Transforming Gender and Sexuality in-between the Personal and the Professional: The Promise of Legal Change in (Un)Becoming Advocate (Avukat) in Turkey

Under the hopeful atmosphere of Turkey's accession to full membership to European Union, Turkey became oriented towards realizing extensive legal and constitutional amendments, as well as juridical reforms in restructuring the contemporary body of law and judicial institutions based on the promise of strengthening access to justice mechanisms and improving human rights laws and practices in Turkey that was shaped by the discourses of democratic governance, rule of law, and economic progress. At the beginning of the second decade of 2000, the affective atmosphere in Turkey abruptly changed by a series of national and international crises, leading into an impasse in the ordinary life in Turkey. This dissertation aims to examine the promise of legal change as the history of the present of law and legal practice in Turkey. Focusing on everyday personal and professional practices of avukats (attorneys) in addressing the legal issues of gender and sexuality, I explore how the narratives of legal change historically inform the aesthetic formation of the contemporary body of law, as well as the differences between ordinary and professional bodies. Building on theories of affect and queer theories, I argue that the law constitutes both a historical site of socio-cultural belonging and an everyday social space within and through which professional bodies become oriented towards generating the possibilities of socio-legal change, depending how their personal and professional experiences and encounters shape their everyday legal practices and how they reside within judicial and professional positionalities in practicing the law.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought

Department dc:contributor.department

Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Seref, Ezgi

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Brunsma, David L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Scott, Rachel Marion
• Shadle, Brett L.
• Powell, Katrina M.

• Turkey
• Legal Change
• Legal Profession
• Theories of Practice
• Theories of Affect
• Queer Theory

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:29079

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/111397