Negotiating the Gecekondu: Women’s Experiences of Home and Domesticity in Orhan Pamuk’s A Strangeness in My Mind

Abstract Book of the 7th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality

Year: 2026

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Negotiating the Gecekondu: Women’s Experiences of Home and Domesticity in Orhan Pamuk’s A Strangeness in My Mind

Deniz Engin Küçükali, Kıvanç Kılınç

ABSTRACT:

This study examines how the domestic spaces of the gecekondu (squatter housing) are experienced and interpreted in nuanced ways by three sisters portrayed in Orhan Pamuk’s novel, A Strangeness in My Mind (2014). The analysis foregrounds how the sisters establish distinct relationships with their home and negotiate domestic roles and responsibilities differently, even though they share similar spatial settings. Through a close reading of the novel, the study traces how everyday spatial practices, domestic labor, and the sense of belonging within the gecekondu diverge among the sisters and how these experiences are subsequently reshaped through their gradual transition to “modern” flats in a mid-size apartment building. The paper resituates each sister’s individual experience through the lenses of different feminist theoretical frameworks, as they embody distinct multilayered readings of the home by feminist scholars. Vediha’s silent and continuous service roles within the extended family align with early feminist critiques that define the home as a structure isolating women from society. Rayiha’s emotional and physical investment in domestic life reflects feminist discussions on invisible domestic labor and the home as a space of care, burden, and self-erasure. Samiha, by contrast, emerges as a more mobile figure whose resistance to domestic boundaries resonates with poststructuralist feminist approaches questioning fixed gendered spaces. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that domestic space cannot be understood as a fixed or uniformly experienced category, showing instead how the meaning of home is continuously redefined through gendered labor, mobility, and everyday spatial practices through literary representations.

Keywords: Domesticity And Gender; Gecekondu; Home; Literary Space; Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul