Ph.D. Candidate Publishes Mosque Gender Study
September 24, 2025
Ph.D. Candidate Ayşenur Şenel has just published a paper in the journal Gender, Place & Culture titled, “Ambivalent Spaces/Moving Bodies: Gender Politics of Mosque Design in Turkey.”
This paper examines five recently constructed mosques in Turkey that have been promoted as “women-friendly,” focusing on how architectural design shapes, enables, and contests patriarchy. It argues that, rather than the designated women’s prayer areas, it is the ambivalent spaces of mixed use and circulation within the mosques that open possibilities for women’s mobility as spatial agents.
Şenel, Ayşenur, and Bülent Batuman. 2025. “Ambivalent Spaces/Moving Bodies: Gender Politics of Mosque Design in Turkey.”Gender, Place & Culture, June, 1–26. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2025.2513085.
