Aşefçi women as a caregiver: Invasion and invasive companions

Diyarbakır Suriçi

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Conflict broke out in Sur, a district of Diyarbakır, in 2015 with the decline of the Kurdish peace process and the region-wide strife that followed. This process has brought about issues of forced migration and social-cum-spatial injustices. Thousands of people in Sur had to evacuate their homes, hoping to return one day. The research focuses on the fertile Hevsel Gardens, situated on the banks of the Tigris (Dicle) River in Diyarbakır and embracing Sur, which has been a crucial source of sustenance for the city and a natural habitat for wildlife since ancient times. However, today, agriculture has a noticeable decline compared with the pre-conflict period in Hevsel. So, the research introduces Aşefçi women who work in the Hevsel Gardens to meet the city’s vegetable and fruit needs as caregivers. “Aşef ” refers to planting seedlings, which involves clearing out invasive plants around the planted seedlings and examining and selecting them. Thus, Aşefçi performs this task, clearing out invasive plants and cooking them, which I call “invasive companions,” recalling Donna Haraway’s “companion species.” Aşefçi’s kitchen serves delicious recipes with invasive companions (such as ebegümeci/tolik, pirpirim/semiz otu, and naneçuçe/kuş otu) and brings everyone together around the “sofra (table).”