neighborhood, as a result they try to contact workers who are known by other neighbors in this more secure environment. Hiring a woman28 and seeking best tutor are important characteristics of such a middle-upper class family live style. However, those secure environments are also structured by gender differences and within male dominancy. Those newly emergent neighborhoods are highly dependent on the private means of transportation, which make men more mobile while the public means of transportation is inadequate, restricting women’s mobility. To reiterate Uteng’s arguments, “expansion of urban areas and relocation of slums” without secure and accessible public transportation handicaps women’s geographical mobility (Uteng, 2011:15) in terms of both working and middle-upper class women. As cities become more fragmented, it deepens male dominancy over the city. In addition, both middle- upper class women and domestic worker have been impacted explicitly but in different ways because of their unequal access to resources. Gendered access to resources as one of the Law’s theme also involves class-based access to resources. Certainly, the contradictions experienced within sisterhood relations by both employer and worker as well as among workers is not limited to this era because, since various kinds of (waged) domestic labour from using female children in domestic work in the 1800s of Turkey to rapidly increase female domestic workers as a result of rural-to-urban migration after the 1960s of Turkey generated, the emotionally and economically abusive side of domestic labour has existed 29 (Ozbay, In Akalın’s arguments, as growth of upper class neighborhoods, the demand for live-in foreign domestic workers has increased but they cannot take place in Turkish domestic workers (Akalın, 2009, as cited in Özbay, 2015:124) In our case, interviewees referred to the existence of foreign domestic workers by complaining about decreasing daily wage and different spatial practices among foreigners and Turks that foreign domestic workers could stay with family whereas Turkish workers are unwilling to stay because of their husbands’ resistance or own reluctance. 28 29 Ozbay argued several forms of domestic labour such as adopted female children(evlatlıks), slaves and besleme (like servant girl) existed in the early 20th century and it continued until the 1960s when domestic workers (gündelikçiler) replaced such forms and they developed contradictorily in those forms. For example, adopted female children worked in hazardous conditions while they faced crisis of identity; whether being part of family or not and coming to domestic workers, they challenged with identifying themselves working woman (2015:118-9) In our case, interviewees identified themselves working women explicitly because most of them have worked for more than 10 years and they are aware of advantages of working. 35 2015: 119) Nevertheless, the new things about domestic labour in this era of urbanization are gaining importance of the spatiality of domestic labour (how they perceived the city which is dynamically transformed/expanded and they are (“have to be”) more mobile across the city) and the relative change in the perception of domestic labour of workers (turning into competitive subjects). As neoliberal mechanisms targets the city to transform, female domestic workers who are most vulnerable parts of the city and firmly impacted by the transformation are also targets in their daily lives. Neoliberal restructuring has impacted on spatial dimension of domestic work since it leads to changes in middle and upper class’ mobility patterns in both socially and spatially through creating new needs for them; hiring a woman or private tutor, living in more secure environment so for both sides; employer and worker, household activities-home, gender-based relations, spousal relations have been transformed radically. All in all, as (re)structuring has consolidated, domestic workers who have already been vulnerable urban residents in terms of gendered and spatial practices are more disadvantageous in interaction with the city and in gaining social mobility across the city so they heavily feel the disadvantages of the neoliberal urbanization on their everyday lives. Through the conceptualization of “explosion/implosion of spaces”, cities become more polarized and fragmented, accelerating mobility and enhancing impacts of disabling and enabling characteristics of the mobility. Law’s insights into gendered mobility referring to key themes (gendered access to resources, gendered division of activities, gendered built environment etc.) and the results of this study correspond to each other with exception. It is certain that women are particularly more vulnerable in the cities in various aspects; working, going around, leisure times etc. in comparison with men, therefore increasing pressure on women by current urbanization dynamics makes women’s urban life more compelling similarly mobility patterns diversify based on class through uneven access to resources so upper-income women and working women enjoy with their mobilities in a different way. As mentioned by Uteng, low income women in urban areas spend more time traveling on slower modes of transport (by foot) and slum-dwelling women are more constrained by time and poverty, whereas middle-income women are relatively 36 constrained as a result of inadequate public transportation, which does not develop in parallel with the expansion of urban areas and “booming satellite townships” Coming to home where the employment relation occurs, the sisterhood between employer and worker has contradictory and blurred characteristics because it is neither absolute employment relation nor being safe from exploitation. In addition, waged domestic work crosses both gender and class relations through coming across woman and woman within different context, that will be embraced frequently throughout interviewees’ words. According to the key issues I offered in this thesis, economic and political restructuring has impacted on everyday lives of women through the suppression on their relation with the city and increasing their “domesticity” despite being more mobile across the city. As the restructuring dynamics deepens the spatial segregation among upper-middle income women and working women, it creates different spatial experiences among working women through generating differentiated mobilities. 37 CHAPTER III Chapter 3 presents the findings of the research, focusing on the key themes that labor and home perception, spousal and sisterhood relation, children, the first arrival in the city, the involvement in the labour market are of great importance in women’s urban stories. The first part of chapter will analyse gender within urban space with referring to interviewees’ statements. Through this part, how women perceive “labour” and various constraints and/or abilities such as household activities’ and childcare obligations’ burden on women or gaining economic independency through working will be examined. This part will embrace these with presuming that urban experience of female domestic workers is a product of their involvement in labour market, which makes women mobile across the city. The second part of the chapter will mainly address to urban within mobility/mobility within urban of female domestic workers to indicate how the emergent patterns of mobility disable them in spatial and temporal dimension or creates contradictions in their everyday lives. 3.1. Examining the City through Gender Perspective “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present… Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won”, Simone de Beauvoir Considering Simone de Beauvoir’s famous statement in the Second Sex and an interviewee’s words “all day cleaning... doing puzzle what you’re doing every day, what if you ask the work for me, it is doing puzzle. You clean and they mess…” 38 (K2)30, investigating how they call work is a key focal point of female domestic worker’s urban and mobility story. This part analyses how work transforms women in four main theme; household activities-home, gender-based relations, spousal relations and then urban experience through work. Four theme has originated from interviewees’ statements. During interviews, they often use these words; “home”, “my woman(kadınım)”, “husband”, “kids” and then “transportation”. This part will examine “home” with regards to transformation of conventional home perception within domestic labour; “my woman (employee)” in compliance with gender relations embedded in class relations, husbands and children regarding gender roles again. As Simon de Beauvoir identified, domestic work may be depicted as “battle against dust”, nevertheless; this battle is also between domestic workers and employers (two women) paying regards to domestic work31, where gender roles are reproduced as well as class relations, moreover; it provides site for middle-class women to keep away from housework thereby ignoring sexual division of labour (Bora, 2012; Ozyegin, 2004) The process through which waged domestic labour has gained importance has begun since 1970s and has been going on into the present in Turkey mainly can be expressed with rapid urbanization, rural migration to cities, by which the growing urban unskilled labor and employment of white-collar workers in the formal sector have faced with each other. Both man and woman are working in urban middle-class families as well middle class woman has to transfer housework to another woman because of time constraint and middle class women have freed from housework in a certain extent (Özbay, 1998 as cited in Bora, 2012:80) Middle-class families hire32 a woman for cleaning, managing home and even taking care of children (Sugar, Sugar&Savran, 2007) 30 K2: She is 45 years old. She is from Ankara and lives in Etimesgut. She has worked since 2012 and in Umitköy and Cayyolu. She has two children, one of them works in the private sector and other is going to high school. She began to work because of bank loan. She perceived the work as “necessity” and “doing puzzle everyday” 31 Waged domestic work “Hiring” is used frequently “kadın almak” in Turkish by both employers and domestic workers. In Turkish, “kadın almak” also implies a posssesion which makes employment relation more blurred and contradictory. 32 39 Nevertheless, according to Bora, as relation among female domestic worker and middle class woman could not be described as absolute exploitation, it cannot be embraced within purely employment relation. As a result, each employee-worker relations has established within its uniqueness namely for both sides, what kind of discursive and practical strategies needed to be developed, which rules apply in which situation has built in its specificity. Market mechanisms have entered into the areas of privacy, on the other hand the relation among employer and workers has been going on along calling each other “sister”(abla) and giving gift in special days, taking care of household problems (Bora, 2012:80) Market mechanisms have entered into home also. Housework have gained more technical and rationalized sense in the eyes of middle class woman within the framework “good housekeeping” standardized with more hygiene and clean home and more modernized items (Kalaycıoğlu, Rittersberger-Tılıc, 2000:40) yet housework cannot be separated easily from cultural norms and gender roles totally and analysed through only market mechanisms because domestic workers do same things at her own home at another home as workplace. Blurred boundaries makes difficult to figure out domestic labour within distinct framework. Waged domestic labour may be identified as site where class is produced in praxis at the same time, may indicate not only man-woman difference and also woman-woman difference in pursuant to socially constructed gender roles (Bora, 2012:77) In this context, Bora refers to woman-woman differences regarding middle class woman and domestic worker. Woman-woman differences have occurred among domestic workers. As stated previously the researcher has used the bus (174) routing Angora Evleri for more than 5 times to understand their daily mobility on bus directly and she used bus generally at 6 pm and during traveling, she listened in many conversations full of the words such as insure working conditions, employers with bad attitude. They called their employers as “my woman (kadınım) is like that.. like this...” and it is necessary to indicate that employers use the term “hiring woman (kadın almak) to employ a domestic worker. One of the conversations during traveling on the bus being witness is that they talked about daily wage; who earns … TL (up to 130 TL a day) compared to other workers and wage depending on workplaces and demanding housework: 40 I have earned money more than other women (domestic workers) because we (she and employer) have known each other for many years. Other women learned my daily wage from someone and they suppressed on my employer to reduce it. They said she gave me above market price. Thank god, she didn’t give them credit (K24)33 During hours on the bus, many things such as similarities and differences have been shared and then when bus are assumed as place of communication, it is also place through which women negotiate with “market” and informed about “market price” While female domestic workers are companion to each other on the bus through which they talked about husbands, employers, and children; they are also rival to each other, which makes anything more contradictory. Whereas the cities we live in make women more mobile, their mobility is bounded by the transportation as a meeting place for domestic workers. Considering both relations covered by gender and class; employers and workers; workers and workers; there is no homogenous female worker class or and upper-middle class even though all of them are being part of a sisterhood. All in all, waged domestic work could not be identified with clearcut distinction between women-women relation and employer-employee relation. 3.1.1. Work and Home Perception of Women During the average two-hour interviews, interviewees referred to “home” within two differentiated meaning; one of them is their homes and other is home as workplace. The question how they perceive to work is so noteworthy in order to understand whether they separate housework regarding different places/homes, and domestic work from waged domestic work. Following table was envisaged to show their work perception in brief. Table 3 poses their responses to the question as illustrated, ten interviewees call work as necessity while work makes interviewees economically independent and self-confident. “Necessity” and “economically independent” statements are almost the same in number because according to responses, women earn money for household income initially; her husband comprehends her earnings as one of income items. After a while, woman begins to think about inequality of K24:She is 54 years old and was born in Kırşehir. She has worked since 2006 in Eryaman, Barıs Sıtesi, and METU campus. She began to work in order to afford education expenses and after her husband was retired, he also continued to work because of bank loan for new home. 33 41 decision making whereas equal efforts to contribution to household income. To deal with this situation, she allocates her earnings; some of was separated for her savings, rest of was given to husband. As time passes, this situation becomes the site of resistance by woman. Table 3. Work Perception How do they perceive work? Necessity (I have to) Economically independent, selfconfidence, learning different things from people The same work in my own home (home from home) Easy money and I’m pleased to be domestic worker For my children Good deed Number 10 11 3 5 4 1 An interviewee (age 34) beginning to work two years ago and having been living as janitor in Bağlıca, where is one of the farthermost neighborhoods in the periphery said: At the beginning, I gave daily earning to my husband and when I came home at the end of the day, he always asked money, this situation was annoying and then I quarreled with him. He began to respect me. He even helps me in the housework. Work means economic independency and my husband approval on where I will work or not is not important for me. (K3)34 Some studies on how women’s employment affects women-men relations suggest that women who has gained economic independency do not evolve into a type of power relation within spousal relationship: “Wives do not challenge rules and they do not seem like to demand reconsideration of gender relations. Even though they are only breadwinner, the responsibility for bringing home the bread is always associated with husbands” (Bolak, 1995:187 as cited in Bora, 2012); this finding cannot be totally justified/falsified in this study because work means beyond economic independency. To an interviewee, work is the only escape way from her husband. She is trying to divorce and get rid of her husband’s violence yet she could not K3: She is 34 years old. She was born in Cankırı and has worked since 2013 when whole family migrated to Ankara. She has worked in order to afford nursery education of her child and she described work as “economic independecy”. She has never seen Kızılay where is at the centre of Ankara. 34 42 because of husband’s threatening to death if she attempts to divorce. She is 38 years old and lived in Doğantepe with having worked for 5 years said: …..on the one hand, unless you have to, who wants to work such a job, on the other hand, it is necessary and brings economic independency. Your husband cannot act superior when you earn money…Moreover the only way to go is working…” (K4)35 Another interviewee (K5) 36 living in Doğantepe and is primary breadwinner of household, decision making on domestic issues is under control of husband by appropriating her daily earnings even her personal expenses like clothes etc. The solution of her is to misinform her husband about earnings or save money hidden. Unfortunately, those women suffer from violent abuse from their husbands.37 Bolak’s arguments may be justified in one sense yet based upon interviews, it is certain that interviewee does not “like demanding reconsideration of gender relations” rather she has to struggle with showing herself like accepted. The only reason she bared with is her children. The expressions such as “easy money and enjoyable” phrases are also significant phrases. Interviewees who call work as easy money state: “The best job that can be compared to my condition and what else can I do? No other job may make money so…” (K6)38 Actually, in the eyes of interviewees, another job rather than housekeeping or babysitter cannot be considered. Three of interviewees have been working for approximately twenty years; they have bought their houses already then still working to buy a new house for investment. Of two remarks their easy-going conditions by phrase that job means a tool enabling to go out or habit; “But for any K4:She is 38 years old and was born in Corum. She has 4 children and lived in Doğantepe. She has worked since 2010 in order to save Money for escaping her husband. She has worked in Cayyolu, Cukurambar, Eryaman and GOP. 35 K5:She is 28 years old and was born in Corum. She has two children and lived in Doğantepe. She has worked for fifteen years in Bilkent, Alacaatlı, Batıkent, Bahçelievler and Etimesgut. K4 and K5 are nextdoor neighbors and they stated without their companion, they would not deal with any difficulties. 36 She has permanent visual impairment because of her husband violence and her close friends’ shoulder was dislocated by her husband. 37 38 K6:She is 30 years old and was born in Merzifon. She began to work in 2006. She perceives her job as “a contribution to family budget” and enjoy her job. She mostly prefers closer neighborhoods to work. 43 job, I would be so bored.” (K6) Work may be a kind of communication channels and means of being independent in the eyes of women: I’ve known many people due to work and learned many things from each employer. In any case, I believe in learning from anybody. My employer warned me to prevent kid using tablets inasmuch as electronic devices interrupt cognitive development of children. I bought her educatory toys. I always look for employers who would teach anything to me” (K7)39 …Hanım was math teacher. As I listened her, I learned Math and told them my kid. We have shared many things and I have particularly preferred working woman as an employer. If a woman is not working, she should not hire a woman (K8)40 I’ve worked for many years. My daughter and daughter in law are not working. I don’t understand why they’re not working. Woman has to work… she shouldn’t depend on her husband for a living. (Kadın kısmı erkek eline bakmamalı) My daughter and son did not go university. I’m annoyed with my daughter so much. (K9)41 On the other hand, work means going outside and the way to escape from home: Whenever I’m at home, my husband and mother-in-law talk my head off. For work, I go out. For quite a while, I breathe. Anyway, every woman goes to work in this neighborhood (her own neighborhood/GOP). In the mornings, you can’t find anybody. If you don’t go work, husband talks your head off again (K10)42 Work provides female domestic workers mobility across the city with both “enabling characteristic” and “imprisonment characteristic” (Uteng, 2011: 11). Although female domestic workers have to commute between two different homes for same K7:She is 23 years old and was born in Çorum. She lives in Dikmen and she worked since she was 15 years old to afford her child’s nursery education expenses. She perceives to work as a learning process. 39 40 K8:She is 46 years old and was born in Ardahan. She lives in Yenimahalle (Demetevler). She has worked since 1998 and she began to work to afford her child’s healthcare expenses. Her husband is public servant and he is willing to adjust his work hours in accordance with her wife. She continued to work to afford her child’s education expenses. She wanted her child to attend a private university. K9: She is 49 years old and was born in Beypazarı, Ankara. She has two children and has worked since 1998 and she preferred to move together with her employer because she believes in the significance of employers’ attitude, therefore she passed long years with her employers. She is also contact person who connect employers to employee. Before she worked as domestic workers, she involved in marketing sector and, some strategies which she learnt from this work provided benefits to her for further works. 41 42 K10: She is 50 years old and was born in Corum. She has lived and worked as janitor and domestic workers in GOP since 1985.She prefers to go closer neighborhoods because of her husband’s supression. 44 domestic work, through which reproduces conventional gender roles for women and consolidates the link between home and woman with delimiting their urban experiences- a reflection of “imprisonment characteristic”; because of work, they could go out and are more mobile, which gives them a chance to contact with the city through daily activities and also they could find the escape way from the home and male dominance with referring to “enabling characteristic”. On the contrary, referring to Uteng’s argument noting the income and mobility relation, middle class women are more mobile through keeping away from housework (Bora, 2012; Ozyegin, 2004) and handing over them to other women. Therefore, while middle class women enjoy with “enabling characteristic” of gendered mobility, domestic workers have to deal with “imprisonment characteristic” of it in terms of familial maintenance activities, reproducing gender division of activities for the latter. 3.1.2. Spousal Relation Perception of Women By tracking words of women, husband is another prominent phrase. Table 4 shows husbands’ jobs in accordance with interviewee’s place of residence. This table is designed in order to show household economy in brief, correspondingly interviewees’ perspective on labour. By paying regard to each section’s unique characteristics, some mutual points within have been put forward to illustrate; interviewees whose spouses have a job in public sector as public servant or worker have more chance to decide where she will work at. Their husbands are more thoughtful for working hours. According to their expressions, they do not any concern about being late home after work whereas interviewees whose spouses have no job refer to tackle with dispute arising from being late by their husband. An interviewee whose husband works as a public servant in a university hospital in first group said that: …fortunately, my husband does not mess with my job when I arrive at home or leave home… I heard many things from women on the way their husband appropriates their earnings even they mess with which transportation vehicle would be used and daily fare. Sometimes, I came home by taxi and my husband never calls me to account. In fact, he adjusts his own working hour accordance with my work hours… he 45 does not interfere with my expenses, we all decide on household expenses 43(K8) Another interviewee in the first group living in Etimesgut having worked for 3 years stated: …my husband is public servant for more than twenty-five years. We have already a house, and then I wanted and chose bigger house so we bought a house by bank loan. I began to work to afford credit debt. My income is for him; his is for me… (K2) That the researcher observed mostly in their phrases is speaking of herself and husband as “we, us” and collective act to deal with economic problems and domestic problems: My husband is like my daughter. On mornings, he heats stove. Whenever I come home, dinner is in front of me … Hanım admires my husband for his supportive attitude. (K1) Table 4.Husbands' employment Total Number Unemployed Public servant/worker in public sector Worker in private/service sector Janitor 3 9 8 7 Woman as breadwinner because of husband’s disabilities/being divorced 5 One of interviewees of husbands are janitors mentioned: …children of janitors are raised by husbands. Our husbands cared for children. Every time I go to work my son cried I leave him behind me pityingly. (K11)44 Reconsidering Uteng’s framework, low-income women as a result of childcare obligations have to seek employment closer to home. Our fieldwork corresponds to this suggestion since women have to consider childcare for the workplace, nevertheless; coming to seek employment, household economy and spousal relations 43 During interview, her husband cooked things and prepared breakfast for us. He served tea through two- hour interview (K8) 44 K11:She is 39 years old and was born in Corum. She lived in Seyranbağları where is near to Kızılay(city centre) and she mostly prefers to go nearee places to work because of her childcare obligations and her health problems. 46 are other determinants of mobility. Low income workers (women as only income earner because of being divorced/husbands’ disabilities/being unemployed) do not have possibility to make a choice for closer or farther neighborhoods and they commonly go to farthermost places, whereas relatively higher income workers (existence of two income earners/ regular salary because of husbands’ occupationspublic officials) have chance to prefer closer neighborhoods. Spousal relation is also other determinant of mobility. Some husbands decides on even whether mode of transportation is used by wives and how much the cost of transportation is as referred by an interviewee (K8). Besides, this seems a reflection of gendered access to resources which is one of the themes by Law. 3.1.3. Sisterhood Relation Perception of Women “My woman” is one of the important phrase of women and age is a major determinant for women’s involvement in labour market as well as their employer/labour perception. For example, the last group in Table 5 composed of interviewees who have been working for approximately 20 years. During twenty years, generally interviewees prefer going to same places because they get used to both workplaces’ neighborhoods and their employer. Especially women who have been working for more than 15 years calls their employers as “sister” and they set back labour relation by call it as “consider each other as a sister” and interviewees state, “in case of employer moves to another house, no matter how far away I would go”(K12)45. In this case, women-women relation is overwhelmingly stronger compared to employer-employee relation, the both affect workers’ mobility patterns. This relation is different for the first group representing 25-35 aged group because they call their relations with employers as “professional”; personal relations are secondary for this group and “sister” statement is little or not for the first group. They perceive their relations with employers as “investment for future” so they believe that their employers would provide employment opportunities for the 45 K12:She is 53 years old and was born in Corum. She has 3 children and lived in Sentepe (Yenimahalle). She has worked since 1993 and worked respectively in Kurtuluş, Oran, Çayyolu and then Yapracık for 22 years and as employer moved from the centre to the periphery, she also moved. She also prefers to working women as employer so that employerswould understand difficulties experienced by working women 47 children in the future and they may add the statement “my employer cannot find someone else better than me” (K1346 and K1447) The second group representing 3645 age includes more heterogeneous phrases in responses of interviewees; there is no apparently dominant statement emphasizing “sister” or “own professionalism”. Whereas “sister” and “wherever employer (my woman) - in this example worker calls her employer as ‘my woman’ -moves to I go without thinking” (K15)48 phrases may be apparent, “I have no choice but to go there” (K4 and K5) also are deemed to be another dominant phrase. Table 5. The Age Range Age 25-35 36-45 46-55 Number 5 16 11 Another important thing is that the majority of this group emerges from emphasizing both phrases why there is such a situation will be clarified in next section of the study. The third group representing over 45 age becomes more of an issue in order to grasp mobility across urban space by the year because women in this group have been working for longest period. They have shared many things and sometimes they become part of family- employer’s household- are often excluded from family. They have been more selective to decide where they could work throughout their work life. In the first year of timeline, their phrases had been: “I have no choice but to go there” and when time passes on, interviewees become part of family, as follows; family’s children have grown up for more than twenty years, they go on a holiday 46 K13: She is 50 years old and was born in Corum. She has two children and lived in Pursaklar. She owns 3 houses in Pursaklar and she has worked since 1996 in Esat, Yıldız (near the city centre), and then Cukurambar for her work term. She perceives her job lucrative because she could buy home as a result of domestic work. She also employers depending on their social status. 47 K14: She is 43 years old and was born in Corum. She has two children and lived in GOP. She is also working as janitor in her apartment block. She has worked for 15 years and she emphasizes the importance of employer’s social status or being wealthy to determine employer and workplace. She stated if employers give opportunity such as bursary or job for her children, she could go everywhere for employers. K15:She is 46 years old and was born in Cankırı. She has 4 children with chronic diseases. She has lived in Saray. She has worked for 20 years. She is only breadwinner and she has to go everywhere. , therefore she takes 50 km a day for work-home trip. 48 48 together, even children have begun to see each other as brothers by “ignoring differences”. After some interviews, the researcher had chance to talk about interviewees’ children on their experiences and the phrase “we sometimes ignore differences but we always feel that we differ from …. sister’s children because their meal is more delicious than ours, their toys have been always better than ours” has been emphasized by them. It is certain that employer and worker relation is contradictory because of blurred boundaries. Another interviewee also mentions her employer supports to cope with her husband’s negative attitudes, to exemplify; thanks to employer’s encouragement, interviewee has gained more impact on decision making. On the other side of the coin, even if interviewee and her employer passed many years together, the most basic rights as insurance, reasonable working hours, minimum wage, being paid regularly may be neglected easily by employer with propounding “sister relationship” and “passing a long time together” “Sister relationship” has been abused by employer many times through overtime working, excessive workload (when employer’s guests come, domestic worker may serve them, cooking gozleme or borek without any payment): When they (employers) demand cleaning anywhere, they become generous, but at the end of day; they become scrooge… (By showing her hand tight-fistedly) (K4) An interviewee (age 53) having worked for more than twenty years have been working for 22 years within same employer’s household. After reforming act no. 6552 dated 2014 including amendments regarding domestic workers; Think how many years we know each other, I assume her (employer) as my sister. However, Mrs… warned me if any labour inspector came or anybody asked anything, I should introduce myself as her aunt (K12) After this interview, interviewee, her family and researcher ate dinner all together, during dinner her husband said: “If you ask insurance to employer, forget having a job!” 49 Due to the fact that husband or mother-in-law’s49 resistance to work outside, they push forward domestic work. Husband do not support for her to get a job with social security benefits and regular, for he is concerned about “her economic dependency’s probable damage on unity of family”. I worked as a cleaner in a company in 1994, I asked the company apply for employment insurance but my husband did not allow me to work there, because ‘a man and woman must not work together’. He promised me to apply employment insurance but he did not. I do not know why he was worried about. While women tried to apply employment insurance and regular salary, men from Çorum in the 1980s always refused. At now, all of men are regretful….yet … too little, too late. He put the blame me on falling under the influence of …Hanım (K10) As concluded from interviewees’ statement, work provides interaction with the city for domestic workers through making them mobile and it results in the transformation of household activities, gender based relations, spousal relations and then lastly urban experience. Household activities through waged domestic work turns women-women relations into employer-employee relation or viceversa. Through work, women go out home and come across middle class women, reproducing the class position of the middle class woman and gendered division of activities for domestic worker as referred by Bora and Özyeğin. This relation develops contradictorily because for middle class women, private sphere is shared with other women within employment relation-kadın almak (hiring a woman), which makes the home as workplace. Spousal relations are impacted by women’s being more mobile. In some cases, husbands approve/ have to approve of women’s employment as a result of difficulties in affording household expenses although some husbands develop more compelling and restricted attitudes towards wives such as intervening with wives’ workplaces, workhours, and the cost/mode of transportation. The main focus of this thesis is female domestic workers’ urban experience and following part will analyse their cities referring to two round; the first arrival in the city and then involvement in the labour market as two turning point of the urban and mobility story. 49 All interviewees have lived as extended family for a long time at first when arriving to city until moving to a new house 50 3.2. Examining the City through the Mobility Concept During analyzing urban within mobility or mobility within urban, findings obtained from case study will be analysed to understand interviewees’ first arrival in the city specifically focusing on why they migrated as the “first round” of urbanization, and then their involvement in worklife when and why they began to work in particular. Daily mobility which is perceived as essential component of our analysis will be approached when the study is committed to investigate changes in women’s mobility pattern in time as the “second round” of mobility and urban relation. 3.2.1. Mobility and Urban: The First Arrival in the City The first round of mobility story begins with rapid urbanization which is one of the most visible phenomenon in urban areas. In many countries as same in Turkey, a greater number of people migrated from rural areas to the cities to find employment opportunities, heal economic conditions, and enhance health, education opportunities with aim for better live conditions (Levine, 1973; Yılmaz, 2004; İcduygu, 1999; Keleş, 1996) Technology and various developments in transportation invokes movements and mobility of human-beings. Why such a situation existed is explained in two reasons50; one of them as the more important is the wage differences in urban and rural areas. The wages for workers in urban areas differ from wages in rural significantly. The second one is existence of job opportunities in urban areas in higher number than rural (Üner, 1986: 371) 50 This study does not directly touch upon migration since it does not attempt to discuss in detail. In brief considering prominent models searching out the motive why people migrated, Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration(1885), Push-Pull Theory by Lee(1966), Migration Theory by Parekh(1994), Network Theory (1992), Dependency School are regarded. For example, the first study for migration in the modern sense; “Laws of Migration” assumes that a great body of migrants proceed a short distance and ecah current migration flow is componsated for counter-migration flow; besides females are migratory than males (1885:199). For network theory, the formation and maintenance of networks require long-standing interpersonal relationships, as well as the regular exchange of mutually valuable items between actors and migration needs to be understood within this context. For Lee’s push and pull theory, some factors are divided to two in line with their impacts on people’s perefences to go or not. Push factors may be called as primitive conditions, famine or drought, pollution, natural disasters, few oppurtunities, while pull factors may be ranked as security, industry, education, better medical care, enjoyment, better living conditions, job opportunities, political and/or religious freedom and finally family links. 51 Levine also acknowledged two reasons why people migrated to urban areas, the first is that the loss of land in the villages has pushed people to migrate to work in the cities, while for others who never had any land, the hope of getting a work seems preferable to low income coming from seasonal agricultural labor, and the second is that the rural population has grown in absolute size despite the volume of migration to the urban areas, which results in pressure on the land, “exacerbating changes in land tenure”, and more unemployment (1973:356) As mentioned before, women’s statements focused on two turning point in their lives; the first arrival in the city and their involvement in labour market in this study. On the spotlight of the debates on why rural-to-urban migrants migrated to the city, to examine why women in this study migrated is noteworthy to understand the beginning of the urban-mobility story. Table 6, which aimed to show two turning point in women’s lives is envisaged to summarize motives to work and migrate to city (for whose hometown differs from Ankara) according to the date of beginning to work. Interviewees migrated to Ankara because of various motives such as job opportunities in Ankara, better life conditions, education for children etc. Those reasons also directly link to motives behind women’s involvement in labour market. With referring to women’s statement, three distinct time period has emerged for the question of when they migrated to urban and began to work. Seven female workers began to work at the first term (1985-1999) as well as migrated to Ankara. Seventeen workers began to work at the second term (2000-2010) while eight of at the third period (2010-2015). Considering some patterns of three groups in accordance with their reasons to migrate to urban, economic motives and social motives vary accordance with when they migrated. For example, the first group told why they migrated is job opportunities in the urban while rural areas cannot provide: The reason why we married at 14 and my husband came to this apartment block (located in Gaziosmanpaşa-GOP) as a warden (bekçi). I stayed with mother-in-law for two years. Then my husband was hired as janitor (apartman görevlisi) in this building. Because there is no job in the village or no crops sufficient; no vineyards and orchards to farm. Soon, we began to cleaning works. (K14) 52 Table 6.Motives to Migrate and Work Date Begin to Work Date to Migrate 1985-1999 2000-2010 2010-2015 The 1970s The 1990s The End of 2000s The motive to work Necessity With growing up of children, the increase in expenditure on education Becoming employer and credit debt The motive to migrate to urban Husband’s job Absence of any job opportunity in the village Çorum(5), Sivas(1) Çankırı(1) Husband’s job Absence of any job opportunity in the village Better education for children Çorum(5), Ankara(3), Çankırı(2), Yozgat(2), Manisa(1),Karabük(1) Ardahan(1)Kırşehir(1) Erzurum(1) Sivas(1) Better education for children 7 17 8 Hometown Number Çankırı(2), Ankara(1),Bolu(1), Çorum(1), Çankırı(1), Malatya(1) Women in the first group whose hometown (Cankırı and Corum are those cities from where generally interviewees came. Cankırı is located around 132 km away from Ankara; Corum around 238 km) are near Ankara have arrived at city at the age of between 14 and 17. Upon arriving to the city, the first thing to do is to temporarily remain near relatives or acquaintances, which had been migrated to the city for a long time ago and then building a house. I did not arrive in Ankara, rather at place as same as our village. We built our homes-squatter houses (gecekondu)51 where we demanded or found properly52 (K4) “Gecekondu(put there over night)” term emerged in 1940s when rural-urban migrants built homes on the public lands for a night. Gecekondu neighborhoods have expanded in 1950s varyingly according to its form and construction type. Local and national governments responded to sheltering demands of rural-urban migrants anomalously. For example, the government within aim to obviate rising labour class by means of inclusive policies replied asks of gecekondu population for enhancement public services to enact amnesty laws such as law no.775(1966) legalizes those settlements and also commercializes them by rehabilitation plans, no.1164(1969) constitutes legal place for establishment of the General Directorate for Land, no.1990(1976) for illegally built homes. More than half of gecekondu population is deprived of some or all public services such as water, electiricity, roads and suitable schools for education. Considering the around 60% of Ankara population in 1995 lived in gecekondus, deficient public service delivery becomes prominent task (Keles, 2000:378, Ozyegin, 2005: 30) 51 53 Within this group, an interviewee firstly arrived at Yıldız district at the age of 17 stated that: Interviewee (K13): I married at 17 and we came to Yıldız after two years. Before that, we arrived at Çukurca district. During those times, we lived in squalor in squatter’s houses without electricity and water…we settled there” HK: How did you find Ankara? Interviewee (K13): I didn’t know Ankara yet. We arrived at district of squatter’s houses. This is as same as our village. It is inside the river (referring to Kırkkonaklar). There is no water or electricity…there is only gas lamp. We went to Yıldız and surrounded a public land then patchy but with endeavor of whole family, built our home. With mud and absence of roof, we had lived for ten years. After five years, my daughter and my son were born. My husband was discharged and he changed many jobs. He was sometimes porterage; sometimes waiter to bring home the bread. Interviewee stated how they built their homes “informally” and “easily”. This situation has also been set forth by Demirtas- Milz’s study which is committed to show informal processes in replacement of people and generating new forms of housing in Kadifekale, İzmir. “In Turkey, governments of between the 1960s and the 1980s approached squatter’s houses as inexpensive alternatives to the provision of social housing for low-income groups, thereby removing a heavy burden from the state’s shoulders.” (Demirtas-Milz, 2013:693) There is tacit collaboration among the state and some entrepreneurial immigrants in the maintenance of informal practices either in the form of the non-exercise of legal controls or the provision of amnesty laws (Oncu, 1988:45; Keyder, 2000:123 as cited in Demirtas-Milz, 2013:694) During the 1980s, relations between immigrants and state officials could be explained by Bayat’s notion of ‘quiet encroachment’ of the poor meaning that “noncollective direct action by individuals and families to acquire the basic necessities of life (land for shelter, urban collective consumption...etc.) in a quiet and unassuming, This statement belongs to interviewee resided in Doğantepe district; however, this summarizes all phrases of women in this group. They emphasized that they could build their homes wherever they find, which is voiced by interviewees resided in Pursaklar and other women in Doğantepe. 52 54 albeit illegal fashion” (Demirtas-Milz, 2013:694)53. Tahire Erman summarised this transformation (Erman, 2001:987): When the tendency of the 1970s to regard gecekondu land as a commodity was backed up by its legal approval in the 1980s, the ‘apartmentalisation’ of gecekondus became a widespread phenomenon. Thus, the once-owner-occupied/owner-built gecekondus were being replaced by high-rise apartment buildings in which the owner of the gecekondu land owned several apartments (‘the undeserving rich Other’). In brief, pessimism was felt deeply by some gecekondu people who experienced increasing deprivation, while other gecekondu people became economically better-off in a short period of time. The change in the form of buildings and emerging hierarchies among same class; “gecekondu people” has realized in the line with another form of relation between upper middle class and middle class families and new rural-urban migrants. In our case, a part of the first group has dealt with sheltering problem to build gecekondus; however, another part has solved by living in apartments at where are worked as warden or janitor. As shown in the Table 6, women’s motives to migrate and the reason of working varies by year, making them more differentiated “the Other”, which means that more urbanized and new rural-urban migrant come across at a different place; at home as a workplace, thus the more urbanized woman needs “the Other” woman depending on the changes in the consumption patterns as referred by Özyeğin so the middle class woman adopts blurred type of relation with working woman, undergoing a change in the description of “the Other”. Of this group (1985-1999), some interviewees are also janitors in their buildings with their husbands. As mentioned above, the process begun with husbands’ working as a warden (bekçi) for a while the apartment is being constructed and afterwards he become janitor (kapıcı/apartman görevlisi)54 of it. That janitor becomes prominent in 53 Big scaled urban transformation projects conducted by central government invokes that replacement of gecekondu settlers and construction in that places made by big scaled firms- private sector accordance with middle and upper-middle class’ demands could be observed in that period. Law no. 2985 dated 1984 sets forth the conducting projects of mass housing and for this purpose, the transformation of gecekondu settlements and upgrading of historical houses. Moreover, some opportunities such as opportunity to get a share from the fund of mass housing are created for municipalities in order to their participation in the production of housing. Law no. 3030 and no. 3194 dated 1984 operationalize parallel to this purpose because these laws delegate highly extensive authority to municipalities by increasing their financial sources (Ataöv&Osmay,2007:64-5) 54 “Kapıcı” term in Turkish means a man who cleans, guards, and meets all needs of an apartment’s residents. Kapıcı live in apartment houses, which are almost exclusively middle class and operate central-heating system, care for the maintenance of the apartment house. Each man and his family live 55 urban areas occurred in the beginning of 1960s when detached houses were replaced with apartments that accelerated after the 1980s’ gecekondu laws by Ozal government as referred above. Newly emerging mutual construction settlements create job opportunities for men leaving their hometown as same as in our case. With expansion of buildings being constructed for urbanised middle-class, apartments become keen physical and symbolic areas which consolidates borders between private and public spheres along with class relations by strengthening middle-class culture and rural-to-urban migrants’ involvement in their (middle-class) private sphere. On the one side, rural-to-urban migrants become indispensable part of middle-class families’ lives, on the other side; they have positioned as “the other” of each other (Ozyegin, 2005:20) that employer-employee relations intertwined with gender roles between middle class women and female domestic worker came across for today dated back to the 1980s. In line with Ozyegin’s arguments, janitor families have not appeared in upper-middle class and middle class neighbourhood incidentally. Those families emigrated to those settlements by the way of carrying informal ties such as relatives and acquaintances from rural areas. In our case, three interviewees of first group (1985-1999) are relatives and working as janitors near apartments. They are from same village and look for jobs by the means of their network. When those women are working as janitor with their husbands, they also have begun cleaning apartments of their buildings. After a while, they begun to work near buildings, which process is in particular valid for women in the first group. For women, to maintain two jobs; domestic worker and works related to janitor at the same time is so challenging that pressures on women for taking care of their children and doing cleaning works of her own home: Interviewee (K14): My little girl was crying so that I did not go work. . I had said her if I did not go to work, I could not have bought chocolate to her. When she was 4 years old, she wanted me to buy bicycle. I had bought her a red bicycle. Then one day, she said: “…mom…I don’t rent free in the basement and receives a small monthly fee from each of the apartments (Levine, 1973: 358) According to Gül Ozyegin (2005), janitor does not correspond the meaning of kapıcı in terms of occupational identity; however, due to the fact that the most corresponding term in English is janitor, throughout this study, janitor will be used. The term of janitor has been used for a man who is in charge of security of building in 1950s’America. 56 want bicycle, chocolate… you just stay with me” … yet it was necessity. My husband helps me in housework. Husband: By the way, I raised the kids. Interviewee (K14): Janitors have to remain in the apartment…hands are tied…kids perceive their fathers as mothers. I like a man go outside… 55 Women do not work as janitor officially; namely they cannot benefit from insurance rights and premiums arising from being recorded as employee. However, some tasks such as washing ladders and collecting garbage which refers to “women” are expected from their husbands. In Ozyegin arguments, women’s working as “cojanitor” consolidates traditions and conventional gender roles by strengthening gendered spaces because men have power to monitor women’s works and men determine where women go to work or not (2005: 70). Generally, women are allowed to work in closer apartments. If women do not want to involve in cleaning works of buildings because they are so exhausted after a workday, husbands may refuse: Husbands always hold up other women as example. They (husbands) always say his wife distributes newspapers…or other’s wife washes ladder…look at other women…they do not make shift; they want you to do works of apartment. You are already responsible for children, and cleaning of your home and your husband; moreover, you do cleaning works in other homes. Husbands bother women insomuch that women are disgusted with and react against. When you react, he believes that you earn money and then you raise your voice…you ask for other women’s (employees) advices…when as not so…since you are hurt and tired of, you react… (K10) “Kids know fathers as their mothers” statement is also repeated by other interviewees whose husbands are janitor. Some surveys(Brannen&Moss, 1988,1991; Coward, 1993; Sharpe, 1984) claimed that there is conflicting relationship between motherhood and epmloyment. “Conflicting demands that women experience and the guilt and responsibility they feel towards their children” when analysing their phrases during interviews grounded on those surveys, women’s reclections “focused on either their working life or their mothering identities” (Bailey, 2000:56) 55 57 “Ankara is my village” (K13) As discussed before, the first round of mobility story begins with the migration to the city and the motive to migrate of interviewees in our case is one of the top component within this process. The question how they develop “survival strategies” to continue their lives in the city is essential for our analysis. General framework of urban studies focuses more on controversy of tradition and modernity. Rural-urban migrants are expected to become “urbanized” 56 namely from traditional to modernised. The city which is envisaged in the noncontradictory form approached that the city makes traditional man more free and destructs traditional kinship relations, one of them is family links at the end of s/he led to relations peculiar to bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, whereas natural ties are expected to annihilate, it becomes stronger as cities grow and reproduces which is an engine of daily live in the city (Sarıbay, 1996: 256) Ned Levine referring to a case study of rural-to urban migrants in Ankara, Turkey conducted in 1968 interrogated relationship between maintaining village contacts after settling in the city and evidence of urban acculturation. Study findings indicated that informal networks which migrants maintain with their villages serve as a support system for themselves and as an informal welfare system for newcomer migrants. Occupation structure in Ankara is mostly characterized in service industries with 45 percent, 4 percent in agricultural occupations, 25 percent in other occupations 56 In the strict sense, urbanization means demographical explanations. Nevertheless, the phenomena of urbanization also indicates economically and socially changes of a society. Urbanization is described as population growth which results in increasing cities and generating more complex structure in organization, division of labour and specialization as well as alteration in human relations and behavours corresponding to industrialization and economic growth (Keles, 2000: 27) in broad sense. Considering places where populated over 10,000 are named as “city”, according to data referred by Jenny White quotated from Keles and Payne’s analysis (Keles&Payne, 1984), “whereas in 1950 only 18 percent of the population of Turkey lived in cities with a population over 10,000 by 1980 this number had jumped to 45 percent. The number of cities with population over 10,000 also grew during this period from 98 in 1945 to 330 in 1980. Of the 1980 urban population, a full 63 percent lived in the largest cities with over 100,000 population” (White, 2004:33) Between 1960 and 2000, urban population reached to 51,5 million from 6,9 million. Some studies conducted by Reuter, Aren and Sarç, indicate that between 1945 and 1950, the tendency to urbanization in Turkey did not exist while some studies conducted after 1950s argued Turkey has experienced urbanization. To use either population or administrative criteria as a base to determine “urbanization”, it is certain that there is no any urbanization pattern which may be called as inclusive and expanded equally to all urban residents (Keles, 2010: 56,57) 58 composed of semi-employed persons, unofficial “secondary” services (message runners, package-carriers) and small-scale street sellers: “Much of the working population of Ankara is in non-productive industries and is dependent on underemployment in government industries and on the good will of the middle classes” (Levine, 1973:358) Levine had put forward those findings in Ankara of which population is 905.000 in 1965. What is the current situation of Ankara? Is the statement “much of working population is dependent on the good will of the middle classes in Ankara” still described as valid and how working population-female domestic workers in our case develop survival strategies such as seeking employment in the city? Referring to first finding of Levine, Godelier (1988:28) also consolidated that kinship relations may function as social relations of production in certain types of non-capitalist societies. In these societies, kinship relations “determine access to and control over the means of production and social product for the groups by organizing process of production as well as process of distribution of products”. Those relations also can be applied to certain types of production in capitalist societies because family is contradictory site where class, gender and age based domination is produced on the other side, is a place where is source of solidarity, protection in times of crisis. (White, 2004: 138) In our case, kinship relations function as a main web to look for a job for women.57 Not only for the first group (1985-1999), for all 32 women with whom the researcher made interview; seeking and getting a job have begun via of relatives’ network. This network functions for both sides; employers and employees. Employees look for women to hire domestic works by means of their own relatives or friends while domestic workers also seek a job as well, which may be thought within “kinship rationality”. Jenny White uses this term for piecework production (White, 2004: 12); however, a certain type of rationality linked to kinship ties may be embedded in our case. 57 Some studies on kin ties find out women may play in maintaining kin network. Women in Australia, Canada and the US remain in contact with both consanguineal and affinal kin and serve as the centre of their household’s kin networks. “Kinkeepers” term has sprung out for American women (Eber-Holmes, 1987:56) 59 Nevertheless; considering our case, this rationality involves contradictory premises. On one side, this rationality function in positive way to contribute women’s economic survival; on the other side, it involves different exploitation forms in negative sense and reproduction of gendered occupational segregation. Indeed, Gilbert claims that personal networks can be both a resource and a constraint on women’s economic survival. As easily captured in our case study, women rely heavily on social webs to find employment, but these channels are “highly gendered and spatially differentiated. Women particularly those in female-dominated occupations-domestic works, are likely to receive job information from other women, family connections that results in occupational segregation by sex and connect women to jobs with lower wages and fewer benefits (Gilbert, 1999: 72) Though this claim involves corresponding premises to our case, actually different thoughts on female-male dominant spaces have been voiced: At first you shy away from kith and kin, after a while get used to…but you cannot temp to go on…years without insurance have passed. If I had gone in working on office, I would have been retired this year. I have been working since I was 17. I prefer office work. In housework, you cannot permit for anything and you’re always on the go without rest. In office work, I can get permission to go hospital yet in housework, you cannot. Office work is much easier than housework. I thought I could not come through this job… (K10) Partly because our circle is rural….since we came from village…when you go to an office, you are at same place with men…as if when we go to housework, and there is no men. When you go to office, they believe you take off headscarf… you see… you adapt there. I feel at ease to work there but social pressure is distress for us (K14) Each interviewee has a different story even some parts of are in accord with each other, only she has varied from other interviewees explicitly which will be the most substantial example of rationality in negative sense. One interviewee resided in Kolej58 and also janitor brings distinct attitudes toward labor relations and her acts have led this study to borrow kinship rationality from Jenny White. Because of her disallowance to record interview, her phrases are taken 58 Kolej is one of the central and older neighborhoods in Ankara 60 from writer’s notes. She stated how she mediated other women in her neighbooorhood for “matching employee and employer” 59 almost in “subcontractor” and “entrepreneur” manner. She said (K16)60; “When I am busy, I employ my sister”61 While she has led women to domestic works, she organized them, approximately 100 people comprised of 25 women and their families, including children and husbands, for piecework of a small-scale textile company62. By emphasizing how she is proud of herself, other women are able to get a job by virtue of her attempts, she has accomplished to “naturalize” and “rationalize” her manner. For example, her family owns a building, many apartments with rental income, and cars. Besides, she has bought land for “investment” recently63. At the same time, she has collected second-hand stuff from her employers’ houses in a warehouse for the purpose of distribution them in her hometown (Corum). She considered that domestic works may be exhausting; yet she cannot imagine another job which brings something in as much as domestic works, even in leisure times, she organized her family members to make eriste, salca or tarhana (local foods) for the purpose of selling. 59 Quotation marks have been preferred to emphasize terms during note-taking; while she was speaking, these are first things that come to mind. 60 K16: She is 34 years old and was born in Yozgat. She has lived in Kolej (near city center) and worked as janitor. She has worked since 2009 and preferred mostly closer places, however when the family faces economic difficulties, she has to go farther places such as Baglıca and Etimesgut. She likes domestic work because she thinks she cannot find another job more lucrative than domestic work. 61 “Sıkıştığımda onu (ablasını kast ediyor) eleman olarak alıyorum” 62 Major Western discourse argues that money as an important medium of exchange promotes individualism and dissolution of communities. However, money and market exchange have important place in pre-capitalist socities which is characterized as traditional and non-monetary contrary to general perspective. Money and kinship relations cannot be positioned as antithesis to each other because in some socities, they may be embedded or “major Western discourse” may be varied from one society to another in according to analysis by Parry and Bloch (2004: 140) Jenny White interrogated how “money makes us relatives” by tracing production relations in the small-scale production places, which grounded on “kinship rationality” which is a strategy for avoidance of risktaking and an attitude toward growth and reinvestment emphasizing social status and immediate benefit over long-term strategy and growth (2004:101). 63 While she was talking about “investments”, she frequently used “I did, I thought and I…etc.” 61 Treanor’s statement, “the ultimate goal of neoliberalism is a universe where every action of every being is a market transaction, conducted in competition with every other being and influencing every other transaction, with transactions occurring in an infinitely short time, and repeated at an infinitely fast rate.” (Karaman, 2013: 716) (Emphasis added). It is critical that neoliberalism has accomplished its aim to make each action or component including social ties being competitive in a world of transaction. As this study indicates, social ties are important tools for seeking job so its significance cannot be ignored even it has involved “more exploitative” form of class relations. Nevertheless, for a group of friends, they are able to find employment by means of each other. One of them get a job, and after a while employee and employer have confidence in each other; employer’s friends ask for other women to hire. This cycle has sustained in fact each person of this group has always been able to get a job. An interviewee worked as baby-sitter for more than 20 years, resided in Elvankent64 and worked at METU campus for ten years who is key figure in our case because of her capacity for helping her friends or relatives’ getting a job, which she helped four women to get a job: We all meet each other. For example, given that somebody looks for baby-sitter, we give a reference about each other. Immediately, we use our network, thus employment opportunity exists for unemployed, we help each other and other to earn ourselves daily bread (biz sadece aracıyız, aileler için çalışacaklar için onlara da rızk kapısı oluyor…) and other friends. (K9) On the one hand, from worker side a small and strong web has emerged, which provides permanent jobs at the recommendation among a group of friends. On the other hand; from employee side, this situation is the same. Indeed, there are two group of people, one side is the employee and other is the worker. With reference to “trust”, a key figure- in our case K9- matches both two groups in an attempt to avoid any probable risks. Rural and informal ties facilitated the survival strategies in the urbanization of female labour as domestic worker. In that regard, the dichotomy of modernised vs. traditional or kinship ties vs. urbanized does not provide versatile site 64 Elvankent is located on the western part of Ankara. 62 to explain distinctive position of female domestic workers as rural-urban migrants in the cities.65 In sum, to analyse migrants’ survival strategies and impacts on labor market as well as urban space requires focusing on newly produced premises stemming from urban residents’ own experiences rather than dichotomised terms which makes clear-cut distinction. An interviewee of first group (K13) has used this statement; “Ankara is my village”, which may show how “urbanization” is formed in complex line and beyond more modernized or less traditionalized because as Levine and our case interrogated, rural patterns may function within the urban sometimes they sustained by incorporated into urban framework and sometimes, “urban” has gained rural characteristics, rather than using “pseudo-urbanities” term; critically reconsideration of the urban and rural, the foci of the research is to elaborate motives to migrate, how rural-urban migrants pertain living and perceive “the urban”. 3.2.2. Mobility and Urban: Neoliberalization Deepens (After the 2000s) By centering on spatial changes referring to temporal changes, this study committed to interrogate if the motives to migrate and to work change along the years, which is of vital importance in order to find out “the story”. As fieldwork proceeded, some specific moments accrued. Interviewees’ statement managed study to focus on especially the 2000s in which majority of women interviewed began to work conspicuously. To analyse and focus on after the 2000s is of great importance to track mobility story of women because especially after the 2000s, restructuring urban spaces has gained speed as well as mobility of urban residents in various terms so it requires to examine the story of the 2000s’ cities in Turkey in brief. 65 Even in 1960s, approximately 60 percent of Ankara population was rural-to urban migrants, of mobilites and attitudes has directly influenced on any parts of cities, which results in erosion of the major meaning and functions of the urban. To elaborate, one understanding puts forward that “many migrants come to the cities with the hope of returning to the villages”, referring to quotation from Kıray (1970) and Suzuki (1964) (Levine, 1973:356). Considering our case and statements of interviewees, this frame is certainly falsified because none of 32 interviewees want to return to the hometown whereas husbands of some demand. The motive why they behave separately is that in case family returns to the hometown, positive changes in the women role within the household and labour market such as being more free and gaining more mobility area in comparison to the rural will be reverted back, and it may suggested that “hope of returning to the villages” depends on respondents’ gender roles. 