Provincial Businesses, Values, and Workplace Politics in Turkey

Çorum, a northwestern province of central Anatolia in Turkey with a population of circa 300,000, is known for its success in the last 40 years and for the development of industry, mainly flour, tile, and machine manufacturing. The city is widely regarded as being one of the so-called ‘Anatolian Tigers’ – that is, central Anatolian provinces that have economically thrived by increasing their share in exports during the last decades. In contrast to other ‘Anatolian Tigers’ such as Konya, Kayseri, Denizli, and Gaziantep, Çorum has received less attention both in the media and in academic studies due to its considerably lower share in GDP (gross domestic product) compared to its counterparts. Likewise,  unlike Konya and Kayseri, where economic developments are often explained by the new Islamic business networks, Çorum’s historical connections to rising political Islam are weak. Thus, our knowledge about Çorum’s industry and economy has been limited to official reports of state and civil associations, a number of newspaper articles, and a very few academic research publications that, however, lack in-depth analysis. Çorum also stands out demographically from other ‘Anatolian Tigers’ with its population of more than ten percent Alevi and small Circassian and Kurdish minorities, which need to be addressed with their complexities. 

Deniz’s project is based on one year of ethnographic field research focusing on family-run small and medium-sized enterprises, that represent the common trend in the majority of economic enterprises in Turkey. The ethnography is designed to include an extensive survey of employers and family workers in companies, in-depth interviews with business-people, and participant observation in two family firms, one in the service and one in the manufacturing sector. Using this data, the project aims to shed light on the historical, economic, geographic, demographic, and social conditions that cultivated the business environment in Çorum, with a special focus on the role of cooperation, ethnic networks, trust, and skill transfer. Within this broader objective, Deniz also examines how business-people’s attitudes towards the state’s role and their own role in redistribution have changed over the period of neoliberalization and looks at their motivations and aspirations behind money-making and expanding their businesses. The method of long-term participant observation was selected due to its suitability for enabling the researcher to discover the everyday practices at the workplaces; here support from local business associations and specific firms is especially important. The project investigates the role of mutual obligations and responsibilities and religious and non-religious rituals in building workplace communities and establishing discipline, work habits, and authority among family and non-family workers. It pays special attention to the possibilities of co-existence of Sünni and Alevi employers and workers within the paternalistic and Sünni-dominant social structures that are reproduced in workplace practices on a daily basis.

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