As the Women and Democracy Foundation (KADEM), we shared the findings of our large-scale qualitative field research conducted in 12 cities across Türkiye with the international academic community through three panels organized as part of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting 2025, held this year in New Orleans.
Focusing on women’s labor, the normalization of violence in popular TV series, representations of masculinity in Türkiye, and the contradictory media consumption practices of audiences, the panels offered a strong example of our goal to carry field data from Türkiye to the global academic arena.
Türkiye’s Contribution to World Science
Our delegation presented qualitative research findings in three panels as part of the AAA Annual Meeting program held in November 2025. The panels created a broad platform for discussion on women’s labor, gender, family well-being, masculinity studies, and the relationship between TV productions and audiences.
Drawing on Türkiye’s socio-cultural fabric, the findings examined the field data through emotional, cultural, spiritual, and social dimensions, offering a new perspective to the international academic community.
Panel 1 – The Multilayered Structure of Women’s Labor
The first panel examined the findings of our comprehensive women’s labor research conducted in 12 cities across Türkiye. Women’s labor was discussed beyond economic production, together with its spiritual, emotional, moral, and cultural layers of meaning.
The presentations revealed the meanings women attribute to identity, responsibility, solidarity, nature, patience, gratitude, and moral values in their narratives of labor. In addition, new discussions were introduced on intergenerational differences, the concept of the “ghost of labor,” and the invisibilization of labor.
Panel 2 – Representations of Masculinity in Turkish TV Productions
This panel examined forms of masculinity represented in Turkish TV series through the “secular–religious” binary. Analyses based on popular productions such as Kızılcık Şerbeti, Kızıl Goncalar, and Gönül Dağı revealed that male figures presented in different ideological contexts reproduce similar patterns of hegemonic masculinity.
The panel discussed the “savior male” model, intergenerational transformations of masculinity, new forms of masculinity blended with spirituality, and the limitations placed on the subjectivation of female characters.
Panel 3 – Violence, Consumption, and Moral Negotiation in Popular TV Series
This panel addressed how television and digital platform productions are consumed by audiences and how this consumption is negotiated with moral, cultural, and social values.
Analyses based on field data revealed that audiences consume even productions that do not align with their values through a paradoxical viewing experience that includes both pleasure and discomfort, as well as both escape and critique.
The panel also evaluated the romanticization of psychological violence, the dramatic or nostalgic reproduction of family structures, and representations in popular series that normalize violence in systematic ways.
KADEM’s Role in Global Academic Arena
Through the three panels we organized within the scope of AAA 2025, we carried qualitative field data produced in Türkiye to the international scientific platform and presented a holistic framework on women’s labor, masculinity studies, and media analysis.
These studies, which make women’s multilayered life experiences visible, make significant contributions to both academic literature and social policymaking processes.
We will continue to share original experiences and field data from Türkiye at the international level and to conduct research focused on women’s multidimensional life practices.