63 Cities have become “fertile” tools of newly emergent economies (Kurtuluş, 2006:8) and become the tool of legitimization of current government’s deregulation, localization and privatization as prominent policies in the 2000s and more polarized/fragmented plans-regulations replaced with holistic understanding in the development and implementation of policies in favour of short term aims (Şahin,2006: 114). Oncu (1999) also stated that especially after the 2000s, cities have become rentable areas where strict control and intervention mechanisms have been fortified by the state and these are associated with their income generation and investment capacity anymore. Turkish administrative structure has also restructured by the way of acceleration of “localization”, arising metropolitan municipalities have become “representatives” of central government as a strong means of organizing redistribution and distribution 66. As a result of those changes, cities have expanded to its borders and urban residents’ have become more mobilized. As middle-upper income groups moved to periphery and newly emergent places in the cities, it compelled female domestic workers to move towards those places. In this case, mobility operates in its imprisonment characteristics because, female domestic workers who already deal with constrained connection to urban space becomes more dependent on public transportation and its quality, design accordance with gender-based perspective gain more importance, which detailed in the next part in parallel with women’s statements. Coming back to the period of “deepening neoliberalization”, the state is restructured within the market understanding overwhelmingly in the 2000s as Swyngedouw argues, the market understanding replaces with welfare state and then the majority of population is excluded apparently in the understanding, which the market settles at the center and this replacement triggers the authoritarian state lived with the fear of resistance, by the excluded. The people who are not able to integrate into new market understanding as workers, immigrants emerge the social networks that are possible 66 Demirtas refers to some municipal laws how to reflect distribution of rent within legal framework. These laws “alter the context of urban governance by broadening the physical space that fell under the jurisdiction of metropolitan municipalities, increasing their power and authority over district municipalities, and making it easier for them to establish and create partnerships with private companies”(Demirtas-Milz,2013:695) and law no.5216 dated 2004 about metropolitan municipalities, law no.5393 dated 2005 about again municipalities stipulate the participation of local actors in the local administration for production of spatial and institutional strategic plans making contribution to administrative understanding of the 2000s. 64 resistance places in the process of capitalism’s shifting gears and its reflection in the urban which evolves from supply-side urbanization into demand-side urbanization (Harvey, 1985: 202-9; Smith, 202: 19). The restructuring era is accompanied to economic crises and the state’s “restructured” policies to recover them. Turkish economy followed by integration to global financial markets in the late 1980s has been challenged by several economic crises. Between 1990 and 2001, Turkey experienced hard times economically with four significant crises (1994, 1998, 2000 and 2001)67 Recent urban policies have accelerated and deepened in the period ruled by the AKP government, which leads to politically and economically polarized society as well as socially and economically segregated urban spaces, proliferating survival strategies and growing efforts to develop strategies in order to cope with the repressive impacts of the economic restructuring. According to Ozturk and Ergunes’s findings (2009), women started knitting and sewing in order to save also consumption of diaper decreased related to child care followed by 2001 crisis. Women have to look for cheaper items and discounts in the shopping markets for longer hours and spend more time cooking to prepare homemade food that invoke remarkable increase in housework. During the 2001 crisis, people establishedsocial ties among friends, neighbors. About one-fifth of the poorest families stated they lived without any support and they seek help from acquaintances rather than public sources. (Ozturk, 2009:100,107) Ozturk summarizes certain impacts of the 2001 crisis on women on three stands. The first one is unemployment and change in the patterns of employment that result in long-term unemployment for women and their forcing into informal sectors. The second one is the cut in the consumption expenditure and the deterioration of health services that leads to decrease in the household incomes. Transformations in the health system compel people’s access to health services, childcare and elderly care services, also 68. “After all these crises the state attempted to recover the economy and balance the macro-economic conditions by implementing stabilization programs. These programs without any exception forced the state to make essential savings by reducing public sector investments” (Balaban, 2008:152) 68 According to Ozturk another impact of 2001 crisis may be put forward that since people cannot afford basic needs, they have to consolidate social ties and lean on relatives (Ozturk, 2009: 107), which remembered Jenny White’s claims about kinship relations’ reconsideration during crisis times. 67 65 Access to health services is extremely substantial because one of interviewees who has been kidney patient for seven years have been working to afford her own health expenses and according to her statements, she has to be employed in domestic works because she believed that another firm cannot employ her due to health problem: “This work is suitable for me because I am able to leave when I dialyzed, another job cannot fit in with me”(K17)69 or lack of health services as main public service push them to work seven days a week: “I had to work to defray hospital costs of my father weeklong”(K18)70, both began to work after 2000, which shows implicitly the new welfare regime’s severe impact on the means for survival in women’s lives. For my child (ren) Alkan also stated that the shift in the urbanization has developed in parallel with forcing household economies’ survival strategies to be reconsidered. The process began with Thatcherism, Reaganism and Ozalism in Turkey has turned up pressure on urban inhabitants because of spending cuts on the public expenditure even in the major public services. Welfare state which child and aged care are ranked in priority is replaced by workfare state which maintains intervention but in different forms and carries out market mechanisms in major public services. The increase in the burden on the private sphere is inevitable outcome.71 69 K17:She is 37 years old and was born in Ankara. She has lived in Demetevler and worked since 2005 with same employer and as her employer moved from the centre to periphery, she also moved. She suffers from kidney disease and her employer is understanding for work hours so that she can go to dialyze, therefore she cannot think more understanding people than her employer. 70 K18: She is 44 years old and was born in Bolu (a province located betwen Istanbul and Ankara) She has three children and lived in Doğantepe. She has worked since 2009 and she is only breadwinner because her husband does not support family budget. She grew up her children alone both mentally and financially. The era began since the 1980s and continues through nowadays is identified that 1960s’ welfare states which provides services for child, young and elder people as well as entails affirmative action for women in their participation into public life as education, work and political life (Alkan, 2005:623). Globalization and localization, namely glocalization consolidated by new right policies enhance the impacts of deregulation on central governments as same as local governments. New division of labour and informal economies bring about newly emergent mode of production being localized while increasingly more contradictory relations at local scale, which is directly hinged on globally shaped economic and technological framework have been burst. Local community members are no longer identified as city-dwellers yet they are new clients of restructured relations at local and global scale/glocalized scale (Alkan, 2005:64) Within this rescaling and restructuring framework, the political agenda of local governments and their local services is more open to women’s necessities and 71 66 Considering our case, as indicated in Table 3, most of the interviewees, 17 women were involved in labour market after the 2000s.They added social motives to economic motives. While they emphasized economic reasons for why they migrated to Ankara, they also touch upon the expression of “better education for children” and began to work; “with growing up of children, the increase in expenditure on education”. Reconsidered the motives to migrate, social motives to better life conditions for themselves and children; economic motives enhancing job opportunities seem dispensable for them. With growing children to school-age, increase in expenditures for education forces women to work. Expenditures arising from private courses and private universities enforce household economy. Interviewees of this group have emphasized upon the importance of education and they stated that they would go to the ends of the earth to make sure their children had the best education. (K1 and K14) The key phrase of this period is revealed as “the child” As same as in the first group (1985-1999), women in the second group migrated to the city following their marriages at age of 15. HK: How did you find Ankara when you arrived at first? Interviewee: Child… 15 -year-old child how much she loved could say? When I first opened my eyes, I saw Cemile Abla, neighbors. Let me thank them for their support. I always would cry in front of the window. I had waited for my dad to get me. I was 18 when I became a mother and my son was my only companion to me. (K5) They grew up with their children because when encountered city at first, also they were children. Cheng Sim stated; “When rural migrant married and set up home in the city, the lack of affordable childcare services often meant that women had no choice but to withdraw from the labour force during the years of childbearing and child-rearing…in the village children did not disrupt mothers’ productive work in the their demands for daily lives hence services offered or not by local governments are directly hinged upon “gendered spaces”. Since women’s public sphere is limited to their neighbourhood and women are able to meet the needs of household through services, which enables women to access both temporally and spatially. The target group of services by local governments is directly women or those services can reach to households by way of women (Ecevit, 2001:235) Especially low-paid nursery services, education centres (kindergartens, training centres) by local governments are assumed as essential public services which facilitates women’s activities, adversely women have to find solutions to deal with those issues. 67 fields, as women could combine agricultural work with child-rearing. Women worked flexible hours on the farm, also carried their young ones with them to the fields” (2000: 97). When remembered those words voiced by interviewee in the first group, Cheng Sim’s arguments on changes in the family structure with taking consideration into separation between rural and urban cannot be applied to any case: Sometimes I went to housekeeping with my baby tied on my back or my husband brought the baby for breastfeeding to workplace when employer did not allow me go to breastfeeding.(K10) It is certain that women have been associated with household responsibilities such as childrearing and therefore their participation in the labour market is expected to be irregular (Keith&McWilliams, 1997); when women have neighbours or mother-inlaw to care her children, they can find employment. Since they mostly cannot benefit from low-paid education centres or childcare services, existed conditions compel them to kinship relations or social ties. And also their preferences for workplace depend on childrearing conditions that will be detailed in the next chapter. Until child reaches to school-age, women can be more mobile to find employment. The situation that existence of any support, either public service or social circle determines when and where she is able to work. This situation may be called as both cause and effects of working or not working, for dependency on children prevents women from working. On the other hand, that children turn school-age increases burden on household and results in women’s participation in the labour market to afford education expenses, the cause-effect relationship can be captured overwhelmingly in our case: We have a child with hearing loss and we had to find full-featured nursery for her. We have a hard time financially then I began to think what I can do while she is at nursery. If I were salesman, I would work till late. I would find a job with more flexible work hours. My father-inlaw was confined to bed. In a friends’ meeting, a young woman said she looks for a woman (yardımcı kadın-helping woman)72 to clean home. I heard this term at first. I began for a day for a week then at recommendation, worked for 2-3 days a week…Kith and kin was rumoring why I went to housework even my husband is public servant The term of “yardımcı kadın(helping woman) is overwhelmingly used by both employers and workers to identify wome who is domestic worker in Turkish generally people prefer to use this term rather than “daily cleaner”; gündelikçi in Turkish. 72 68 and we have a house…I had difficulty in doing housework of my own home and my husband began to be on the night shift. He took in hand home’s responsibilities…thanks for his help…I earned 5 liras a day and we hired tutor for 6.5 liras for hour to maintain her (child) education.(K8) Actually interviewee has summarized which many debates upon restructuring period and the crisis’s severe impacts on the household economy and activities especially on women who is responsible for run household in the eyes of the society. She had been challenged with the lack of any public support for childcare and elderly care services as well as educational services. When they take in hand caring another women’s child or cleaning houses, employers can be more mobile to work or go out in a certain extent; namely a woman has taken the burden away from another woman. However; domestic worker’s “responsibilities caring child and managing home” cannot be delivered to anyone. They have to manage so much burden and develop strategies to survive in the city even through working at nights and have discovered new terms like yardımcı kadın. I have been working for 11 years after our children were school-aged because their needs were mounted up. At first, I cooked of a firm at Kızılay but my children were kid and I could not cover all things, afterwards I began to work as baby-sitter at METU. My husband is working there and I heard that some women were working as baby sitter or cleaner in homes at METU. However, my husband did not allow me to work so I went secretly at the beginning. After a while, he accepted. I had to do because we have educated two kids and my daughter went to private university, we have had a rough time of it (K19)73 We thought out together with … Sister(Abla-employer)74 and … Sister about where I educate my child and with their effort and encouragement, my child went to one of the private universities. Kith and kin rumored about this again, however my employers always supported me (K8) Another interviewee who lived in an apartment building and worked with her husband as janitors, and the only interviewee younger than the author, has a 5-yearK19: She is 47 years old and was born in Erzurum. She has two children and lived in Doğantepe. She has worked since 2005 in METU, Cukurambar and Cayyolu respectively. She worked as babysitter in order to afford bank loan for new home. She does not like her own neighborhood however, her family has to live there because of low rents. 73 74 Women generally prefer to use “... Sister(abla in Turkish)” when talked about their employers. 69 old-child and she believed pre-school education is necessarily required for children. Rather than general pattern among interviewees denoted that having an opportunity for a place/somebody to stay child enables women more mobility, she has distinct pattern toward this issue. She decided to go on her child’ education at kindergarten and began to work to afford education expenses from any tools demanded by the school involving school bus. Moreover, she investigated all kinds of pre-education schools. After a long looking for, she decided on one which is preferred by upper income group: I wish the best for her. I want her live in ‘clean’, kind places. Education expenses of kindergarten compel us. I work for her. My neighbours and relatives do not approve this they ask why your child is going to private kindergarten or why you are working. They said me to stay home and care my child…they do not understand why.(K7) Actually, considering our main three-time periods; 1985-1999, 2000-2010 and 20102015, the last two periods cannot be separated distinctively because interviewees began to work after the 2000s referred almost same reasons (children and education expenditure/social facilities of the city) to work: My husband was in Ankara, he had been working at Ankara for many years. We married at Yozgat, my husband’s hometown. Until my daughter has grown up at school-age. We migrated to Ankara, Ümitköy. At first we arrived at Hüseyingazi district and then Ümitköy for four years. My husband is janitor and we looked for such a job for him because of his conditions. To live in Ankara is so challenging and children’s education expenses consume us. Through relatives, we found this place and job (her husband is janitor) (K20)75 My husband does not contribute much to household. I defray all education expenses of my son. Without I worked, my child would not have gone to university…I hold my daughters’ weddings also…I mean my husband is feckless (K18) The restructuring welfare regime has increased burden on domestic workers in terms of familial maintenance activities, and desire on hiring domestic workers in terms of middle class, however; domestic workers’ spousal relation and how to grow up a child have undergone a change by their daily interaction to “other” class and “other” ways of living. In some cases, domestic worker adopts middle class consumption K20: She is 46 years old and was born in Malatya. She has two children and lived in Umitköy. She and her husband work as janitor in an apartment block in Umitköy. They migrated to Ankara for their children education and she began to work to afford education expenses in 2011. 75 70 patterns like best education for their children as we derived from the words of an interviewee (K7) who demands “clean” places for her child or like buying bigger houses - an interviewee bought a new five roomed home although they had no need of such a big home (K2)76 Home in Neighborhood Though as fieldwork gets further different key statement upon why they began to work which is to purchase a home by credit debt has been emphasized by women began to work after 2010. Interviewee began to work in 2012 and have lived in Etimesgut that is referred in the previous part: “My husband is public servant for more than twenty-five years. We have already a house, and then I want bigger house so we bought a house by credit. I began to work to afford credit debt. My income is for my husband; his income is for me…” (K2). Three interviewees among this group emphasized their burden because of credit debt for purchasing home. In order to investigate spatial perspective of them, the question was asked: “Where do you prefer to purchase new home?” They prefer again their neighbourhood to live because to sustain live conditions in the city at moderate level, rural-to urban migrants need to go on social ties and kin relations as well that has been referred throughout this part, as captured in these words: “I bought new home very close to my old home. I got used to around here” Table 7 composed of colored columns which represents one interviewee indicates where they arrived at the city initially and their last neighbourhood. Table 7 aims to capture how they change their neighboorhod by years between the first arrival and present. Considering common patterns, generally they do not opt for another neighborhood to live in. The relation with their districts is contradictory while the first district resided in as soon as migrated is found “in mud and patchy”, they try to conserve their hometown that results in generating “their hometown” within “urban” continuing rituals as same as how and when they were experienced composed of gold days, ceremonies, and preparing traditional food (salca, eriste-local food etc.) 76 She forced her husband to buy a five roomed home and borrow a loan for new home. She did not want to change her old neighborhood. 71 To understand this relation, the question was posed: “Where else would you think of living? Like here (workplace)”, they responded that could not think of another place than they live contradictorilybecause some of the interviewees find their neighborhoods irreplaceable whereas find them “unsecure”.An interviewee who has been working since 2010 and resided in squatter settlement -Dogantepe where one of the important neighborhood urban transformation projects is implemented in Ankara waited for the bus with me because she did not find Dogantepe anymore due to higly populated Syrians and unemployed young boys who used drugs in the streets. We talked about “mobility” in terms of interviewees and Syrians’ living in Dogantepe disturbed interviewee. It is interesting point that a mobile group of people-Syrians was not favoured by another mobile person who formerly arrived in Ankara six years ago. Table 7. How Their Neighborhoods Where They Lived Changed The date of migration First Residence When they arrived at first Last Residence(2015) The 1970s The 1990s The Late 2000s Yenimahalle(2) Mamak (squatter house) Mamak (squatter house) Mamak (squatter house) Keçiören Mamak(squatter house) Bağlıca(janitor) Çankaya(janitor) Doğantepe(2) (squatter house) Doğantepe Abidinpaşa Sokullu Pamuklar(squatter house) Kurtuluş(janitor) Bağcılar (squatter house) Pursaklar Aydınlıkevler(janitor) Yenimahalle Doğantepe(squatter house) Dışkapı Kırkkonaklar(squatter house) Seyranbağları(janitor), Siteler GOP Cebeci(squatter house) Kolej(janitor) Yenimahalle(2) Çankaya(janitor) Elvankent Saray GOP Mamak Ümitköy(janitor) Seyranbağları Doğantepe(2) Seyranbağları Natoyolu Kolej Doğantepe Pursaklar Batıkent GOP(janitor) Yenimahalle Sincan Seyranbağları GOP(janitor) Keçiören Seyranbağları Bağlıca(janitor) Doğantepe Dikmen Pursaklar Furthermore, especially after acceleration of urban transformation projects (UTP) in Dogantepe, housing prices tripled according to interviewees’ statement. Before UTPs 72 did not begin, housing price was about 100.000 Turkish Liras. At now (2015), the price reached to about 300.000 Turkish liras. However, even though slums were transformed into apartment blocks and newcomers arrived, the maintenance of social ties of home neighborhood is so critical: All relatives and acquaintances from hometown resided next-doors, I cannot live in another place. Till I came home from work, my neighbor’s steep tea and cook borek. In summer, we sit in the garden for hours. My children resided close by me and they have been lived here since childhood. We with neighbors eat together (beraber yer içeriz). I’m concerned about who will be next-door neighbour moved to TOKI’s homes, yet I have had fed up with gecekondu’s cleaning, stove and firewood works On the other hand; inshallah I’ll be there (TOKI houses) all right. (K18) I’m happy to live in my neighbourhood. I don’t want to live anywhere else. Such as Cukurambar, tövbe… I don’t like Cukurambar. The bottom of valley (derenin dibi)…Neither any proper shopping place nor grocery exists there. (K15) If they gave me millions, I would not live here (Angora Evleri) (an interviewee at 65 aged and when we were on the bus) Domestic workers perceive “the other neighbourhood” where they visited regularly far away their lives because referring to another statement; “If I had a home there, how could we survive because all groceries, outdoor markets are so expensive. We cannot afford to live there. Our cars are even different than others’.” (K21)77 or “I would not like to live there (Cukurambar), but I want my children to live” (K1), other neighbourhood is “the other” in their minds. “Gecekondu” beyond a type of structure is the place social ties are reproduced which facilitates women’s lives in different ways. Their neighborhoods as “secure places” are sites where mutual concerns are shared and seek ways to struggle with difficulties from urban life. Even though neighborhood relations and domestic roles consolidate “female roles” and “motherhood roles”, sometimes those relations may be at least a means of relief for women suppressed by gender and economic relations. Women leave home every day at 6.00 am, they trust children to each other. They go to work together, sometimes work together, at the end of the day they cope with employers’ 77 K21:She is 45 years old and was born in Corum. She has three children and she is only high school graduate interviewee. She has worked since 2005 mostly in the periphery (Umitköy, Yasamkent) her employment relation differs from other interviewees because employer and she agreed one - year contract in contrast to general daily wage. 73 attitude tightfisted. The writer has a talk for hours with four women aged sixty and forty in a slum of Dogantepe. Everyone talks about their concerns in company with laughing and crying. Two younger women want to escape from their husbands and work means the way to get rid of husbands, mother in law, and their current lives. However, they love the place where they live in because it provides breathing space while struggling with troubles that seem difficult to overcome alone. This part has touched upon the forms of intervention into urban space and through restructuring period. Though, referring to urbanization pattern in Turkey, the study attempted to focus on women perspective and interviewees’ own stories and have reader witness of each stage of their urban experiences. Following part will be another stage of this study/story. 3.2.3. Mobility and Urban: Involvement in the Labour Market This part analyses women’s mobility across urban space and investigates how women’s mobility has changed, how and why it differentiated by year through looking for the effects on gendered daily mobility. Along with examining daily mobility; commuting time and distance, the transportation, and how they determine workplace (distance and/or timing, or another factors) will be tackled particularly. Our findings indicate that everyday mobility differentiates depending on class and gender also there is certain spatial and social mobility differences among female domestic workers, which means that the adoption of survival strategies and gendered access to resources are not homogenous. Aforementioned, present-day society is characterised by speed, and mobility, both physical and virtual (Lash and Urry, 1994, 252; Urry, 2000). Daily mobility is shaped by mode of travel across the city to increase accessibility. “Most people work in a place other than where they live, and activities that earlier were located in the home or the neighbourhood are now spread over large geographical areas. Urban sprawl has scattered everyday activities over a large area, which forces people to spend a considerable amount of time on the move” (Hjorthol, 2008:193) Domosh and Seager identify mobility within “ability”; “… the ability to get around is shaped by 74 physical capacity but it also deeply intertwined with social status…in contemporary societies, increasing wealth is attended by increasing mobility and reciprocally increasing mobility increases privilege.” (2001:67) In new turn of urbanization, distances have extended as well as mobility increases in parallel with distribution of wealth in unequal manner. Having taking consideration of Hanson’s arguments on mobility, it embraces essential premises which refer mobility to signify the movement of people from one place to another in the course of everyday life, and personal travel is understood as primary concern, by means of which people involve in the daily activities such as “paid and unpaid work, leisure, socializing and shopping” (Hanson, 2010:7) Hanson also argued mobility is not just individual rather it is embedded in individual, and interacting with, the household, family, community and larger society. The Work-Home Trip Robin Law’s debate on mobility, mobility is embraced within two branch; ‘women’s fear’ and ‘journey-to-work, particularly the second branch provides discussion for larger critique of urban land use in capitalism, of spatial separation of production and reproduction because “work-trip is a response to social change, as economic restructuring and a growing service sector generated new working conditions and labour demands for women… the work-trip is the single human activity that most clearly bridges the symbolic and spatial distinction between public and private which is a feature of western urbanism. It is the actual and metaphoric link between the spheres and spaces of production and reproduction, work and home” (Law, 1999: 569, 570-1) Law has added another term, transport which touched upon mobility because mobility in particular gendered mobility is reciprocally affected by how access to resources, notably time, money, skills and technology. Access to one of these directly impacts on travel behavior involving how often trips are made where and when they are made and the mode of transport used and, mechanical and physical competencies (ability to use car, having driving licence, owning car etc.) Within this framework, ‘transport’ refers to the movement of people (not goods); indicates the short-term, repetitive, movement flows of people designated as ‘circulation’ rather 75 than ‘migration’ (Zelinsky, 1971); and usually implicitly refers to movement flows within an urban setting. However, Law proposes another term to replace with transport; daily mobility to “signal the new framing within social and cultural geographies of mobility” (Law, 1999:568) This part of this thesis focuses upon mobility and urban referring to Law’s insights, points out daily mobility as well as tracing work-job mobility, refusing widely accepted assumption that “women typically travelled shorter distances to employment sites than men” (Law, 1999:570). Recent studies on work-trip patterns for Black and Latina commuters who involved in racially segmented labour and housing markets shows that they can go far away for much more long hours (McLafferty and Preston,1991).Another survey claims that commuting times of white women were found to be shaped by marital status and the presence of children, but the same was not valid for African American or Latina women. The reason why such a difference exists: Family status effects minority women are small…not because they have freedom from household responsibilities, but because they have fewer employment alternatives nearby and poor access to transportation (Preston, McLafferty& Hamilton, 1993:247) Our case also indicates different patterns where thirty-two women have distinct/common preferences for commuting times and distances which will be elaborated in the following parts. Those words are exact motive to discuss daily mobility of women: I get up at 5 am, I heat the stove. I cleanup the house and cook something for dinner. Take the bus 6 am and then go to Kızılay. Rush to catch up the Railway and connecting time (75 minutes in Ankara) you are all sweaty. You should be home no later than 8 am. All day cleaning ... That's 6 pm end of work, if you're going to be late home, your angry husband waits for you. Rush again. Not working but commuting consumes us ... (K1) The mode of transportation is one of the most significant component which determines constraints or abilities of women’s daily mobility. Security, the design of vehicles, timing, plotting route and fareare sub branches of mode of transportation as well as generating spatial perspective in the eyes of women. The expectations of women to the city and spatial usage have been shaped with distinct spatial practices 76 in the city, which underpinned gender roles (Hamilton, Jenkins, Hodgson, Turner, 2005:3-4) Castells stated in “City, Class and Power” (1982:30): … for public transportation the main problem is its extreme dependence on the social function which has made it necessary; i.e. daily travel from home to work at hours and locations which are extremely concentrated for the large mass of wage-earners who have no possibility of arranging their time or space…thus spatial mobility is worked out according to time tables of the big organizations… Castell’s emphasis on organization of spatial mobility is helpful to grasp the challenges women face challenges from the city because, in our case female domestic workers’ workplaces are homes and those are not concentrated in big production places, rather these are dispersed across the city-in our case concentrated in western part of Ankara for last thirty years and public transportation has not been designed in terms of routes and time by taking account into their spatial and everyday mobility, which complies with Law’s emphasis on gendered access to resources. Routes of transportation are another challenging issue. As stated before in details, Ankara in which developed the centre towards the western periphery involves routing of public transportation based upon the centre-periphery namely not providing transportation service district focused suppresses on women’s mobility across the city (Kalfa, Aytekin& Sevinc,2009:231). In our case, all interviewees have to use more than 2 vehicles during work-home trip and they have to stop by Kızılay which is a transport hub and a place getting other bus in time so how they perceived Kızılay? The response is that: We run over there. I’m on the go in Kızılay to catch other bus. Kızılay is where I’m all sweaty. (K1) Upon Tekeli’s arguments on public transportation in Ankara, 90.000 populated Ankara with 15 % traveling in vehicle among all kinds of traveling in 1930s reaches to 2.200.000 populated city in 1985 with 80% traveling in vehicle. However, rising demand on public transportation could not adequately responded by the municipality. Local government attempted to go towards small sized entrepreneurs and response this demand through buses privatized in a certain extent depended on metropolitan municipality. 77 According to Tekeli, small sized entrepreneurs is flexible structured which enables increase in the demand rapidly and they are apt to organize which forms a new type of rent distribution mechanism and also sustain earnings. Two-sided public transportation composed of public buses and privatized ones is to the detriment of urban residents (Tekeli, 2009: 119,129) It would appear that the structure of public transportation has taken consideration neither urban residents nor women’s necessities specifically. 78 As stated in the previous chapter, generally women enforced to work in informal sector and they travel for long hours with various stations, namely trip-chaining composed of shopping for household needs, leave and/or pick up child’s school or nursery a day. Since they are lower waged, transportation preferences are more depended on public transportation with lesser automobile ownership and having driving license79 more on foot for middle distances (Rosenbloom, 2006:9). Coming to polarized cities, distance is most important component to determine items of commuting. Several studies have indicated that men often choose among job opportunities from throughout a metropolitan area, while women, to a greater extent, confine their choice of workplaces to those available locally (Hanson and Pratt, 1995; Hjorthol, 1998; Lee and McDonald, 2003 as cited in Naes, 2008:173). In our case, women’s preferences on workplaces depends on various factors, which mentioned in the former parts, such as employer’s attitude and relation among employer-worker, spousal relations, household economy, taking care of children, perception of labour by interviewees, through which enables, disables and modifies women’s spatial mobility. Pink Buses (Pembe Otobüs) has applied in Sanlıurfa recently as a precaution towards harrassment in the public transportation. While this kind of policies proposed that we protect women, it reproduces gender segregation and does not submit structural changes in the minds of men and existed male dominant system. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/kadinlara-ozel-otobus-seferleri-basladi-28349449 (accessed in 06.03.2016) 78 79 According to a survey among 1200 people in Ireland, 36 % of women own private car, while this ratio is 57 % in men (Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, 2001:3, as cited in Kalfa, Aytekin & Dınc (2009). According to information published by Turkish National Police, The number of female drivers across the country is in increase. The number of women with driving licence was 2.719.817 in 2005 and reached to 5.412.759 in 2013 and 5.917.309 in 2014. Accordingly, it was approximately two-fold increase in the number of women drivers in the years 2005 and 2014. This number may be misleading because 20 % of total number with driving licence is only women. Accessed 28 February 2016, http://aa.com.tr/tr/yasam/kadin-surucu-sayisi-artiyor/43820 78 Several studies have also indicated that length of the journey to work varied with occupational status, namely, high-status workers travelled longer distances to work than low-status workers (Sirmans, 1977; Gera and Kuhn, 1978 as cited in Hjorthol, 2008:193) Nevertheless, considering our case, remoteness of workplaces has been determined according to various components. In more polarized city according to our case, women pay regards to employers’ attitude, household budget and public transportation’s conditions (timing, routing etc.). They sometimes find employment in remote places than their neighborhood. In our case, conventional workplace has replaced by “the home” so homes may be everywhere across the city. Their daily mobility and transportation use has gained much more importance than other urban residents because they travelled longer distances by trip-chaining and passing many settlements during home-work trip. Figure 2 which was shown in the first part of thesis could be seen a brief summary of this study because all arguments and debates upon gender, mobility and space have operated across this figure through daily mobility. Women have experienced distances/the city on the move through some constraints. As referred to Law’s arguments on gendered norms and codes’ impacts on access to resources, notably time, money, skills and technology and their influence travel behavior (how often trips are made, where and when they are made, and the mode of transport used) as well as social meaning of mobility. Time is one the most crucial constraint experienced by women: Interviewee (K7.): Transportation is not bad, it is horrible. I go to Kızılay and then GOP. I go GOP for 1.5 hours. I have to stop by Kızılay. On Tunalı street, we waited for 40 minutes above all if I stand…for 40 minutes, I could take care of my kid or doing housework. Transportation is terrible. I left home at 8 am and I left workplace at 6 pm. I can be at home at 8 pm barely. Connecting time80 passes in the blink of an eye. Dolmus (2.25 Turkish liras81) costs higher than buses. Public buses are overcrowded. I have to use private buses to arrive home earlier. Kid came home from nursery but they’re much more Connecting time(aktarma süresi) dures 75 minutes in public transportation, Ankara and it also costs 80 kurus. 80 81 When we made interview, the cost of traveling in dolmus was2.25 Turkish liras. By the beginning of 2016, it reached to 2.50 Turkish liras. There are three types of transportation in Ankara. One of is dolmus which are share taxis that run set routes within and between cities. Others are public buses and buses privatized in a certain extent depended on metropolitan municipality. The first one costed 2.35 Turkish liras, the latter one 2.50 Turkish liras. 79 costly. In a day, 8-10 Turkish liras for transportation cost. In the mornings, elder people use buses and we, working women have used frequently also. What are you doing here at the crack of dawn? I cooked and cleaned home all day. I took a bus dead tired. When you sit, they poised over you to give them a seat. Sometimes, I’m late for work because of timing. Last day, I’m late 15 minutes and employer loured. Time is so vital to me, it’s limited. I have to be punctual for both work and home. I work and come home by two or three vehicles and then collect garbage of the apartments. Time is ever so much significant. I spend my two-day earnings for transportation cost. I go to work 4 days a week or 5 days and cost rises up. For once in a way, I walk from Atakule to Kızılay to save time HK: Well, what can it be a solution to this? Interviewee (K7): Several services depended on municipality may be operated according to rush hours through determining mutual points. Employers’ll be more mercy towards you if service for female domestic workers is initiated. Employers are so cruel if she knows you have debt and in need of money. They can abuse it. Another solution could be special ticket only for domestic workers/workers to regulate connecting time (aktarma süresi) for rush hour, connecting time would be flexible. Interviewee’s words are surrounded by class relations and women’s spatial mobility which are two focal points of our study. Firstly, she talked about employers’ inconsiderate attitude toward working hours. In this case, she referred to “inconsiderate attitude” in other words; it is directly reflection of class based structured mobility, which differentiates in terms of mindset and experience. For middle-upper income woman, even though she is aware of difficulties arising from the transportation and being a woman on the way, she could behave as “employer” who follows up each stages of worker at work and she would neglect the sisterhood. Moreover, she cannot imagine public transportation’s huge impact on daily life because she does not depend on it. Besides, the employer is aware of the fact that the employee is desperate to travel all that distance because of her need for income. Secondly, “time is vital” is the most prominent phrase in this quotation because it shows the gendered temporal dimension, which differentiates accordance with men and women. 80 Table 8.Farthest Workplace Place of Dwelling Saray(1) Farthest Workplace 34.9 km (Gölbaşı) Commuting (Two Way) Duration(approximate) 5 hours Dogantepe(5) 28.7 km (Alacaatlı) 4 1/2 hours Natoyolu(1) 25.9 km (Yaşamkent) 4 hours Şentepe(1) 24.2 km (Yapracık) 4 hours Pursaklar(2) 23 km (Yıldız) 4 hours Keçiören(2) 22.6 km (Haymana) 5 hours Dikmen(2) 22 km (Eryaman) 20 km (Bağlıca) 3 hours 18.4 km (ODTÜ) 18.3 km(Yasamkent) 2 hours Batıkent(1) Sincan(1) 17.5 km(GOP) 17.1 km(Emek) 3 hours 2 hours GOP (as janitor)(2) Demetevler(1) 15 km (Angora Evleri) 13 km (Angora Evleri) 8.69 km (Dikmen) 8.25 km (Ümitköy) 5.15km (Yaşamkent) 3 hours 5 km (Beşevler) Kolej(as janitor)(1) Elvankent(2) Yenimahalle(3) Mamak(1) Etimesgut(1) Baglıca(as janitor)(1) Seyranbağları(2 ) Oran(as janitor)(1) Ümitköy(as janitor)(1) 4 hours 3 hours Mode/Number of Vehicles During Work-Home Trip Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus) -3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus/ Railway)-3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus/ Railway)-3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus/ Railway)-3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus) -3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus) -3 Public Transportation( Bus/Minibus/Railway)-3 PublicTransportation (Bus/Minibus/Railway)-3 Public Transportation (Bus/Minibus/Railway)-3 Public Transportation(Bus/Minibus) -3 Public Transportation(Bus)-3 Public Transportation(Bus)-2 2 hours PublicTransportation (Bus/Minibus/Railway)-3 Public Transportation (Bus/Minibus/Railway)-3 Public Transportation(Bus)-2 1 hour Public Transportation(Bus)-2 50 minutes 2 hours Public Transportation(Minibus/Bus) -1 Public Transportation(Bus)-2 Oran 40 minutes On foot Ümitköy 40 minutes On foot 3 hours 81 Female workers have to organize their daily activities and save time accordance with their work, childcare, housework and lastly transportation which are shaped by gendered division of activities. Both two points could be grasped easily through statements of another interviewee, resided in Dogantepe and one of the women who travelled longest distance (28.7 km) as indicated in Table 8 stated (K18): I go to work for 6 days a week, daily earning is 120 Turkish liras. In a month, 144 Turkish liras is for transportation cost… Earnings for 1.5 days are allocated to transportation. Buses are late and overcrowded that makes me angry. Sometimes you don’t think money but nothing to do. What can I do? When you sit, elder people poised over you to give them a seat. I have pity on them but you are also exhausted. As indicated in Table 9, some statement given response to the question “What is your priority in the choice of workplace?” by interviewees are classified in three sections. The majority prioritizing employer’s attitude over distance (between employer’s and her own district) generally emerges from who have been working for a long time in same employer’s home or different ones. An interviewee having worked for more than twenty years lived in GOP and at the same time worked as janitor in their apartment said: “At least, as long as they behave us humanely, I go everywhere.”