Women Transforming in a Changing World

15/01/2021 |

By Yildiz Temürtürkan

Watch the video produced by women in Fındıklı. This is the first episode of a serie by the World March of Women in Turkey

In the midst of the organizational process of the 5th International Action, with the new pandemic our world was introduced to new crises resulting from the capital-life conflict that had already been identified by our analysis in the framework of 2020 actions. However this new situation that requires distancing and restricted mobilization constituted another challenge for our action movement to adjust itself to the new environment. It is evident how vital it is to sustain and extend our grassroots feminism more than ever as our societies become a survival society. It is also an ongoing process of creating new tools to articulate local daily struggles in the framework of an international anti-capitalist feminist movement. In this pursuit, it seemed to be worth trying to produce and share videos as a tool for reflecting and sharing our everyday experiences with different regions on a wide range of issues, such as anti-patriarchal practices, climate change, common goods, subsistence production, climate change, and so on. By itself, this is not meant to replace our actions nor to compensate for demobilization, but rather to continue the construction process of our movement from the local to the international level, sharing everyday-life experiences even in times of lockdown and isolation. 

This episode—like others currently being proposed—is the result of this first experience of the World March of Women in Turkey. It was completely produced by women in Fındıklı, a town in the northeast of Turkey near the Georgian border. Due to mobility restrictions and poor internet connection, local women had to shoot and edit the video themselves, as a collective activity in the construction process of our action. This is a region where women lead a long-lasting struggle against mega-projects to protect their land and water. As a tool of mobilization, the video helps to improve our skills and capacity necessary for an international feminist movement rooted in local struggles.

Yildiz Temurturkan is a militant of the World March of Women in Turkey

Proofread by Aline Scátola

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