Başak Akkan

• Phd
• Faculty member at Istanbul Bilgi University

We are happy to publish a roundtable debate based on the discussions carried out at the webinar organized by our journal to discuss Ayşe Buğra’s latest book, Social Policy in Capitalist History: Perspectives on Poverty, Work and Society . Buğra’s important contribution to the field of social policy is critically evaluated by Guy Standing, Andrew Fi...

UBI has long been advocated for its emancipatory potential based on the provision of the freedom from the exploitative labour market relations. UBI has also been supported by the feminist scholarship as it could challenge gender-based power relationships by promoting the agency of the women in decision-making processes in the household. But there a...

The role of children in care labor within the family has been largely overlooked by social reproduction theory and feminist literature. By applying an intersectional approach and considering the gendered position of children, it becomes essential to revisit social reproduction theory by incorporating girls’ social reproductive labor. The inclusion...

Since the 1980s, intersectionality has received significant recognition as a feminist framework with its theoretical, methodological, and political elements, offering a vigorous understanding of social inequalities that are multifaceted and overlapping in nature. By drawing upon the vast body of feminist literature and adopting a critical and proce...

This article explores the relationship between women’s labor market participation and early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Turkey within a broader Mediterranean context. Since the 1990s, there have been significant changes in the familialist models in the Mediterranean region driven by women’s increased labor market participation and the ex...

The lengthy time of school closure was one defining factor in understanding child well-being during the pandemic in a context where school as a relational space holds great importance for children, particularly those from a low socioeconomic background. Considering this significant aspect of lengthy school closure during the pandemic in Turkey, thi...

COVID-19 salgınının ortaya çıkışı ile dünya gündemine oturan uzun dönemli bakım politikası tartışmaları bakım emeğinin ve evrensel bakım hizmeti sunumunun toplumsal refah açısından önemini ortaya çıkardı. Bu makale, Türkiye’de uzun dönemli bakım hizmetleri bağlamında bakım emeğinin, bakım emeği çalışanlarının perspektifinden bir değerlendirmesini s...

Son 20-30 yıl içerisinde feminist yazında bakım kavramını ele alan çalışmaların sayısı arttı. Ancak bakım kavramı farklı boyutlarıyla tartışabilecek, karmaşık bir kavram olma özelliğini koruyor. Son dönemde, eşitlik mücadelelerinin, ihtimam toplumu tahayyüllerinin ve toplumsal dayanışma ilişkilerinin biçimlerini belirleyen bir kavram olarak da bakı...

Bu makale ‘hak eden’ yoksul ve hareket edebilirlik kavramlarını, evde bakım aylığına odaklanarak tartışmaktadır. Tüm dünyada ekonomik krizler sonrası yükselen yoksulluğa bağlı olarak, devletlerin sosyal yardımlara ayırdıkları bütçelerini arttırdığı ve nakit desteği programlarının çeşitlendirildiği görülmektedir. 2001 ve 2008 yıllarındaki küresel ek...

This article explores the concepts of deservingness and mobility by focusing on the cash for care as a social assistance scheme. Following the global economic crisis, it was observed that the budget allocations to social assistance had been increased, and cash transfers have been extended in many countries. In the 2001 and 2008 economic crises and...

Drawing on feminist debates about social reproduction and care while looking closely at gendered care politics and gender-insensitive containment measures, this article critically explores the politics of care in Turkey in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It does so by engaging with the theoretical debate over "social reproduction as a site of c...

Dünya Sağlık Örgütü 12 Mart 2020'de COVID-19'u salgın ilan etti. Salgın yarattığı ekonomik ve toplumsal tahribat ile birlikte içinde bulunduğumuz dünya düzenine dair birçok soruyu beraberinde getirdi. Kapitalizmin dönüşümü, refah devletlerinin toplumsal ve ekonomik riskler ile mücadeledeki tutumları ve acil önlem politikaları tüm ülkelerin gündemin...

This article deals with the educational arrangements and the multiple inequalities that they reproduce from a comparative perspective. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted in six countries (Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, and the UK) as part of a multinational research project concerning justice in Europe, the article explores...

Bu kitap bölümü, COVID-19 bağlamında görünürlüğü artan bakım krizini, uzun dönemli bakım kurumlarının piyasalaşması, özellikle finansallaşmış ekonominin kurumlarına terk edilmesi üzerinden tartışıyor. Bakımın metalaşması ve piyasalaşması son dönemde üzerinde durulan ve farklı ülkelerde yapılan ampirik araştırmalara da konu olan bir alan. Bu kitap b...

This article explores children’s subjective well-being based on a qualitative study carried out in Istanbul with children between the ages of 10 and 12, from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The study dwells on the growing body of knowledge in the literature on the theoretical understanding of childhood as a structural category that has contribu...

Political discourses in Europe operate at the supranational, national and local level, with supranational institutions providing a normative framework for the policy making at lower governance level. However, the actual appeal of the legal, political and normative frameworks offered by supranational European institutions remains unclear. For exampl...

Residing on an empirical study carried out in Istanbul with young female carers (daughters who share the care responsibility of their younger siblings with their mothers), this article explores the care provider positioning of a child by contemplating the dilemma of empowerment/vulnerability in relation to generational order and relational agency o...

Feminist literature on care has extensively addressed inequalities that cut across the social categories of gender, class and ethnicity in relation to care work. One category that has received less attention in theories of caregiving so far is age. Built on the feminist literature of care and taking young (female) carers as its subject matter, this...

Built on a neighborhood-based qualitative study that was carried out in Istanbul, this article explores the use of complementary research methods that explore how children contextualize their well-being within the spatial boundaries of a particular social location. Therefore, spatiality is used as a methodological tool to understand children’s subj...

This article explores care as an inequality-creating phenomenon pertaining to the position of young female carers. Engaging the normative theory of Nancy Fraser on ‘participatory parity’ as a framework for equality, an intersectional analysis of childcare practices of young female carers reveals inequalities that cut across class and gender, and gi...

Women are considered one of the most vulnerable groups in Turkey in terms of their labour market participation. This article explores the changing features of work and family reconciliation; the possible effects of newly introduced labour market policies on flexibility, and childcare arrangements. The vulnerability of women – young women in particu...

This article deals with the politics of care and the changing features of familialism in Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). While sacred familialism, which is built on the role of women as devoted care providers and blessed mothers, is evident in the AKP's gender politics, care has received more public recognition thr...

According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children are born with civil, political, social and economic rights. However, children's ability to exercise their citizenship rights and practices depend on which country context they live in. Within the limits of this article we want to explore how children's subjective we...

This article aims to reveal the multidimensional aspects of social exclusion of Roma in Turkey, which manifests itself in the stigmatized space of Roma neighborhood. In our analysis, we do not depict 'Roma' distinctively as an ethnic category but as a 'low status' in the society that is embedded in the stigmatized places. We argue that those from a...

Throughout the world, migration plays a crucial role when trying to understand social, political, economic, and cultural structures (Castles & Miller 2009). This is particularly true in the case of Turkey. The population movements from rural to urban areas, which started in the 1950s, have continued.

This paper discusses the development of child well-being indicators for Turkey based on the comparative research done on the previous indicator sets. It discusses the proposed list of indicators in the eight domains of child well-being along with the findings of a quantitative and a qualitative research conducted in Istanbul, Turkey. It also offers...