(K14) 82 An interviewee (K12) one of who has been working for a long time, lived in Şentepe, said: We get used to each other (she and employer) for many years. Wherever they (employer) move to, I go. (She has worked respectively at Kurtuluş, Oran, Çayyolu, lastly Yapracık-24.2 km.) How far workplace is not important to me. Just be humane. I went to Golbası (34.9 km) for 15 years because of … Hanım. I left home at 6.30 am and I arrived home at 8.30 pm. Go home and sleep. Even in my dreams, domestos, domestos, domestos…At first, relatives rumored about my job and being late but my husband demands me to work more at now. My arms are in pain but he said me to continue to work. I’m on foot all day and buses are overcrowded until I arrive home, I’m standing 82 One of the interviewees (K10) having worked for more than twenty years has much experience about employers who is mostly foreign people worked at embassy. She talked about significant differences among foreign and Turkish employer’s attitude:“…they are so different let me put it this way; foreign employers did not allow me wash windows lest an accident may happen and then they made payment regularly with fixed working hours while in Turkish ones, working hours may be even longer, they do not make overtime payment. I’ve never seen people so generous. Some Turkish employer had given me leftover meals. Through three weeks, I ate same meal. She (employer) did not eat with me in the first place. When she cooked new things for her, she gave me uneaten things. These things happen, but others (foreign employers)’re even considerate enough in manner of serving” 82 on the bus pressed. Cost is another bother. Dolmus costed 10 Turkish liras, municipal one costs 7.5 liras (K15) Table 9.Workplace Preferences Distance is not essential rather the important is employer’s attitude Number 17 Place of dwellings Yenimahalle(2), Dikmen(2), GOP(2), Şentepe, Batıkent, Keçiören, Elvankent, Doğantepe, Bağlıca, Natoyolu,Saray, Mamak Distance is not essential because I have no chance to choose the workplace as a result of necessities 5 Distance is essential I prefer closer places to work. I have opportunity to choose where I will work Doğantepe(4) Keçiören(1) Seyranbağları(2), Pursaklar(2), Yenimahalle, Kolej, Elvankent, Etimesgut, Oran, Ümitköy 10 The household income is a key determinant for women’s mobility across the city. By contrast, the statements referred in the Table 9 indicate the significance of “trust” and the emotional ties between the employer and employee. As we discussed in the Chapter 3, sisterhood relationship has developed contradictorily among the employer and employee. Whereas the employer sometimes abuses this sisterhood through overtime working, excessive workload, unclear work conditions and, being unaware of employee’s desperate conditions to travel farther distances for hours, employees consider “trust” and “humane behaviour” to determine their mobility. As indicated in the Table 9, for some interviewees, distance is important and they prefer closer places because they emphasized that their children may be need of her and she goes to workplace from where can be reached and arrived easily in terms of duration and mode of transportation. One of the interviewees for whom distance is important resided in Yenimahalle and prefers workplaces where situated utmost halfhour drive away: I get into a taxi so I catch up kid to pick up from nursery even it costs 15 liras think I earn 120 liras a day. In my family, it’s no problem but I when I went to Beysukent and waiting bus for 45 minutes, I said other four women to get into taxi. One of them refused because her husband had given money for transportation and she was not allowed to get into dolmus or taxi. (K8) 83 Moreover, to determine how far workplace is situated depends on children, also: I don’t work in farther neighborhoods. Before I sent children to school, I do not go to work. (K11) Distance and mode of transportation in work-home trip is significant to analyse; what determines any changes in those is workplaces of women in parallel to their mobility. As mentioned before, “home” has replaced conventional production spaces. More precisely, that household activities have become part of class relations, home cannot be just identified with “private” sphere so it becomes where conventional class relations among employer and worker has been going on through being transformed.As mentioned in the previous chapter, several forms of intervention into urban space by referring to major changes in administrative and legislative system of Turkey specifically in urban issues. Ankara as place where this fieldwork was conducted is not “free” from these tensions. The Impact of Urban Sprawl Following table and figure show the change in workplace regarding work life of interviewees having worked for longest period. Some interviewees are illustrated as babysitter and housekeeper in parenthesis because they started as a babysitter at the beginning and went on working as housekeeper after children grew up and in some conditions, employers could insist on them to do two jobs at the same time if they do not object to, generally by necessity, they are forced into doing depending on her “threshold of tolerance” In particular those interviewees emphasize the term of “the threshold of tolerance”83. Especially, in the early years of their employment history, it is so high because of unbearable economic conditions and lack of experience in both urban life and work. As time goes on, it decreases; they are no longer to accept anything with no strings attached, she sets her own conditions as working hours, wage, toll fee etc.: At the earliest period of working year, I was callow and I’ve done what they wanted me to do. I went everywhere and I did everything. I worked till late but now I’m able to utter my conditions to her. I go to work whenever and wherever I want. I’m not running after them. We were just kids back then (K13) 83 This phrase is captured from some statments of interviewees. They have used it when they talked about employers’ attitude and farthest workplace at which they can work. 84 Until being all tuckered out, I had been working. We were young in those days (K10) Table 10.The Change in Workplaces of Workers Who Has Been Working for Longest Term (>30 years) Residence84 1985-1999 K15(babysitter&housekeeper Saray Çukurambar K14(as janitor) GOP K12(as janitor) Şentepe Gop Ayrancı Atakule Oran Oran Birlik mah. Angora Evleri Yıldız Ayrancı Sokullu Beysukent Türkkonut Çayyolu Dikmen K2285(babysitter&housekeeper) Natoyolu 20002005 Gölbaşı 2005-2015 Oran Cevizlidere Angora Evleri Yapracık Table 10 and Figure 3 aim to show four interviewees’ mobility of workplaces from the beginning to work, aiming to illustrate their work as well as urban story. Four interviewees were determined paying regard to their work experiences, of whom have working more than thirty years. The reason why I focused on these four interviewees’ mobility is to investigate a thirty-year mobility patterns of female domestic workers. Their mobility pattern indicates the change in the workplaces similarly, the movement of the upper class neighborhoods and it also shows the direction of urban growth for the last thirty years. 84 These districts are last residence of women. Their first neighboorhood are same or gecekondu at the same district. K22: She is 40 years old and was born in Sivas. She has lived in Abidinpaşa and worked since 1995. She is still working to afford bank loan for new home. 85 85 Figure 3.The Change in Workplaces of Workers Who Has Been Working for Longest Term Through the years, the employer’s home-the other home has been called as “my home” yet the employer’s neighbourhood-the other neighborhood is not adopted by them completely in four interviewees’ statements. When I asked them how they feel about those places, their relation with those places is so restricted that those mean nothing to them moreover; any change in workplace also is no more than commuting time. How would a person live in a place where you go to market (bakkal) by car? I want my children86 to live there but I don’t, because if you die, even nobody notice whatsoever (Referring to Angora Evleri)” (K12) As illustrated derived from their phrases, distances have extended which is most important challenging component in women’s work and urban experience throughout years. When embraced the interviewee’s (K12) mobility for thirty years, between 1985 and 1999 she spent two hours for work-home trip by two vehicles; 15.5 km away her home and coming to the period between 2005 and 2015, it reached to four “Children” stress of her words are another significant point because it symbolizes her future perspective, what she expected from the future. During interview, last question has been out forward them: “what do you expect from your future? Are you optimistic?” Generally this sentence may summarize all responses: “It’s too late for us but my son would pull himself from those things. We have been labourers of someone lest they won’t be labourers of someone, we worked”(K1) 86 86 hours. When considered farthest workplace among her workplaces at Table 8, Yapracık is 24.2 km away her home and she has to use three vehicle minibus, railway and then bus for four hours a day. When considered another interviewee’s (K22) mobility by years, her workplaces were 5.97 km away with two vehicle and approximately 2 hours between 1985 and 1999, coming to 2000 and 2005 it reached to 17.7 km away with three vehicles and approximately 4 hours and lastly in the last period, reached to 28.6 km with three vehicles and again 4 hours. The reason why this study touches upon distance and time of work-home trip is that during interviews, women heavily complaint about temporal and spatial constraints on daily lives. Their pre-given burden from household-taking care of children and managing home increased due to work-trip conditions financially and physically. In case they late home, they have to deal with husbands’ attitude with the question: “Where have you been?” and tidying up farther scattered home: I just came home half an hour later the state of home seems pretty obvious (K11) Housework never ends and drags on sometimes I’m late home and my husband calls me again and again resentfully (K10) Among the questions of interview, “how do you perceive the change in workplaces since the beginning to recent times for work life?” is to understand their urban perception as response to the dramatic changes in urban space. It is sparkling point that women who have worked for longest term (more than thirty years) prefer talking about employer and their attitude more than workplaces sometimes they hardly remembered the neighborhoods of workplaces, instead they remembered employers easily and then tried to recall the neighborhood. To illustrate, “her (employer’s) rude or understanding attitude, significant differences and similarities between employers, highly important meaning of work” are mostly voiced by them, which detailed in the previous part which talked about work perception of interviewees. Considering workplaces, “waiting for bus, being late, mode of transportation and companions along work-home trip, neighbourhood relations and mostly distance between home and workplace” are some prominent issues which is given importance by four interviewees, therefore it needs to return to “distance between home and workplace” issue. 87 There is need to focus on how the workplaces among all interviewees have changed by years. Table 11 and Figure 4 aim to show those tensions’ reflection on mobility patterns of domestic workers because any change in their workplaces has influence on their mobility pattern across the city. Their mobility accordance with workplace historically based on mostly common places where they worked has been attempted to frame. In the figure, blue symbols show places mostly worked at years between 1985 and 1999, red ones for 2000 and 2005 and black ones for 2005-2015. Each place shown in Table 11 has been represented as circle in Figure 4. An interviewee may have worked at GOP and Angora Evleri at the same time since 1985. Within two schemes, newly emergent places from women’s statements by years have committed to figure out. The mobility pattern towards the westward of Ankara indicates employers-middle and upper-middle income neighboorhood’s mobility direction. Nevertheless, the westward development of Ankara has relied upon 1970s. According to Türel’s arguments, in particular by the end of 1970 build-and-sell housing was developed in Ankara and Turkey. By this process, the construction of housing settlements devoted to middle and upper income group families was situated mostly in the central districts. Payments of loans for these settlements in terms of lower-income groups was so challenging that they directed to tenantry and gecekondu’s settlements. Table 11.The Changes of Workplaces by years 1985-1999 Yıldız Sokullu Ayrancı GOP Kızılay 2000-2005 Angora Evleri Beysukent Çayyolu Çukurambar Yaşamkent Barış Sitesi Ümitköy Gölbası Alacaatlı 2005-2015 Baglıca Yapracık Eryaman 88 Figure 4.The Changes of Workplaces by years In parallel to these, housing initiatives to purchase land through cooperatives was accelerated in the peripheral districts. For example, buildings in Çayyolu began to be settled through such cooperatives (Türk Kooperatifler Merkez Birliği) supported by local governments. The process was initiated by local government through making this kind of development plans at where such development were prescribed and then expropriated by undertaking construction of infrastructure. Those cooperatives have been prominent figures in acceleration of villa-type buildings as well as suburbanization of Ankara (Türel, 1985: 56-58). Moreover, after mid of 1970s, the rapid rise in the ownership of private car resulted in the sprawl of concentrated central settlements towards the periphery. Just as upper income groups produced newly suburbs in the periphery, they left worn-dwellings. Ankara 1990 Master Plan87 prepared by the end of 1970s proposed that the direction of urban development was shifted from the North-South to the western corridor (Sincan, Fatih, Elvankent, Batıkent and Eryaman)88 Newly housing settlements and direction of public institutions towards western corridor were supported (Uzun, 2006: 204) 1990 Master Plan aimed to “reorganize the previous mostly non-planned oil drop form of development of the city within a more planned radio-centric form radiating from a centre expanding outward to the periphery particularly with a visible corridor”. (Topal, Celik &Yalman,2015:31) 87 Senyapılı stated that predictions of urban development model of 1990 Master Plan by social democrat municipalities’ actions supported with the changes in the economic spaces of Ankara as reflection of developments in markets after the 1980s. As a result of changes in labour market 88 89 By the 1980s, while build-and-sell housing was ongoing less rapidly, especially westward urban development accelerated through unions and cooperatives following 1970s activities. When regular housing developed, enhancing gecekondu’s settlement continued in the southern and eastern periphery despite enacting regulations on these places (1984 dated 2981 numbered law) While newly emergent suburbs situated in the west and southwest of the city, rapid transformation process initiated for the central parts of it by the 2000s. 62.5% of urban population in Ankara live in gecekondu settlement in 2002 (Keles, 2004) and when it is considered that such a urban population settled in those areas, impacts of projects which will be implemented in these settlement may be beyond envisaged. Transformation of the centre was ongoing in parallel with rise in the population at the centre and periphery. Between 1990 and 2000, approximate 250 % rise in the population resided in 20 km away the centre. Between 1985 and 1990, 600 % increase in the population resided in 25 km away the centre (Uzun, 2006: 204) The urban sprawl towards the periphery makes the city more segregated and polarized, deepening distances between the workers’ neighbourhood and employers’ neighbourhood spatially and makes different classes more segregated and estranged economically/socially. Coming back to our case, the following three figures will summarize mobility patterns by years when interviewees began to work as well as the story of the urban sprawl especially after 1990, the time when mobility patterns accelerated as referred to Uzun’s findings. In all figures, the starting point of every curve symbolizes each interviewee’s (except women who have worked for longest) district and the direction of curve shows the employers’ neighborhoods throughout every interviewees’ work life. Three periods; between 1990 and 2000; after 2000; after 2010 (2010-2015) investigated, which is worldwide, rising new groups in society seeking status and prestige as well as looking for their reflection in the space created new, luxurious and enclosured buildings or complex providing distinct socio-economic living conditions and characteristics. According to Senyapılı’s findings, new areas and housing settlements providing new and modern-type services through Eskisehir axis responded to their quest (Senyapılı, 2006: 218) Ankara 2015 Structure Plan is one of the turning points which frames Ankara’s urban space and housing settlements, deepening this process; “Ankara 2015 Structure Plan proposed a more balanced form of decentralisation as if it was applied as projected it would have curbed the problem of sprawl. The high-income residential areas in the South started to develop triggering to the urban sprawl in the Southwest.” (Ercoskun, Varol and Gürer, 2005; as cited in Topal, Celik &Yalman, 2015:33) 90 the phase of the segregation of urban space. In the first phase (between 1990 and 2000) is the outset of the polarization process and the second phase composed of the last two period (between 2000 and 2015) is the consolidation and deepening of the spatial segregation. Figure 5.The Mobility Pattern Between 1990 and 2000 The mobility pattern of workers began to work between 1990 and 2000 is shown at the Figure 5. Following the direction of curves, it can be said that mobility is twoway; both the centre to periphery and the periphery to centre and end of curves concentrated on the west part of city while such places GOP, Cankaya as “older” still exist in the figure, which means that the process of spatial segregation and polarization across the city begins to accelerate, and then the direction of mobilities across the city diversifies in both way (the centre-periphery) 91 Figure 6.The Mobility Pattern after 2000 The second mobility figure (Figure 6) emerges from respondents began to work after 2000. As illustrated in, places called as “newer” above exist in this figure too. The density of "older" places seems decreased relative to the previous one. This figure shows that urban growth represses the border then “newer” places have been consolidated their position across the figure while another “farther newer” places become part of the figure such as Eryaman. Considering directions symbolizing the mobility after 2010 in Figure 7 parallel to Figure 6 showing after 2000, newer places such as Eryaman as Bağlıca and Yapracık can be seen. What needed to be said is even though the older places’ impact on the labour mobility is going on to a certain extent, the process of spatial segregation and polarization across the city has accentuated more and more as the mobilities have become more diversified. 92 Figure 7.The Mobility Pattern after 2010 When taking consideration of three figures by three periods, the findings will be illustrated in brief. The first one is that interviewees’ direction of mobility concentrated on western parts of the city in parallel with direction of urban development westward. The second one is that while concentration on periphery could be seen observably, the centre has still relatively stand on. The third one as the most prominent one that distances have extended which gives rise to chaining trip with more than two vehicles for longer hours, that increases burden on interviewees with the cost of the transportation and diminishing women’s interaction with the city, reproducing and deepening gendered spatial segregation as a product of the current urbanization dynamics. These mobility patterns do not only show the direction of urban growth, further indicate difficulties women face in their daily lives more compared to before the 1980s, more expensive cost to survive in the cities. These contradictions not only deepen social and economic polarization between middle and working class, but these also operate in similar ways between workers through turning some into “entrepreneurs” (K16) who may exploit other workers. 93 The Differentiated Mobilities among Domestic Workers: Doğantepe In this part, the study touches upon one neighbourhood; Dogantepe more. The majority of interviewees live in Dogantepe. There is need to state that those interviewees do not know each other; the researcher has contacted each one via different channels and come across Dogantepe unintentionally so it leads this study to touch upon mobility patterns of women resided in Dogantepe specifically. As illustrated, dwellers in Dogantepe go to work virtually anywhere where can be classified as neighbourhood favoured by middle and upper middle class. The reason why such a situation arises can be explained in two ways. The first one is that except one of the interviewees resided in Doğantepe, the rest of interviewees are the primary breadwinner of household. Due to spouse’s disabilities or being unemployed, she has to bring home the bread alone and referring to their phrases, they do not have chance to where they will work. Figure 8.The Mobility of Dwellers in Doğantepe Only one interviewee’ spouse has a job (public servant) and she lives in Dogantepe unwillingly due to the fact that home rental prices is far cheaper than other places to afford credit debt for buying new house (They bought a home through cooperative housing in Temelli situated 42 km away the centre). We met with her at employer’s 94 home inasmuch as she stated that she does not find Dogantepe secure for women and she thought that employer’s neighbourhood would be more appropriate for our interview. When I asked her where she dislikes most, she responded me: “Dogantepe” Because of dwellers in Dogantepe... I do not want to despise people but they’re so uncultured, they live despairingly, mixed up in dirty and useless works. In the evenings, we do not go out and we use home like a hotel. (K19) Nevertheless, for other 4 interviewees, no other place than Dogantepe cannot be considered to live because of not only cheaper rental prices also affordable-priced local markets lastly and more importantly neighbourhood relation assumed as second reason why they cannot decide on workplaces whether closer or farther is. An interviewee having lived in Dogantepe until being married off at 14 states: Our children’re growing up together here. Within a day after work, at first I visit next-door neighbour. Sometimes, we go to work together by sharing daily earning. I would prefer Dogantepe rather than Bilkent (K5) For example, an interviewee resided in Dogantepe which locate in the north-eastern of Ankara commute to her workplace- Angora Evleri (can be seen at the table as one of the places in the 2000s) by using three vehicles (Dogantepe-Sıhhıye: Bus; Sıhhıye-Beytepe: Railway; Beytepe-Angora Evleri: Bus).The distance between those places is approximately 21 kilometers with 15 or more Turkish liras as the cost of transportation. When taken into account the daily wage of domestic worker; generally 100-120 Turkish liras, it is too much burden on women. Moreover; the absence of any regulation on distance and payment, irregular routes, and insecure conditions of buses justify urban and transportation design by ignoring labourers, especially women labourers. An intervewee’s phrase summarizes all story; “no working, the way consumes us.”