Migratory movements as a multifaceted process under the impacts of climate change: The case of Cihanbeyli in Central Anatolian Agricultural Basin/Konya/Turkey

Date

2025-10-30

Author

Sever, Barış Can

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This doctoral dissertation examines how current climate change influences the patterns of human mobility, immobility, and migration in rural Turkey, with a particular focus on the district of Cihanbeyli, located in the Central Anatolian Agricultural Basin of Konya. Positioned at the intersection of political economy, political ecology, and migration studies, the research adopts an interdisciplinary framework that conceptualizes climate change not as an isolated ecological crisis, but as a social process that intensifies entrenched socio-economic inequalities within the neoliberal transformation of the rural economy. Since the 1980s and even more profoundly since the early 2000s, the withdrawal of state support, market liberalization, and ecological degradation have jointly transformed rural livelihoods, deepening disparities in land, water, and income distribution. Empirically, the study draws on qualitative data collected between 2023 and 2024 through various semi-structured interviews and field observations across several villages in Cihanbeyli and among transnational migrant networks in Denmark and Finland. The findings reveal that drought, groundwater depletion, soil degradation, and rising production costs have rendered dryland farming increasingly unsustainable, while the expansion of irrigated agriculture, driven by market incentives, has intensified ecological pressures and social inequalities. Consequently, migratory movements has emerged as both a livelihood strategy and a complex manifestations of structural injustices within the region-based human mobility regime. Rural communities with century-long traditions of agriculture and pastoralism have undergone a profound transformation over the past two to three decades, as both migratory experiences and the structural impacts of neoliberal and ecological change have reshaped local perceptions, aspirations, and social relations. Therefore, the study demonstrates that contemporary rural migration in Turkey is more likely to be analyzed through intertwined processes of neoliberal transformation and climate change. By situating local experiences within wider debates on climate and rural justice, particularly regarding the agriculture sector and state presence in rural areas, the dissertation attempts to provide a relational sociological perspective to understanding socio-ecological transformations and human mobility in the age of climate crisis.

Subject Keywords

Cihanbeyli/Central Anatolian Agricultural Basin, Climate Change, Migration-Mobility-Immobility, Neoliberal Political Ecology, Region-Based Human Mobility Regime

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116586

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis