HABITUS OF THE WOMEN IN WOMEN'S SHELTERS: CULTURAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

Abstract

This study investigates those women who come to the women’s shelters for protection from violence. The purpose of violence against women is to suppress and dominate women by exerting pressure and force. The shelters play an important role in preventing the women from suffering pressure and force and in enabling them to survive. Shelters are indeed limens for women to lead their lives and to solve the problems they face.

This study, which tries to determine the problems of women at preliminal period, during liminality period, and at post liminal period, is based on Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, habitus, and agency. In this study, qualitative research method was used to determine the problems of women. Women’s shelters are also limens in-between women's past lives and future expectations. To reveal their problems based on the discourses of the agent women at the limen, it is necessary to identify their cultural, economic, and social capital and habitus. In this way, the effects of other women in the shelters and their social environment, especially the families they come from, their educational background, and economic circumstances can be elaborated. As a matter of fact, it is observed that there is a direct relationship between the education levels of both the women in the shelters and their families and their problems and life expectations. These considerations matter for the agent to get rid of violence and to determine her own path in the future. For Bourdieu, violence is caused as a result of a difference in power. In particular, there is a direct relationship between male domination and violence.