Peasantry and rural resistance in the 21st century Turkey: the case of Çiftçi-Sen

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PHD THESIS_JDR_ JAN 2023.pdf

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2023-1

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Medeiros Ribeiro, José Duarte

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In Turkey, the neoliberal transformation of agriculture which started in the 1980s has been catalyzed since the beginning of the 21st century by the governing party extractivist ideology of a commodified countryside. While past state’s political elites always populistically approached the peasantry to deny their political agency, the current authoritarian context is facing a growing protest culture and potential organized resistance. The Çiftçiler Sendikası (Farmers Union) known as Çiftçi-Sen, was established in 2004 as an umbrella organization of different product-based unions extended across the country. This work demonstrates how this movement, recently refunded as a single union, resists while employing food sovereignty as a political program and constituting an unprecedented potential to activate peasant’s political agency. This is particularly important in a context where authoritarian neoliberalism in the Turkish countryside is expressed by extractivist projects that cause ecological demise.

Subject Keywords

Peasants, Agrarian Question, Resistance, Rural Sociology, Rural Turkey

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/101907

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

J. D. Medeiros Ribeiro, “Peasantry and rural resistance in the 21st century Turkey: the case of Çiftçi-Sen,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2023.