ABSTRACT
The traditional gender relations in Göreme, and most other Central Anatolian villages, are such that men and women do not meet except with close kin or in marriage.5 The women’s domain is within the realm of the household, and to socialise in public, or gezmek, ‘even with her husband’, is possible only at particular formal occasions such as weddings or engagement parties. The behaviour of tourist women is thus deeply inappropriate to local ideas about gender identity and behaviour. Being a tourist is the ultimate in being out and about (gezmek), and so even before considering the behaviour of tourist women when they are actually in the village, the fact that many of them are travelling independently of their menfolk back home is a complete anomaly in the local view. The villagers have had to stretch the boundaries of their gender repertoires a long way to grasp the concept of touring women, and have succeeded in doing so to varying degrees and depending on the level of contact and experience they have had with tourists.
