What do you want to know?” Feminist reflections on interviewing migrant women selling sex in Istanbul

Yıl 2023, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 1, 76 - 93, 18.05.2023

Emel Coşkun

Öz

This paper is a critical reflective analysis of the methodological and ethical issues I confronted during my fieldwork with Ugandan migrant women involved in selling sex in Istanbul. Conducting a research with such a fragile group, especially with migrant women in a dynamic and sensitive environment involves in different methodological and ethical challenges. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews, informal conversations and observations, the research was focused on the relationships around commercial sex industry in Ugandan community. The researcher’s position, access to participants through gatekeepers, the hierarchy between the researcher and ‘the researched’ in interviewing women and the data analysis process will be discussed in the light of feminist discussions on methodological approaches. It is argued that being aware of the asymmetric power relations and seeking the possibilities of non-hierarchical relationships in the research processes is an important approach that the feminist methodology offers to researchers.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Feminist methodology, migrant women, gender, commercial sex, Turkey

Kaynakça

• Açıkalın, N. (2013). Fuhuş pazarında sermaye olmak: Mersin örneği. Çalışma ve Toplum, 3 (38), 243-282.
• Clark Kazak, C. (2017). Ethical considerations: Research with people in situations of forced migration, Refuge: Canada's Journal of Refugees, 33 (2), 11-17.
• Coşkun, E. (2018). Criminalisation and prostitution of migrant women in Turkey: A case study, Women's Studies International Forum, 68, 85-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2018.03.002
• Coşkun, E., Sarıalioğlu, Ö. & Dinçer, C. G. (2020). Discourse, method and ethics in migration studies: is a feminist methodology possible?, Fe Dergi, 12 (1), 70-81.
• Gülçür, L. & İlkkaracan, P. (2002). the “Natasha” experience: migrant sex workers from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Turkey, Women’s Studies International Forum, 4, 411 – 421.
• Harding, S. (2004). “Introduction”, In The feminist standpoint theory reader: intellectual and political controversies, S. Harding (ed.). London and New York: Routledge, pp.1-17.
• Hartsock, N. (1983). Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Longman.
• Hooks, B. (1995). Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New Yok: Henry Holt and Company.
• Mies M. (1979). “Towards a Methodology of Women’s Studies”. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, ISS Occasional Papers, No. 77.
• Oakley, A. (1998). Gender, methodology and people’s ways of knowing: Some problems with feminism and the paradigm debate in social science. Sociology. 32,707.
• Oakley, A. (2016). Interviewing women again: Power, time and the gift. Sociology. 50, 195.
• Outshoorn, J. (2004). “Introduction: Prostitution, women’s movements and democratic politics”. In The Politics of Prostitution: Women’s Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce. J. Outshoorn (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. pp.1-21.
• Ramazanoglu, C. & Holland, J. (2002). Feminist Methodology. London: Sage.
• Stanley, L. & Wise, S. (2013). “Method, methodology and epistemology in feminist research”, In Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. L. Stanley (ed.). London and New York: Routledge. pp.20-63.
• Şimşek, D. (2019). İstanbul’daki Afrikalı göçmenlerin gündelik ırkçılık deneyimleri. [Daily racism experiences of African migrants in İstanbul], Mukaddime, 10 (1), 233-248. DOI: 10.19059/mukaddime.561913
• Watts, J. (2006): ‘The outsider within’: Dilemmas of qualitative feminist research within a culture of resistance. Qualitative Research. 6 (3), 385-402. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941060650
• Wolf, D. L. (1996). Situating feminist dilemmas in fieldwork, In Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork. Diane L. Wolf (ed.). Boulder: Westview Press, pp.1-55.
• Wolf, D. L. (2009). Saha Çalışmasında Feminist İkilemler. Methodos: Kuram ve Yöntem Kenarından (D. Hattatoğlu, Çev., s. 372-441). içinde İstanbul: Anahtar Kitaplar.
• Zengin, A. (2006). İktidarın Mahremiyeti. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları.