LOCAL AGRICULTURAL RELATIONS AND FARMER STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF ÇİĞDEMLİ

Date

2024-9

Author

Alan, Aykut Ozan

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The decline of the village and peasantry as objects of research, the blurring of boundaries between rural and urban areas, and the reduction of agriculture to a subordinate element of agri-food chains, environment and food security have led to the neglect of local agricultural relations as a distinct field of study. Correspondingly, particularly in Central Anatolia, towns and villages that are disadvantaged in terms of agricultural conditions, with aging and declining populations, appear to be on their deathbeds, with a future envisioned where small farmers, and indeed all farmers, have exited the scene. However, these towns and villages are at the heart of a significant social, cultural, demographic, and economic transformation, where social classes are being transformed, dissolved, and new classes are emerging. To understand this transformation, there is a need for a holistic and bottom-up approach that can illustrate the multidimensional structure of agricultural relations, and their interactions with environmental and non-agricultural factors. This dissertation aims to analyze the social and class structures, economic and non-economic relationships, and power dynamics in the agricultural field of Çiğdemli, an Anatolian town exhibiting above-mentioned characteristics, using Bourdieu's theoretical framework and concepts of agricultural field, agricultural habitus, and agricultural capital. It considers the differentiation among social classes under changing external conditions, examining the strategies of farming families to either exit or remain within the agricultural field, the new entrants into the agricultural field, the informal structures within agricultural relations, and the role of non-economic values and political relationships from an intergenerational perspective.

Subject Keywords

Bourdieu, agricultural field, agricultural capital, agricultural relations, Çiğdemli

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111315

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis