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The Political Economy of Patriarchy in the Global South
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Book Description
Recent decades have witnessed both a renewed energy in feminist activism and widespread attacks taking back hard-won rights. Despite powerful feminist movements, the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly undermined the progress women have struggled for decades to achieve; how can this be? What explains this paradox of a strong feminist movement coexisting with stubborn patriarchal arrangements? How can we stop the next global catastrophe initiating a similar backlash? This book suggests that the limitations of social theory prevent feminist strategies from initiating transformative changes and achieving permanent gains. It investigates the impact of theoretical shortcomings upon feminist strategies by engaging with two clusters of work: ungendered accounts of capitalist development and theories on gendered oppression and inequality. Decentring feminist theorising grounded in histories and developments of the global North, the book provides an original theory of the patriarchal system by analysing changes within its forms and degrees as well as investigating the relationship between the gender, class and race-ethnicity based inequalities. Turkey offers a case that challenges assumptions and calls for rethinking major feminist categories and theories, thereby shedding light on the dynamics of social change in the global South. The timely intervention of this book is, therefore, crucial for feminist strategies going forward.
The book emerges at the intersections between Gender, International Development, Political Economy, and Sociology and its main readership will be found in, but not limited to, these disciplinary fields. The material covered in this book will be of great interest to students and researchers in these areas as well as policy makers and feminist activists.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Contemporary Paradox Part 1: Theoretical Shortcomings and Political Implications 1. The Ungendered Accounts of Capitalist Development 2. Conceptual Abandonment of Patriarchal Labour Exploitation 3. Theorising the Patriarchal System of Exploitation Part 2: Varieties of Patriarchy and Implications for Capitalist Development: The Case of Turkey 4. New Varieties of Patriarchy: The Early Republican Period 5. Emergence of Neoliberal Patriarchy: The Contemporary Period 6. Uneven and Combined Development of Patriarchy 7. The Turkish Trajectory of Social Change: A Comparative Perspective Part 3: Towards A New Conceptual Framework 8. Discussion: The Patriarchal, Capitalist and Racist Totality Conclusion: Drivers & Dampeners of Social Change
Author(s)
Biography
Ece Kocabıçak, Ph.D., is currently working as a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the Open University, United Kingdom. For more than two decades, Ece has been involved in feminist politics in Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus and England. She has written for a variety of publications including academic books and journals, newspapers and magazines.
Reviews
"This pathbreaking book is a powerful contribution to the expanding field of stratification economics, theoretically and empirically exploring the role of hierarchical economic, political and social institutions in maintaining the power of dominant groups. It is unique in its focus on the interacting effects of stratification by class, race, and gender using Turkey as a case study. Development economists especially will find rich theoretical terrain in this book to expand our understanding of global inequalities." — Stephanie Seguino, Professor, Department of Economics, and Fellow, Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont, USA
"Ece Kocabıçak provides a compelling new feminist□materialist approach to male dominance in the global South based on the□economic conditions which allow or hinder the□formation of men and women’s□collective agencies depending on their class and racial-ethnic positioning. Her historical framing of types of patriarchal economies and state formations allow for exciting comparisons and contrasts to gendered development in other countries in the global South." — Ann Ferguson, Professor emerita of Philosophy and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
"In The Political Economy of Patriarchy in the Global South, Ece Kocabıçak challenges us to look at the relationships between capitalisms and patriarchies in new ways. Using Turkey as an example, she highlights the importance of women’s unpaid work within household productive enterprises, both in small businesses and in agriculture. She analyzes how patriarchy embedded in male household heads is reinforced through the control of women’s labor for production in household enterprises. Providing a strong feminist approach from the global South, her theorizing provides insights into how to create feminist strategies for transformational change." — Cheryl Doss, Professor of International Development and Senior Departmental Lecturer in Development Economics, Oxford Department of International Development, Oxford University
"In this ground-breaking book Kocabıçak tackles the long-standing puzzle of why patriarchal social structures persist in the face of feminist movements and resistance. Drawing creatively and widely on critical feminist and materialist traditions, through a focus on Turkey, she discusses how the imbrication of patriarchy, capitalist and racialized systems of oppression together explain the degree to which patriarchy is reinforced and immune to change. In doing so Kocabıçak not only gives serious substance to the concept of intersectionality, but she also develops a theoretical rubric for analysing variation in societies across space and time. This is one of those books that will not only endure the test of time but will influence scholarship widely and deeply." — Professor Manali Desai, Head of Department, Professor of Comparative and Historical Sociology, and Fellow and Director of Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge.