Care, Resistance, and Patriarchal Hegemony: A Critical Feminist Political Economy of Women’s Grassroots Struggles in Türkiye

This paper engages with feminist political economy debates on social reproduction and patriarchal hegemony to examine how women’s grassroots organizations in Türkiye contest the state–capital nexus shaping everyday life and livelihood. Building on a critical feminist political economy framework, the paper conceptualizes care not only as reproductive labour but also as a political practice that sustains resistance against extractivist policies of the state. Based on field research conducted in 2025 with 32 organized women and rural women’s groups through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, the analysis reveals how women mobilize around the defense of land, water, and community as extensions of their reproductive roles. These movements articulate an alternative vision of economy and society grounded in collective care, ecological justice, and feminist autonomy. The paper argues that these struggles embody a feminist counter-hegemony, challenging the patriarchal governance of both state and capital while reimagining social reproduction as a terrain of political transformation.