The making and unmaking of the Zonguldak Coal Basin :|deindustrialization as a process

Abstract

This thesis investigates the social, economic, and political construction of the deindustrialization of the Zonguldak Coal Basin. For more than a century, the Zonguldak Coal Basin has been associated with coal mining, the capital of labor, and the industrial hub of Turkey, albeit these characteristics have been eroding by the deliberate policies and apparatuses of deindustrialization since the 1980s. As such, this thesis firstly focuses on the long history of making the Zonguldak Coal Basin as a resource frontier where the state authorities fueled their dreams of progress and a civilized nation by trying to secure the flow of coal. Secondly, it explores how this coal basin which has been central to the national economy, has come to be perceived as a burden. Within that context, it critically evaluates the emergence of a new way to calculate the value of coal due to the neoliberal restructuring of the state and energy market, as well as the concomitant resistance of coal miners to that neoliberal calculation. This thesis claims that neoliberalization process, in general, paved the way for the deindustrialization of the basin in particular. In relation to that, thirdly, this study examines the apparatuses and policies of deindustrialization, emphasizing that the term deindustrialization does not refer to the “coming to an end”, but rather to a reconfiguration in the mode and capacity of coal production in favor of private operators in the basin. For this thesis, I employed ethnographic field research methods consisting of in-depth interviews, life histories, and collecting archival material. This study aims primarily to critically engage with Turkey’s neoliberalization process and contribute to the field of labor history and studies on deindustrialization.