Feminist Perspectives on Ottoman Urban History

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the literature that approaches Ottoman urban history with a gender perspective. It juxtaposes the valuable insights and contributions of feminist geographers with the available literature on Ottoman urban history in order to argue that the combination of the two has a great potential to enrich the field. In an attempt to reveal, recover and reconsider the roles, positions and actions of women in the midst of altered or redefined economic, social, political and cultural context of Ottoman cities, new scholarship highlights how women could re-imagine and re-conceive the city, actually neither designed for nor controlled by them, and how in time they could create female-controlled public and semi-public spaces. The negotiations, alliances and agency of women in asserting themselves in the public domain need to be reconsidered, given numerous spatial obstacles and resistance to see them as legitimate actors.