Village close enough : a study of the changing character of rural space in Turkey

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate movements occurring at a close distance between rural and urban areas and the changing character of the rural space in Turkey. Within the scope of the ethnographic field research I conducted in three villages of Çubuk District of Ankara, I interviewed people who migrated from the village to the city with various motivations and have continued to commute between the village and the city in changing routines and manners, people who returned to their village permanently and people who never left their village. Focusing on participants’ narratives, I examine forms of movements between the village and the city, the effects of these forms on the relationship between the rural and the urban, and suggest that movements between the village and other places have become a constituent of the rural space in Turkey. Based on the participants’ experience of the village, I argue that the village as a place contains conflicting aspects. I discuss the intricacy of memory, landscape, and work as the dimensions of the spatial reorganization of the rural space and argue that the balance between work and non work has shifted to the extent that the village has become a space to enjoy, among other things. Lastly, through the material and the verbal culture of the village and conflict- ridden commensal relations, I discuss how the idea of familial and communal attachments are dissolving is tied with how the village is remembered and its future is feared.