Nigar Goksel
"In Yenikoy you would rarely ever have seen a woman with a headscarf 15 or 20 years ago. And if you did, she was probably a cleaning lady. Now she lives here and mixes with the rest of the crowd."
Nigar Goksel is a social scientist, writes a column in Turkish Daily News and is Editor-in-chief of Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ), a Turkish (but English-language) foreign policy journal. She lives in Yenikoy on the European side of the Bosporus.
Nigar was born in Istanbul as the daughter of an American teacher and of a Turkish entrepreneur. She went to a public school in Arnavutkoy. After graduating from university in Istanbul (and becoming Turkish champion in horse riding in 1997) she went to work in Washington DC. When she returned, she worked for various Turkish NGOs
Further reading
- ESI Report: Sex and Power: Feminism, Islam and the Maturing of Turkish Democracy (June 2007)
- ESI Picture Story: A Century of Feminism in Turkey (June 2007)
- Latest issue of Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ) on the ESI website
- TESEV website
- TUSIAD website
October 2008
ESI
