“We Are Here with Our Rebellious Joy”: Witches and Witchcraft in Turkey

Campus Witches is the name of a group/network of young feminists located at universities in Turkey. The group was born out of the Gezi Park protests of 2013. Their appearance in the feminist movement is novel in that they make up the first and only feminist group identifying themselves with witches. This chapter shows that the Campus Witches' formation can be linked to the history of feminist movement as well as to women's everyday resistances within social and political contexts in which women are rendered powerless. The first part of the chapter presents processes in which women move from spell-crafting subjects to Campus Witches. The second part of the chapter is about women's everyday resistance to male domination, which creates insecurities and uncertainties for women; those practices of resistance prepare the ground for women to adopt a witch identity. The chapter concludes that women's practices associated with being nonrational or evil are a means of creative empowerment.