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This study analyzes the representation of women and modernization in Tunisian society by looking at Tunisian films produced in Tunisia after 1980. Study aims to develop a new concept to understand modernization process of women in a non-western, Muslim, and North African society through representations in films.Womens modernization process has been analyzed through the qualitative analyses of five Tunisian films by focusing on conceptualization of women issue as one of the main elements of Tunisian modernization. More presicely, the study examines stages of women´s modernization on the one side, and representation of this process in films on the other. Examining written literature alone is not enough to understand women modernization process in a non-western society. At that point, attending to visual sources like cinema which has the ability to reflect the society might give us convenient information about this process.

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After graduated from International Relations department of Dokuz Eylul Un versity, Cicek Coskun took her masters degree from the Middle East Studies Program of the Middle East Technical University. She currently continues her PhD on sociology at the same university and works as PhD scholar at Cankaya University.

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