Paper short abstract:

The paper presents a PhD research on how second generation Turkish Australian women imagine the moral code of modesty (namus) using own moral agency in negotiating between various moral systems in the processes of identity and moral self construction in the context of multicultural Australia.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper will introduce a PhD project that explores the everyday life moral choices of second generation young Turkish Australian women living in Melbourne. It focuses on how these women imagine a culturally specific type of gender-based honour - modesty (namus) - and how they employ their own moral agency in negotiating between variety of moral systems in the processes of identity and moral - self construction in the context of multicultural Australia.

Research suggests that young Turks in Australia and their personal sense of self suffer under essentialist discourses of the homogenized 'Muslim other' as such category, being accorded to religion, may not concur with individuals' own developing social and cultural identities (Hopkins, 2008). Therefore a central aim of this research is to investigate the plurality of attitudes to morality and practices of modesty to disrupt such representations.

In attempt to answer the anthropology of morality's call for turning attention to moral aspects of social life, the research intends to alter the Durkheim's legacy of the moral as confined to 'unreflective norm following' (Mattingly, 2012). Conversely, Piaget's view accentuating 'the growing child's ability to actively construct her own moral guidelines' (Eberhardt, 2014) has provided the impetus to reconsider the role of subjectivity in the process of moral identity construction. For instance Marranci (2008) and Damasio (2002) point to the urgency of drawing more attention to the relationship existing between the self, identity and identity acts in the context of second generation minorities youth.