Harem education and heterotopic imagination
2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09540253.2010.491788
ISSN1360-0516
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Education Studies and Reforms
ResumoAbstract Education can cease to be a showcase for political projects and start serving women's lives only when the agency of women in their own education is acknowledged. In this paper I have addressed issues concerning harem education to emphasise that possible solutions to issues of girls' education require an awareness concerning the history of girls' education in different geographies. In this article, this agency is pursued in the homosocial production of knowledge in the harem, which is an exoticised space. Questioning the limitations and benefits of the concept of the harem is especially important in understanding processes such as the accommodation of public practices of education in women's homes. Using Foucault's concept of heterotopia, the harem is contextualised to shed light upon its liberating and dominating aspects, as a sphere where public and private practices of education converge. Keywords: haremheterotopiahistoryGirls' Industrial SchoolsOttoman Empire Acknowledgements This article originates from an idea expressed in my PhD dissertation (Akşit 2004 Akşit, E.E. 2004. Girls' education and the paradoxes of modernity and nationalism in the late Ottoman empire and the early Turkish republic, Binghamton University. PhD thesis, [Google Scholar]) on Girls' Institutes in Turkey, and the book in Turkish derived from this dissertation (Akşit 2005 Akşit, E.E. 2005. Kızların sessizliği: Kız enstitülerinin uzun tarihi [The silence of girls: A long history of the Girls' Institutes], İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları. [Google Scholar]). Yet this article is based more on new original research and systematic thinking built on the original idea. The theoretical evaluations of the transformations in harem education are novel, like the explanation of the different phases of this transformation. Thanks to Pınar Tankut, Alev Özkazanç, Didem Gediz, Ayça Kurtoğlu, Göksun Yazıcı and the anonymous reviewers of Gender and Education for reading and commenting on different versions of this text. Notes 1. For example, although concentrating on the family in Middle Eastern history Family History in the Middle East discusses girls' education with mere references to their public education (Doumani 2003 Doumani, B., ed. 2003. Family history in the Middle East: Household, property and gender, Albany: State University of New York Press. [Google Scholar]). For one of the few exceptions see Akyüz (2004 Akşit, E.E. 2004. Girls' education and the paradoxes of modernity and nationalism in the late Ottoman empire and the early Turkish republic, Binghamton University. PhD thesis, [Google Scholar]). 2. More in the spirit of Tamboukous's earlier work on women's colleges as heterotopias (2000 Tamboukou, M. 2000. Of other spaces: Women's colleges at the turn of the century. Gender, Place and Culture, 7: 247–63. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 249–50). 3. For instance, Bury (2001 Bury, R. 2001. "From a room to a cyberspace of one's own: Technology and the women‐only heterotopia". In Feminist revisions of the subject: Landscapes, ethnoscapes, and theoryscapes, Edited by: Currie, Gail and Rothenberg, Celia. 55–86. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. [Google Scholar]) takes the public–private distinction to the discussions on virtual and the real. 4. By 1883, these schools were educating an average of 418 girls each year (Alkan 2000 Alkan, M.Ö. 2000. Education statistics in modernization from the Tanzimat to the Republic, Ankara: Prime Ministerial State Institute of Statistics. Historical Statistic Series, no. 6 [Google Scholar], 37; Ergin 1941 Ergin, O.N. 1941. Türkiye maarif tarihi [History of Turkish education], İstanbul: Osmanbey Matbaası. [Google Scholar], 578). 5. Salname‐i Nezaret‐i Maarif‐i Umumiye [Annals of the Ministry of Education] (Dar el Hilafet‐i Aliye: Matbaa‐yı Amirane): 1317, 758–60; 1319, 753–4. 6. The Rüşdiyes too educated far more girls than girls' schools other than the industrial schools, including non‐Muslim schools and missionary colleges. 7. Salname‐i Nezaret‐i Maarif‐i Umumiye: 1318, 296. 8. Salname‐i Nezaret‐i Maarif‐i Umumiye: 1318, 286–96. 9. Salname‐i Nezaret‐i Maarif‐i Umumiye: 1318, 286–96. 10. Salname‐i Nezaret‐i Maarif‐i Umumiye: 1318, 286–96. 11. There are also recent debates concerning the harem best exemplified with the title 'Selling the harem' (Lewis 2004 Lewis, R. 2004. Rethinking Orientalism: Women, travel and the Ottoman harem, London: I.B. Tauris. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 12). 12. However, she looked down upon the material that was read and stated that what the Ottomans of both sexes read were limited to the Quran, and she despised the other reading materials (Strauss 2003 Strauss, J. 2003. Who read what in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th centuries)?. Middle Eastern Literatures, 6(1): 39–76. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 39). 13. As abolitionism became a part of the Ottoman culture in this period, an increasing number of slaves were freed. In line with Muslim teachings that advised freeing one's slaves, the form of abolitionism that came with Westernisation influenced Ottoman lands and as a result, even the imperial harem was vacated. 14. Knowing many different dimensions of her life story, it is possible to say that her novels were autobiographical, and were products of observation more than imagination.
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