(K1) The case of Doğantepe indicates key outcomes for this thesis. The first one is that as spatial mobility differentiates depending on middle-upper income women and lowincome women, it is also exactly same for female domestic workers, even though they talked about similar tensions and difficulties of being female rural-urban migrants/ being female workers specifically domestic workers, they perceived the 95 city in diversified ways. Interviewees in Doğantepe are relatively low-income women compared to other interviewees; they go farther places and are more confined to the home-their neighborhood and less connection with the city, which makes them more exposed to gendered access to resources and division of activities. They cannot enjoy with being more mobile because of surrounded by spatial restrictions deepened by the every facets of today’s cities as grasped through words of an interviewee resided in Dogantepe “We run over there. I’m on the go in Kızılay to catch other bus. Kızılay is where I’m all sweaty and exhausted.” (K1) Compared to interviewees who perceive work “enjoy” or embrace it in “subcontractor” and “entrepreneur” manner as we see in the example of K16 89 and enjoy with enabling characteristics of the mobility, interviewees of Doğantepe have to deal with disabling characteristics of mobility. The second one is that women in Doğantepe have to prefer Doğantepe to reside, thus they can only afford to live in Doğantepe economically and also solidarity with their relatives/neighbors in Doğantepe provides survival strategies for them socially. For example, they do not have to concern about childcare, since trustworthy nannies (next-door neighbors or relatives) exist and enables them to work out. On the one side, their neighborhood with social web enables them spatial mobility to work out, on the other side it consolidates women’s domesticity, reiterating disabling and enabling characteristics of mobility. Actually the work-home trip consumes them more than the workload because as referred by K1, hours passed on the bus is perceived as waste of time in their eyes and due to overcrowded and irregular timing in the public transportation sometimes compel them to even walking. Overcrowded buses lead them to prefer using dolmus which is more expensive than bus. Some survey stated that women prefer dolmus due to its having more comfort and more secure conditions, being much more faster (Kalfa, Aytekin& Sevinc,2009: 230) Our case also justifies this finding, yet dolmus has not found as secure in the eyes of interviewees: We referred to her statement “When I am busy, I take along my sister as employee” in previous chapter 89 96 I’ve used dolmus to go to workplaces in OSTIM (organized industrial zone in Ankara) and when I work late, dolmus is full of men and they stared me. I was harassed verbally and I saw young girls; men also stared them. For both me and other girls, I carry out a big umbrella to protect us (K23)90 Gendered mobility with disabling characteristics emerged through the fear of male sexual violence and as a result, constraints on the transportation as the interviewee mentioned. Because of sexual harassment particularly on the public transportation, women have to develop self-cautionary measures such as not going out at late or paying attention to not being the last person on the bus in Turkey. Unfortunately, they “have to” develop such measures because just one year ago Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old college student, was the last person on the minibus traveling across the city of Mersin in southern Turkey and was murdered as she resisted a rape attempt of minibus driver. Throughout this part, mobility and urban relation with referring to daily mobility specifically focused on transportation by year and capturing some patterns of interviewees committed to demonstrating. After the brief debate on the mobility of Law’s understanding, this part aims to reflect significant constraints/abilities to 90 K23: She is 43 years old and was born in Manisa. She lives in Yenimahalle and has two children who attend a university. She is only breadwinner and has worked in OSTİM (organized industry zone in Ankara) K25: She is 55 years old and was born in Corum.She lives in Batıkent and has worked since 2003 in METU campus and GOP. She began to work in order to afford bank loan for new home. She perceives job as necessity and good deed. K26: She is 50 years old and was born in Ankara.She lives in Keçiören and has worked since 2005. She began to work in order to afford education expenses of children. She worked in Emek, GOP, Bilkent and Beysukent respectively (from the centre to the periphery).Her husband is public servant. K27: She is 40 years old and was born in Ankara.She lives in Dikmen and has worked since 2010. She began to work in order to afford education expenses of children. She does not separate two work at her own home and workplace. K28: She is 40 years old and was born in Karabük. She lives in Sincan, she has worked since 1999 in Emek, Çukurambar, and Angora Evleri respectively (the centre to the periphery). At the beginning she and her husband worked as janitor and then some problems emerged in the apartment block pushed the family to find other home. The rent and children’s education expenses led her to work. K29: She is 51 years old and was born in Çorum. She lives in Oran, and works as janitor in her apartment block. She has worked since 1988. She mostly works in closer workplaces also she makes such traditional foods (borek, gozleme, eriste and salca) to sell upper income people who live around. K30: She is 25 years old and was born in Çankırı. She lives in Pursaklar and has worked for two years. She began to work in order to meet to different people. K31: She is 27 years old and was born in Çorum. She lives in Keçiören and is only breadwinner. She has four children and grew up them alone. She sometimes goes to farther places such as Haymana (75 km to the centre). K32: She is 45 years old and was born in Çankırı. She lives in Mamak and has worked for almost ten years after her husband died. She is only breadwinner and also works in a bakery. She wants to continue to work with aim to buy a home. 97 mobility and changes in the mobility patterns of female domestic workers. All figures stemming from the spatial mobility of women since 1985 to the present shows how cities are restructured and these display how fragmented urban space shaped by socially polarized borders. Whereas middle and upper class moved to the periphery, domestic workers preferred to live in their own neighborhood where it has also impacted and/or reshaped by any spatial interventions such as UTPs in certain extent; although domestic workers moved to other home, they preferred to live in same neighborhood. Domestic workers face spatial changes of both their own neighborhood and “other” neighborhood while their bosses/sisters move to the city’s peripheries. As time goes by, for interviewees who have been working for longest period, they perceived workplaces paying regard to distances and duration of workhome trip because time is vital for them to balance their own household activities, which enforces them to walk for saving time on the way and they do not consider definitely neighborhoods of workplaces to live in. An interviewee (K1) said; “Our key chains have many keys of many homes which are not owned by us, yet all of them are also our homes. I know where employer and her family’s belongings more than them. Whenever they could not find, they ask me”, which makes all spatial differences, the public-private sphere separation and consolidated borders/walls across the city shaped by reconfiguration of urban space more blurred and more contradictory. 98 CONCLUSION With this thesis, how current patterns of urbanization have influenced on everyday lives of female workers is analysed through focusing on women’s urbanization stories; domestic workers’ first arrival in the city and the motives to begin to work with paying regard to tracking the words of women.. This thesis also investigated how the economic and political restructuring impact and change in the everyday mobility and the means for survival in terms of gender and class. Along with investigating those, how spatial results of restructuring has changed housework as a gendered practice and female domestic workers’ spatial and social mobility are two focal points of this study. Neoliberal cities are structured as spatially polarized and “restructuring” societies are socially and economically fragmented, where distances increased and mobility areas have proliferated. The conceptualization of “explosion/implosion of spaces”, generating the reconstitution of historic urban centers to create new, ‘specifically industrial agglomeration and peripheralization’ on one side, the expansion of ‘coreperiphery polarization’ on the other side (Brenner, 2000:369) As middle and upper income people response to this reconfiguration of urban space, moving towards periphery and suburbs, female domestic workers who are one of the most mobilized urban residents have been influenced dramatically. Mobility with its disabling characteristics has deepened through domestic workers’ being confined to two homes, composed of home as workplace and their own home. They seem more mobile yet in disabling way due to being depending on the public transportation designed within male dominated structure and consolidating gendered access to resources, gendered symbolic codes and division of activities. Economic restructuring have created radical changes in the organization of labour worldwide and oriented to women employment for informal sector; “in less industrialized countries, this took the form of subcontracting with insecure, low99 waged and the predominance of women” (White,1994:7) In findings of this study, especially after the 2000s, majority of women began to work as a result of similar reason; increasing burden of highly increasing education and health expenses on household economy, which emerges as an dramatic outcome of the privatization of basic services (health, education etc.). Economic and political restructuring has undergone a change in the spatial dimension of domestic work since it leads to changes in middle and upper class’ mobility patterns in both socially and spatially through moving towards suburbs and generating new needs for them; hiring a cleaning woman or private tutor, living in more secure settlements. Thus, household activities-home, gender-based relations, spousal relations for both sides; employer and worker, have been transformed radically. This study focused on workers’ side but there is need to develop gendered urban studies for middle and upper class women particularly in comparison with both sides. In our case, female domestic workers have to prefer domestic work perceived as the best work to do within their perspective as we can see many studies analysing the waged domestic work in Turkey. The reason why they perceived best is that they do not consider another job than domestic work for primary school graduate person. Even though they tried to other works such as office work, their husbands resisted claiming existence of men in the office. Husbands committed to maintain their dominancy but wives gained more resistance sites as long as they worked. For example, husbands who disregarded housework in the beginning began to be involved in necessarily as time goes by. Also, domestic work becomes a site where class and gender relations intertwined. The blurred boundaries between employer-worker relation and women-women relation led to contradictory outcomes for women in this study. The first one is that employers with whom they have passed for more than thirty years keep away from applying insurance is regarded as inexplicable from domestic workers’ perspective. The second one is that although female domestic workers dealt with same difficulties in work and live conditions, they could be competitive to find employment or for wage as embraced by some interviewees’ attitude. Surely, we cannot generalize our 100 findings, what’s more, we embraced each case in its uniqueness and tried to analyze their stories with preventing from clear-cut distinctions of comparing differences. Coming to key findings;  Neoliberal economic restructuring deepens insecure work conditions and increases the maintenance burden (both familial and personal) through suppression on the means of survival, thereforetransforms the domestic work. Some domestic workers can turn into “employers” of other workers through developing explotative attitude towards their own “sisters” and it makes individuals competitive subjects by creating competition among them, as a result; domestic workers who have been abused by “sisterhood” side of employer and employee relationship since waged domestic work emerged, have to deal with more challenging conditions, which directly impact everyday lives. Certainly, this structure cannot surround all spheres of women’s lives because their “sisters” in their neighborhoods sometimes become companion to each other therefore, they enable to struggle with those difficulties together as we see in the case of Doğantepe. Consequently, sisterhood relationship damaged in one side, it becomes stronger in other side.The abusive and asymmetrically developed employer-worker relationship is not an outcome of neoliberalization because this relationship is naturally hierarchical since it emerged; however, the restructuring period deepens asymmetries and challenges women face.  According to findings of our case, most of interviewees began to work after 2000 when Turkey’s economic/political restructuring deepened. To access to the means for survival becomes more challenging, therefore they have to “work” in order to afford household mostly children’s education expenses. However, work as domestic work providing mobility for women also constraints their mobility because of its “domesticity”, limiting women’s mobility to the home and minimizing the relation with the city as a result of long hours on the work-home trip and long hours on the two houses. Considering interviewees who have been working for longest term, they moved along with their employers because of passing almost thirty years together and getting used to each other. Wherever employer goes, workers go 101 in order to protect trust relationship. In this case, as women become more experienced, they are stronger to set their own conditions to employers (work hours, insurance, the cost of transportation and workload etc.) In the early years of working life, domestic workers negotiate with employers to set employment conditions; as they become more experienced/stronger, they have power to bargain as seen in “my employer cannot find someone else better than me” (K13 and K14) Most of interviewees take consideration employers’ attitude (“At least, as long as they behave us humanely, I go everywhere.”(K14)) in order to determine workplace whereas some of them who are more disadvantageous compared to other interviewees do not have a chance to either employers’ attitude or distance between their own home and workplace. This makes employer-worker relationship, rules of which are mostly determined by employers with the exception of interviewees who are more experienced and critically are changeable, more exploitative, which results in consolidating asymmetrical sisterhood relationship.  Urban growth towards its borders as a feature of fragmented and deregulated cities increases in the distances and makes urban residents more mobile, especially female domestic workers. While it makes women more mobile for the means for survival, women are more surrounded by gendered spatial constraints. In today’s cities, nowhere is safe from transformation/intervention. As “other neighborhood” transformed, women’s own neighborhood also changed because of urban transformation projects which create apartment blocks by destruction of their squatter houses. Not only rising new buildings and house prices, but newcomers to the neighborhood also seem new problems women face both economically and socially in accordance with their statements.  Seeking employment farther or closer to home for low-income women depending on economic conditions; relatively low-income women seek employment farther. Moreover, there are certain spatial mobility differences among female domestic workers in both workplaces and urban experiences depending on the household income, and the work perception. 102  Spousal relations and employer-employee relations intertwined with womenwomen relations are also key determinants of the gendered mobility (how reached to workplace or any place/where), shaped by male dominance.  More complex trip chaining (two or three bus/subway for one route of workhome trip) and longer hours on the way as a result of fragmented growing cities, which is the product of the recent waves of restructuring/urbanization  Public transportation is the only place where female domestic workers interconnect with each other and share daily work experiences, along the daily wage of a domestic worker and the measurement of the economic value depending on the neighborhood is determined by exchanging ideas among women on the bus.  Public transportation is the only place where female domestic workers connect with the city, however they “have to” take self-precautionary measures against sexual harassment (carrying a big umbrella) in Turkey, occurring sexual and physical harassment increasingly in number and brutality. To sum up briefly, within urban space increasingly polarized socially and economically, while how the middle class secure themselves in “protected areas”, domestic workers who pass those “borders” twice a day also create other secure areas. Their neighborhoods, which are also reshaped/transformed, as “secure places” are sites where mutual concerns are shared and seek ways to struggle with difficulties from work and masculine violence. Even though neighbor relations and domestic roles consolidate “female roles” and “motherhood roles”, sometimes those relations may be at least a means of relief for women suppressed by gender and economic relations. Women leave home every day at six in the morning, they entrust children to each other. They go to work together, sometimes work together, at the end of the day they cope with employers’ attitude tightfisted. The researcher has a talk for hours with four women aged 60 and 40 in a squatter house of Dogantepe. Everyone talks about their concerns in company with laughing and crying. Two younger women want to escape from their husbands and work means the way to get rid of husbands, mother in law, and their current lives. 103 However, they like the place where they live in because it provides breathing space while struggling with troubles that seem difficult to overcome alone. If we ever travel on the bus at 8 am or 5 pm, we will have opportunity to listen many labor and travel stories about domestic workers. During traveling, we may listen in many conversations full of the words such as insecure work conditions, employers with bad attitude. In one of those traveling by the author, as usual the bus is late so absolutely bursting at the seams. At that time, all women rise against municipality, mayor and the system. If another person watched this scene, s/he may think that the system just will be ended by women. While this study has been conducting, many women have been killed or suffered from sexual harassment in Turkey; 397 women were killed by men till today. 91 In 2015, a Turkish female student was murdered because of resisting rape attempt of minibus driver, as mentioned before. After this terrible incident, Turkish women who have already been afraid of being late hours on the street or being the last person on the bus or minibus have been impacted dramatically; although they fear more, they are more on the streets with protests. More recently, a young woman was suffered from sexual harassment on the long distance travel. There are many terrible stories which could not be heard so the main topic of this thesis is beyond a thesis or case study rather there is need to develop more comprehensive understanding for gender and urban studies as well as to implement more gendered urban policies instead of “pink buses” or separate public transportation for women, underpinning the gendered spatial segregation, which is not only a product of the recent forms of cities and also lies at the centre of this (re)structure. 91 http://www.evrensel.net/haber/276770/2016nin-ilk-uc-ayinda-94-kadin-olduruldu (accessed 10.05.2016), http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/kadin-cinayetlerini-durduracagiz-platformu-2015yili-kadin-cinayetleri-raporunu-yayinladi-100032.html(accessed 10.05.2016) 104 REFERENCES Alkan, A. (2005) Yerel Yönetimler ve Cinsiyet: Kadınların Kentte Görünmez Varlığı, Dipnot, Ankara Alkan, A. (2012) Şehircilik Çalışmalarının Zayıf Halkası: Cinsiyet, Nermin Abadan Unat’a Armağan-Birkaç Arpa Boyu: 21. 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TÜRKÇE ÖZET Bu tez kadın ev işçilerinin kentsel pratiklerini, gündelik ve mekânsal hareketliliklerini ve onların kenti nasıl algıladıklarını ev içi emeği temel alarak anlamaya çalışmaktadır. Geleneksel düşünüşe göre, ev içi emek yalnızca özel alanla ilişkilendirilirken, onun kamusal alanla ilişkisi daha ikincil kalmaktadır. Bu çalışma ile ev içi emeğin mekânsallığı ve kent mekânı içerisindeki pozisyonu çalışılmıştır zira ev işçileri, yeniden yapılanan ekonomik ve politik yapının üretimi olan sınıfsal ilişkilerin ve üretim mekânlarının en iyi gözleyeni ve süreçleri en iyi deneyimleyen özneler konumundadır. Türkiye’nin yakın zamanda yaşadığı ekonomik ve politik süreçlerin yanısıra, kadına karşı alınan kültürel/politik tutum göz önüne alındığında, kadın ev işçileri ve onların kentsel deneyimlerini anlamaya çalışmak oldukça önemlidir. Tez, Ankara’da yaşayan 32 ev işçisi kadın ile yapılan derinlemesine görüşmelere dayanmakta olup, 32 kadının kent hikâyelerini ve onların gündelik/mekânsal hareketliliklerini aktarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Tez ile her gün kendi evinden bir başka eve gidip gelen, iki ayrı sınıfsal yapıyı barındıran mekânlara temas eden 32 kadının kent hikâyelerinin izinde, sınıfsal karşılaşmaların yol-ev halinin nasıl olduğu, işverenin nasıl tanımlandığı, kadınların kenti nasıl gördüğüdeneyimlediği, emeğin ne ifade ettiği anlaşılmaya çalışılmaktadır. Özellikle kentsel alandaki dönüşümler ve müdahalelerin analizinde gündelik pratikler içerisinden yapılan araştırmalar ikincil kalmaktadır. Bu tez kadınların kelimelerinden ve gündelik hareketliliklerinden bir Ankara hikâyesi anlatmaktadır. Tez boyunca dile getirilen kent, gündelik pratiklerle anlam haritalarının çizildiği, mekânsal hareketliliklerle, temaslarla, çizilen ya da kaybolan-flulaşan sınırlar, yıkılan ya da kurulan mekânların yanı sıra giden-kalan-dolaşan sakinleriyle, deneyimlerin, zihinlerin, sermaye türlerinin çarpışma, karşılaşma ve takas yeri olarak tasvir edilebilmektedir. Çalışma, araştırma biçimi ve analiz yöntemi gereği bir 113 açıklama sunmaktan ziyade bir aktaran pozisyonundadır. Bu tez aynı zamanda yazarının da içinde bulunduğu bir öykü olarak da kurgulanabilir. Tezin yazarı, lisans yıllarından itibaren yüksek gelir gruplarının yoğun olarak yaşadığı semtlerde (Angora Evleri, Çukurambar, Çayyolu) özel ders vermektedir. Her hafta gittiği bu semtlerin evlerinde, gündelikçi kadınlarla sıklıkla karşılaşıp tanışıp pek çoğuyla ablakardeş ilişkisini kurmuştur. Ortak işverenden, ortak ekonomik kaygılardan ve ortak yol hallerini kapsayan otobüs sohbetleriyle kendi semtlerinden “öteki” semte yolculuk ederler. İşverenin tutumu tezin yazarına da evin gündelikçi kadınına da belli bir mesafeden kurulsa da yazar kültürel sermayesinin ona sunduğu bazı “ayrıcalıklardan” faydalanmaktadır fakat bir gün boyunca fabrika halini almış hanede, farklı sermaye tipleri sergilenirken, günün sonunda “ortaklıklar” daha baskındır. Yolda geçen saatler, ulaşım ücretlerinin pahası, kadın olarak kentte yaşamanın zorlukları, enformel iş biçiminin “sunduğu” belirsizlikler vb. yol boyunca iki yoldaşın kafa yordukları meseleler olur. Tezin yazarı, görüştüğü kadınların (ablaların) hikâyelerini anlatırken bir yandan da kendi hikâyesini de aktarmaktadır. Her hikâye, onun da hikâyesidir ya da kapitalist yapıda tutunmaya çalışan herhangi birinin de hikâyesidir. Ankara’da gerçekleşen saha çalışması kapsamında, ortak tanıdıklar aracılığıyla ya da otobüste tanışılan, 25-55 yaşları arasındaki 32 görüşmeciyle 1 saatten 5 saate kadar süren derinlemesine görüşmeler, görüşmecilerin talep ettiği mekân ve saatlerde gerçekleştirilmiştir çünkü kadınların işleri gereği kendilerine ayıracakları vakitleri hemen hemen hiç yoktur. Görüşmeler genellikle görüşmecilerin evlerinde, onların izin günlerinde ya da akşam eve geldikleri saatlerde (akşam 8’den sonra) gerçekleştirilmiştir. Tezin yazarı saha çalışması boyunca yaklaşık 60-70 saatini otobüste harcamıştır ve akşamları görüşmelerden dönüşlerde araç bulmakta her zaman sıkıntı yaşamıştır. Bunun yanı sıra gece geç bir vakitte kentsel mekânda kadın olmanın sıkıntılarını da deneyimlemiştir. Sadece saha çalışması sırasındaki deneyimler bile bu hikâyelerin yanında başka bir hikâye olarak duruyor. İki görüşmede, görüşmecilerin talepleri doğrultusunda kayıt alınmadı. Gündelik yol hallerini daha iyi anlayabilmek için, Angora Evleri’ne giden (Ankara’da yüksek gelir gruplarının ikamet ettiği semtlerden) metro ring otobüsü 5 kez kullanılmıştır. Tez temel olarak üç kısımdan oluşmaktadır. İlk kısımda görüşmelerin yapısı ve içeriği, görüşme ve analizlerde uygulanan yöntem anlatılmıştır. İkinci kısım saha 114 çalışmasının analizinde kullanılan kavram setlerini ve kavramsal çerçeveyi işlemektedir. Bu kısımda tercih edilen kavramlar, görüşmelerde kadınlar tarafından sıklıkla vurgulanan ifadeler etrafında şekillenmiştir. Üçüncü kısım, tezin temel parçasını oluşturmaktadır. Görüşmecilerin kentleşme süreçlerindeki önemli olduğunu düşündükleri iki dönüm noktasından yola çıkılarak, kadınların kentle ilk karşılaşmalarının yanısıra kent içi mobilitelerinin örüntüleri ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Yöntemsel olarak Blaikie’e göre; araştırma yöntemlerinde uygulanan stratejilerde oldukça basit bir ayrımdan söz eder. Bu ayrıma göre, “bottom-up” ve gidimsel (abductive) strateji araştırma kapsamındaki “niçin” sorusunu çok daha iyi yanıtlayıp, saha araştırması sırasında yeni kavramlarla karşılaşılacağını ifade ederken, “topdown” ve tümevarımsal(inductive) strateji “nedir” sorusunu çok daha iyi yanıtlayacaktır. Denzin ve Lincoln’a göre ise araştırma sürecinin kendisinin bir toplumsal edim olduğunu ifade ederler. Onlara göre, hem görüşmeci hem de araştırmacı karşılıklı etkileşim halinde olurlar ve bu durum da derinlemesine mülakatların en temel zenginliklerinden biridir. Araştırmacı, dışarıdan gözlem yapan, zihnindeki belirli kavramlarla eşleşecek bulgu arayışındaki bir uzmandan ziyade bir öğrenci konumundadır. Feminist araştırma yöntemlerinin araştırma süreç ve işleyişiyle, Denzin ve Lincoln’nun ifade ettiklerinin örtüşeceği görülecektir. Feminist yöntembilimde süregiden tartışmalar içerisinde- feminist bir yöntembilim olmalı mıdır olmamalı mıdır vb.- her türlü pozitivist yaklaşım ve aracın reddi vardır. Feminist yöntembilimde geleneksel yaklaşımlara karşıt bir yerde durulur, her görüşme kendi özgünlüğü taşır, bir genellemeye maruz bırakılamaz. Ortaklığa dayalı, eşitlikçi, araştırmacı ve katılımcı arasında herhangi bir hiyerarşiye müsaade etmeyerek, hem katılımcı hem de araştırmacı için deneyim ve hislerin rahatlıkla paylaşılabileceği bir alan yaratma amacı taşıyan bir yöntemin tercih edilmesi, yaygın bir kabuldür. Niceliksel yöntemin ifadeleriyle konuşulursa, her vaka, incelemeye değer ve geçerlidir. Kısaca aktarılmaya çalışılan yöntem bilimsel tartışmalarda ifade edildiği üzere, çalışmada uygulanan yöntembilim; bu tartışmaların hepsine temas edecek şekilde kurgulanmıştır. Her görüşmeci, kendi özgünlüğü içinde değerlendirilmeye çalışılmış, çalışmanın ana sorunsalının ortaya çıkışı, yine yukarıda belirtildiği gibi, yazarın toplumsal süreçleri dâhilinde ortaya çıkmıştır. Saha araştırması yürütülürken deneyimlenen pek çok şey de, bu sürecin diğer halkalarıdır. 115 Çalışma aynı zamanda mekân, kent ve cinsiyet üzerine kısıtlı bir şekilde süren tartışmalara küçük de olsa bir katkı sağlayabilmeyi ummaktadır. Kentsel mekâna ilişkin sınırı olmayan oldukça zengin sayılabilecek akademik yazında belki de en zayıf kalan bağlam cinsiyettir. Kentsel dönüşüm, kentsel politika, planlama üzerine süregelen tartışmalarda pek çok bağlam ve ilişki göz önünde bulundurulurken en zayıf halka cinsiyet olmuştur. 1970’lerin ikinci yarısından itibaren bu zayıf halka artık güçlenmeye başlar. Özellikle feminist coğrafyacıların katkılarıyla mekân ile cinsiyet ilişkilerini bütüncül bir şekilde ele alan çalışmalarda artış gözlenir. 1970’li yıllarda sınıf ve kapitalist üretim ilişkilerinin kentsel mekândaki yansımalarına odaklanan akademik yazın; yine aynı yıllarda geleneksel felsefenin ve bilim disiplinlerinin yaklaşımını eleştiren feminist-eleştirel yaklaşımla sınırlarını genişletir. Bu dönemde doğup gelişen feminist-eleştirel yaklaşım, bütün geleneksel yaklaşım ve yöntemleri, kadınların toplum ve mekân içerisindeki konumunu göz ardı etmesi sebebiyle eleştirmektedir çünkü değişen toplumsal, ekonomik ve siyasal yapı kadının mekân ve toplumsaldaki rolünün analizinin yapılmamasını imkânsız hale getirir. McDowell’a göre; geleneksel aile yapısı, 1950’lerde patlak veren nüfus patlamasının önüne geçmek üzere yaygınlaşmaya başlayan doğum kontrolü, kürtaj, hane içi ekonominin devamlılığı için hem kadın hem de erkeğin emek piyasasına girmesi gibi sebeplerle sarsılmaya başlar. Neredeyse 1950’li yıllarda tek gelirli aile ender görülen bir olgu haline gelir. Artık tek ebeveynin kadın olduğu hane halkları da toplumsal alanda yer bulmaya başlar. Bu çağ, kadına hem hane içinde toplumsal cinsiyet rolüne içkin “görevlerini” yerine getirmesini salık verirken bir taraftan da kamusal alanda da ücretli iş gücü olarak ekonomik roller de verir. Kadın hem özel hem de kamusal alanda sıkışmaya başlamıştır zira kadın ne özel alanda ne kamusal alanda erkeğe biçilen rollere ya da ilişkilere benzemeyen roller ve ilişkilerle donanmıştır. Hane içinde birincil çalışanlar olan kadınlar ücretli çalışma yaşamı içerisinde de sıklıkla ev içinde onlara biçilmiş işlerin benzerleri ya da aynılarıyla karşılaşıyorlardır. İkili baskı kuran yapı içinde kentsel mekânın formu da kadınlara ayrı bir sıkıntı alanı olarak konumlanıyordu. Ücretli işlerin zaman ve yoğunluk esaslı yapılanmasında, emekçilerin ev içindeki sorumluluklarının asgari olduğu öngörülüyordur ve bu yapılanmanın kadınlar üzerinde mutlak bir baskı yaratacağına dair bir şüphe yoktu. Ev içi sorumlulukları kadına atfeden çalışma sistemi içinde, kadınların bu sorumluklarını dahi kolaylaştıracak şeyler de - maliyeti karşılanabilir 116 çocuk bakımı vb. mevcut değildir. Haliyle bu durum, kadınları düzensiz saatler ve kesintili bir biçimde yolculuk yapmayı gerektiren işlere yöneltmektedir. Yeni ve değişen roller, kadınlara yönelik kamusal ve kentsel hizmetlerin gerekliliğini ortaya çıkarır. Farklı bir çalışma tipi, farklı bir çalışma mekânı ve farklı çalışma saatleri, kente yeni hareketlilikler, mekânsal pratikler kazandırır. Sonuç olarak 1950’lerden beri tarif edilen bu süreç, yine 1970’lerde mekân ve mekân üretimi gibi tartışmaların artmasıyla, kadın ve mekânı birlikte ele alan soruları da arttırır. McDowell’a göre, mekân cinsiyetleştirildiği kadar toplumsal cinsiyet ilişkileri de mekânsallaştırılmıştır. Bu karşılıklı ilişki elbette ki sınıf ilişkilerinden ayrı düşünülemez. Bu mekansalığın en iyi kavranabileceği alanlardan biri de ücretli ev emeğidir. Gregson ve Lowe’a göre, orta sınıf ailelerin evlerinde görülen temizlik işleri artık yalnızca cinsiyet ayrımına bağlı bir iş değildir. İşçi sınıfı kadınlarına iş yaratacak biçimde inşa edilmektedir. Bu durumun sonucunda kimi, orta sınıf evlerinde temizlik artık orta sınıf kadınların zamanı ve mekânı uygun değerlendirme biçimi sayılmamaktadır. Ücretli ev hizmeti, kadınlar ve erkekler arasında farklılıkları oluştururken kadınların ortaklık alanı olduğu kadar farklılıkların da sergilendiği bir alandır. Elbette ki orta, üst-orta sınıflar için ev işlerini başkasına yaptırma yeni bir durum değildir. Küçük yaşta alınıp evlilik çağına gelene kadar çalıştırılan evlatlıklar, çamaşır günleri gelen gündelikçi kadınlar, ev işlerine yardımcı olan uzak-yakın akrabalar, başka kadınlara kendi evi dışındaki ”öteki”’nin sorumluluğunu devrederek, başka kadınların ev işlerinden belli ölçülerde ‘özgürleşmesini’ sağlamıştır. Ev işlerinin ücretli hale gelişi, piyasa ilişkilerinin ev içine girmesine sebep olmuştur. Piyasa ilişkilerinin belli bir ölçüde getirdiği formel ilişkiler, birbirine abla-kardeş şeklinde hitap yoluyla, aile sorunlarının paylaşılması, iki ailenin bireylerinin “sınırlı da olsa” ilişki içerisinde olması enformel bağlar ile beraber yürür. Bu bağlar sıklıkla da işveren lehine kullanılır. 22 sene boyunca aynı işveren ile çalışan görüşmeci özellikle ev işçilerine yönelik düzenlemeden sonra işverenin sigorta konusunda çekincelerinden dolayı sitem eder. 1970’li yıllar Türkiyesi; hızlı kentleşme, köyden kente göç hareketleri, ağırlıklı olarak formel sektörde istihdam edilen ve beyaz yakalı olarak tanımlanabilecek bir işgücüne paralel olarak göç ile gittikçe büyüyen kentsel vasıfsız işgücünün ortaya 117 çıkmasına tanıklık eder. Kentsel orta sınıf ailelerde eşlerin her ikisi de ücretli olarak çalışmaktadır dolayısıyla kadın için ev işlerinin başka bir kadına devri söz konusu olmaktadır. Suğur ve Savran’a göre, orta sınıf aileler, temizlik, bakıcılık gibi eve içkin işler için kadın istihdamına yönelmektedirler. Orta sınıf aileler ya apartman tipi ya da site benzeri konutlarda yaşamaları sebebiyle, konutları içinde “kapıcılık hizmeti” talep ederler. Bakıcılık, gündelikçilik, kapıcılık gibi işler, vasıfsız ve eğitimsiz işgücü için geniş bir istihdam alanı sağlamaktadır. Kent yaşam biçiminin geleneksel dayanışma ağlarını zayıflattığını öne süren çalışmaların aksine, kadınların işe giriş süreçlerinde tanıdık-akraba etkisi son derece belirgindir. Ne kadar ev işlerine yönelik istihdam olanağını sunan şirketler mevcut olsa da kadınlar; kente ilk dalgada göç eden (çalışmaya göre 1970’ler), yerleşmiş akrabaları aracılığıyla bu piyasaya dâhil olur. Bu tip ilişkiler içerisinde de piyasa mekanizmalarının işlediği görülebilir. Elvankent’te ikamet eden bir çocuk bakıcılığı yapan bir görüşmeci, aldığı aylık üzerinden ücretin diğer çocuk bakıcıları tarafından “çekilemediği”, yüksek bulunduğu, “spekülasyon” yaratarak işvereni etkilemeye çalıştıklarını ifade etmiştir. Başka bir örnek ise, Kolej’de ikamet eden hem kapıcılık yapıp hem de gündelik temizliğe giden bir görüşmeci, kendi akrabasını “işe giderken onu yanıma eleman olarak alıyorum” şeklinde tanımlayabilmektedir. Tam bu noktada, görüşmecilerin çalışmayı nasıl tanımladıkları önem kazanır. Kadınlar işleri için, “zorunluluk”, “ekonomik bağımsızlık”, “özgüven”, “kolay para”, “çocuklarım için”, “sevap” gibi ifadeleri kullanmışlardır. Çalışmaya, “zorunluluk”(10 görüşmeci) ve “ekonomik bağımsızlık”(11 görüşmeci) atfeden görüşmecilerin sayısı hemen hemen yakındır. Burada sayılardan ziyade kullanılan kelimeler daha önemli durmaktadır zira zorunluluk ifadesini kullanan görüşmeciler bir yandan çalışmanın onlara kazandırdığı kamusal alanda görünmeyle ilgili avantajlardan bahsederler. Hemen hemen hepsinde iş dışı aktivitelere (gezme, alışveriş vb.) vakit kalmamakta; kalsa bile yorgunluk ya da kendi evleriyle ilgili işler (temizlik, ütü, yemek vb.) sebebiyle kentle temas azalmaktadır. Örneğin, “Kızılay’a ya da Ankara’da herhangi bir yere ne kadar sıklıkla gidersiniz” sorusunun yanıtı, eviş arasında gidip gelirken ikinci otobüse yetişmek için kan ter içinde koşturulan yer olarak bir Kızılay tarifidir ya da ikinci aktarma otobüsüne giderken azami yarım saatlik bir temastır çünkü eve yetişilmesi gerekmektedir, zaman sınırlıdır 118 Kadınların kentle tanışmaları ve kent içinde hareket kazanmalarında bazı dönemsel ortaklıklar oluşur. 7 kadın, 1985-1999 yılları arasında; 25 görüşmeci 2000 sonrasında çalışmaya başlamıştır (17 kadın 2000-2010 yılları arasında, 8 kadın 2010-2015 yılları arasında çalışmaya başlamıştır). Burada iki temel sebep sıralanabilir. Birincisi, çocukların büyümesiyle kadınların hareket alanlarının artması, ikinci olarak 2000 sonrası artan neoliberal politikalarla, kentsel mekânda hanelerin yaşamlarını sürdürmesinin daha da zorlaşmasıdır. 2000 sonrası çalışmaya başlayan kadınlar tarafından, özellikle hane giderlerinde eğitim harcamalarının büyük bir yer kapladığı ifade edilir. Kurslar, özel dersler, özel üniversite, özel kreş gibi eğitim odaklı harcamalar ön plana çıkıyor, tek gelirle bunlar karşılanamaz hale geliyordur. 2010 sonrası çalışmaya başlayan görüşmecilerde ev almak için çekilen banka kredisinin ödenebilmesi için emek piyasasına dâhil olunması söz konusudur. Eklenmesi gereken önemli bir nokta da görüşmecilerin yeni evlerini kendi mahallelerinden almaları, başka semtlere gitmeyi tercih etmemeleridir, çünkü kendi semtlerinde alışılan düzen bozulmak istenmez. Komşular, akrabalar ya da hemşerilerdir. Köyde ortak yapılan her şey kentte de aynı şekilde devam etmektedir. Kentsel mekânda, akrabalık ilişkilerinin devamlılığı önemli bir hayatta kalma stratejisidir ve bu çalışmaya göre daha da güçlenmektedir.“Ankara, benim köyüm gibi.” ifadesinde de görüleceği gibi. Tüm bu tarihsel dizgi, Türkiye’nin neoliberal iktisadi dönüşümleri ve kentleşme biçimleriyle beraber rahatlıkla düşünülebilir. 1980’lerle birlikte dünyada Thatcherizm, Reaganizm, Türkiye’de Özalizm’le anlatımını bulan yeni sağ politikalar doğrultusunda toplumsal harcamalarda yapılan kısıntılar, kent sakinlerinin yaşamlarını oldukça zorlamaya başlamıştır. Dünya genelinde; kadına eğitim, çalışma ve politika yaşamında fırsat önceliği sağlayan, çocuk, hasta ve yaşlı bakımında kolaylıklar sağlayan refah devleti, daha farklı müdahale formlarını geliştiren ama piyasa mekanizmalarını her alanda rahat bırakan neoliberal devlet ile rol değiştirir. Bu rol değişimi, “özel alana ilişkin yük”leri ağırlaştırır, bu yük hanede herkese belli şekillerde temas ederken, en zorlu süreçleri kadın deneyimler. 2000 sonrası ise neoliberal politikaların pekiştiği, ekonomik kriz ile yine düşük gelir gruplarının sarsıldığı bir dönem olarak yaşanır. Belki de bu dönem, siyasal iktidarın kent mekânına yönelik “talan” hareketinin başlangıcı da sayılabilir. 2000’li yıllarda 119 nitelikli işgücü talebi artarken, becerikli yarı becerikli ve düşük eğitimli grup devingenliğini kaybeder ve artan işsizlik yoksulluk, göç dalgaları sosyal hizmetlere ulaşma sorununu daha da arttırır. Keyder ve Öncü’nün de belirttiği üzere; küresel ekonominin veya ekonominin küreselleşmesinin etkisiyle, kentleşme ve kentsel mekânlar en temel müdahale nesneleri haline gelir. Neoliberal küreselleşmenin cismani hali “girişimci kentlerde” kendini gösterir. Aydın ve Yarar’a göre, girişimci kentlerin yenilenme projeleri, kenti yeniden yapılandırırken diğer yandan kent mekanlarını yeni yatırım ve rant alanlarına dönüştürür. Bu dönem belediyeleri spor kompleksleri, botanik parklar, müzeler vs. yaparak gelir yaratma kapasitelerini arttırmaya çalışırlar. Bu müdahaleler, kent mekânını her gün şekillendirip kent sakinlerine yeni hareketlilikler “kazandırır”. Makro düzeyde yapılan planlar, kent politikaları, siyasalar, bir kadın ev işçisinin tüm gündelik pratikleri üzerinde de egemen olmuştur. Kadınların kentle ilişkisi sınırlanıp sadece yolda, işyerine ya da kendi evine ulaşabilmek ile geçen bir koşuşturma ile tanımlanabilecek kısa bir temasa indirgenir hale gelmiştir. Kentlere yapılan her müdahale, ev işçilerinin gündeliğini esir almaya çalışır. Kadınların kentle tanıştıkları an olarak ifade ettikleri ev-iş arası yolda harcanan zaman; 1985-1999 yılları arasında yaklaşık 1 saattir. 2000’lere gelindiğinde harcanan bu zaman 2 saate çıkar, 2010 sonrası bu zaman 4-5 saati bulabilmektedir. 30 yıl boyunca çalışmış bir ev işçisinin, ilk yıllarda ev-yol arasında 15 km mesafeyi alırken, 2000 sonrası 35 km’ye çıktığı görülebilmektedir. Özellikle 2000 sonrası Ankara’sında orta, orta-üst sınıf semtleri merkezden çepere doğru bir hareketlilik yaşar, bu durum ev işçilerinin kent ile mevcut sınırlı temaslarını daha da baskılar. Doğantepe’de ikamet eden görüşmecinin ifade ettiği gibi, çalışmak değil de yol onları yormaktadır. Sabah 6 da başlayan gün 8 buçukta işyerinde olunarak devam eder akşam eve gelinmesi akşam 10’u bulabilmektedir. Bu durumda hanede “neden geç kaldın ile” başlayan kavgalar meydana gelmektedir. Doğantepe’den Angora Evleri’ne (gidiş-dönüş 42 km.) temizlik için giden bir kadın ev işçisi, 3 vasıta (Doğantepe – Sıhhıye, otobüs; Sıhhıye-Beytepe, metro; Metro-Angora Evleri, ring otobüsü) ile işyerine varabilmekte, aktarma süresi olan 75 dakikayı, otobüs saatlerindeki düzensizliklerden dolayı kaçırmaktadır. Günlüğü neredeyse 15 lirayı bulan bir ulaşım ücretiyle baş etmek zorundadır. Günlük emeğinin karşılığı yaklaşık olarak 100-120 lira civarında olup herhangi bir mesafeye göre bir düzenleme mevcut 120 değildir, yol ücretinin işveren tarafından karşılanıp karşılanmadığı işverenin vicdanına bırakılmıştır. Bir gün içinde yaklaşık 5 saatini ulaşımda harcamaktadır. Oldukça açıktır ki Ankara’da ulaşım ücretleri, otobüs güzergâhları ne emekçileri ne de kadınları düşünerek kurgulanmamıştır ve hatta yapılan düzenlemeler onların hayatlarını daha da zorlaştıracak düzeydedir. Kentin büyüme biçimi ve yönü, emekçilerin hayatlarını da şekillendirmiş, kent içi hareketliliğin cinsiyet ve emek yönünü tartışmayı daha da önemli kılmıştır. Kent içi hareketliliğin biçimi kent sakinlerine baskı kurar ve uygularken, kadın ev işçilerine görece daha fazla baskı kurmaktadır. Kadınlar hem işyerleri olan farklı sınıfsal yapıdaki semtlere ulaşmaya çalışırken hem de kendi evlerine ulaşmaya çalışırken hem zamansal hem mekânsal olarak baskılanırlar. Kenti tanımlamaları yol hikâyeleri ile sınırlı kalmaya başlar, sadece kendi mahalleleri ile sınırlı kalan, sadece o mahalle içerisinde yaşama şansı bulabildikleri bir kentleşme pratiği haline dönüşür. Özetle, kadınların emek tanımlarından işyeri seçimlerine kadar her belirleyen kadınlarla beraber saptanmıştır. Kimisi, işvereniyle 25 senedir çalışmaktadır. O nereye giderse gider, kimisi için işverenin toplumsal statüsü önemlidir; “herkese gitmem, ben seçerim”’dir. Kelimeler, tarifler de eşit değildir. Kimisi içinse, seçim şansı yoktur. Her yere, her şekilde gitmek zorundadır. Doğantepe’de oturan 5 görüşmeci için durum böyledir. Onlar için, işyeri seçimi gibi bir durum söz konusu değildi çünkü yoksulluk, eş ya da akrabalardan gelen şiddet hem onları evden çıkmaya hem de para kazanma zorunluluğuna itiyordur. İş onlar için evden bir kaçış aracıdır dolayısıyla işin nerede olduğunun pek de bir önemi yoktu. Günlük 80 liraya çalıştıkları da oluyordur ve bu da işverenin insafına kalmıştır. Kadınlar için, çalışma ile artan hareketliliğin kentle teması arttırması beklenirken, cinsiyetleştirilmiş mekân tarafından daha da baskılanır hale gelirler. Sosyalleşme mekân-zamanı, ev-iş arasında geçen otobüs yolculukları olur. Deneyimler o yolculuklarda paylaşılır; yapılan işler ve ev işinin ekonomik değeri bu paylaşımlar sonucunda belirlenir. Kadınlar, işyeri olan evde güvencesiz çalışmanın sıkıntılarıyla ve ev-işyeri arasındaki otobüs yolculuklarında taciz ihtimalleriyle baş etmek zorundadırlar. OSTİM tarafında çalışan bir görüşmeci, her gün yanında büyük bir şemsiye taşıdığını ifade eder. Türkiye kentleri, politik ve kültürel baskı mekanizmalarını kentli kadınlar üzerinde kurmaya çalışır ama duruma o kadar da kötümser yaklaşılmamalıdır. 121 Metnin yazarı her yolculuğunda bu ifadeler ile dolu muhabbetleri dinler ve onlara katılır. Sohbetlerin her kelimesinde, güvencesiz çalışmanın, çalışma saatlerindeki esnekliğin, emeğin asla karşılığının verilmemesinin ifadeleri vardır. “Belli bir kural getirilsin istiyorum” diyordur bir görüşmeci (abla); “gideceğimiz mesafeye göre ücret belirlensin, ev işlerinin belli bir standardı ücretlendirilmesi olsun, işverenin insafına kalmayalım.” Bu yolculuklarının birinde, otobüs her zamanki gibi geç gelmiştir ve hınca hınç doludur. Tam o sırada otobüse binmeye çalışan kadınlar, belediye başkanına, sisteme, kente ve her şeye isyan etmeye başlar. Otobüsteki herkes yazar da dâhil olmak üzere veryansın eder. O anı dışarıdan gözleyen biri diyebilir ki içinden: “Yıkarsa bu düzeni kadınlar yıkar.” 122 B. TEZ FOTOKOPİSİ İZİN FORMU ENSTİTÜ Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Uygulamalı Matematik Enstitüsü Enformatik Enstitüsü Deniz Bilimleri Enstitüsü YAZARIN Soyadı: Kara Adı: Hilal Bölümü: Kentsel Politika ve Yerel Yönetimler Bölümü TEZİN ADI (İngilizce) : Understanding Female Domestic Workers’ Daily Mobilities: A Case Study in Ankara TEZİN TÜRÜ: Yüksek Lisans Doktora 1. Tezimin tamamından kaynak gösterilmek şartıyla fotokopi alınabilir. 2. Tezimin içindekiler sayfası, özet, indeks sayfalarından ve/veya bir Bölümünden kaynak gösterilmek şartıyla fotokopi alınabilir. 3. Tezimden bir (1) yıl süreyle fotokopi alınamaz. TEZİN KÜTÜPHANEYE TESLİM TARİHİ: 123