Participatory video as a tool for cultivating political and feminist capabilities of women in Turkey

This chapter looks at how arts-based feminist participatory action research (PAR) can be utilised for developing political capabilities of women and facilitate their contribution to epistemic justice. The data draws on co-production of 8 videos with 24 young conservative women university students in Istanbul, and the videos display these women's multiple and diverse experiences of gender inequality. In this research, we approach PAR as a means of reducing political poverty (Bohman, Public deliberation: Pluralism, complexity, and democracy, 1996) whilst redressing the epistemic injustice (Fricker, Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing, 2007) the women had been exposed to. Thus, we conceptualise feminist and political functionings as complementary concepts essential for influencing the outcomes of public deliberation and initiating public dialogue. The research shows that PAR espoused by feminism can create counter public space as a response to anti-egalitarian spaces that favour dominant voices. It can also contribute a counter narrative and confront a one-dimensional depiction of what gender equality is and what feminism should look like.