In recent decades, rural livelihood has been restructured dramatically in the Global South as a result of neoliberal transformations such as the removal of state subsidies for small-scale farmers, privatization of agricultural state economic enterprises, rising control of global agribusiness firms on agricultural production, expropriation of rural commons and private farmland for mega-investments in natural resources. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, Turkey has been a prime example of these patterns of accumulation and dispossession. Additionally, the country has been facing coal rush policies of the AKP governments with the aim of utilizing domestic coal to overcome the problem of energy supply security. In this paper, I argue that rural change and patterns of proletarianization in the rural extractive regions are inherently gendered and women assume a central role in the production and social reproduction of the classes of extractive labour. Drawing on 3-year research conducted in the Soma Coal Basin, Western Anatolia, Turkey, the paper examines the transformation of women's (i) petty commodity production as unpaid family farmers, (ii) agricultural wage work and (iii) reproductive work as miners' wives and subsistence farmers as a result of rising private sector coal investments since the mid-2000s.
Sexualities, Ahead of Print. Queer spaces have gained increasing attention academically with a range of studies exploring the construction of such spaces. This article addresses the spatial and social practices and processes that occur within these spaces that perpetuate exclusion based on race. Drawing on ethnographic data collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observations conducted in Birmingham’s ‘gay village’, we argue that gendered perceptions of racialised masculinities and femininities create unique experiences for men and women from minoritised ethnicities. We argue that queer spaces, which are often assumed to transgress and challenge social norms actually maintain, uphold and perpetuate white, patriarchal norms and can therefore be considered a microcosm of broader society. In doing so, we advance criminological thought by adopting a zemiological framework that centres social harm rather than relying on legally defined incidents of crime.
Sexualities, Ahead of Print. We propose the concept of algorithmic heteronormativity to describe the ways in which dating apps’ digital architectures are informed by and perpetuate normative sexual ideologies. Situating our intervention within digital affordance theories and grounding our analysis in walkthroughs of several popular dating apps’ (e.g., Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge) interfaces, promotional materials, and ancillary media, we identify four normative sexual ideologies—gendered desire, hetero and homonormativity, mononormativity, and shame—that manifest in specific features, including gender choice, compatibility surveys, and private chat. This work builds on earlier digital culture theorizing by explicitly articulating the reciprocal and gradational linkages between existing moral codes, digital infrastructures, and individual behaviors, which in the contemporary context work jointly to narrow the horizon of intimate possibility.
Sexualities, Ahead of Print. This article challenges conventions of normative femininity and popular feminism by examining the television show Fleabag (2016–2019) and the destabilizing tendencies of its unnamed protagonist (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who insistently breaks the fourth wall, implying a form of narrative agency. However, her refusal and/or inability to conform to expectations around public decency, feminine norms, and heterosexual romance also betray a lack of narrative control. The show’s unruly framing and its dysfunctional narrator open a dynamic space for explorations of “bad feminism” (Gay, 2014), “fem (me)inine failure” (Hoskin and Taylor, 2019), and “toxic femininity” (McCann, 2020), while foregrounding a kind of femme resistance.
Sexualities, Ahead of Print. In contemporary ‘platformised’ societies, digital businesses play a key role in producing and reproducing romantic cultures. In this article, we explore how the digital industry of dating has translated existing romantic cultures into datafied algorithmic infrastructures. We do so by looking at the interplay between the interconnected dimensions of a) existing mainstream cultures of love and sex, b) their datafication and codification into dating apps, and c) how the latter produce a new understanding of dating that is functional to create digital enclosures. Drawing on existing scholarly research as well as original qualitative data, we argue that dating apps reproduce dating as a de-romanticised social practice which is part of a digital lifestyle organised around a reputational logic.
