Artful interpretive thematic analysis of Women’s narratives of freedom

Abstract

Existing research on women in Turkey has predominantly focused on freedom from gendered political and intimate constraints, such as domestic violence, femicide, and rape, with limited attention to freedom to dream, desire, and play. I invited 14 Turkish, Kurdish, and Armenian women to share their “wild woman” stories, using the wild woman archetype as a resource to access their lived experiences of freedom. Conducting an artfully interpretative approach to Thematic Analysis, my interpretation uncovers both freedom from circuits of dispossession, including racial, social, and psychological oppressions in the streets, family, and body; and freedom to reclaim desire and play, including the right to education, self-expression, and sexual autonomy. Using nature-based metaphors of earth, water, fire, and air, women’s narratives demonstrate how they conceptualize their resilience, desires and aspirations, while highlighting the dialectic between gendered political and intimate constraints, such as familial and cultural responsibilities, and embodied power, including individual biographies of freedom and collective struggles. These insights carry clinical, methodological, and societal significance, showing how storytelling and radical imagination not only illuminate women's complex relationship with freedom, but also foster collective visions of liberation rooted in specific cultural contexts.