Abstract
Starting in late 2000s, following the rise of alternative food networks and the food movement in Turkey, a new path of migration emerged where upper and upper middle class, urban and educated, white collar workers leave their jobs and lives in the cities, move to the country, and begin farming. This research analyzes the exit and transition narratives of 80 such new farmers, or ‘neo-peasants’, and presents some preliminary findings: First, food sovereignty (having the right and the capability to make decisions about where one’s food comes from), clean eating (having the right and the capability to know that the food one is eating is produced with least damage to the ecosystem) and healthy eating (having the right and the capability to choose foods that one deems healthy) constitute the primary motivations for exiting the city and taking up farming. In parallel, second, the farming practices of the neo-peasants’ tend to be predominantly agro-ecological (which includes organic, regenerative, and/or GAP) and community-supported (even if that community is primarily online). Third, in comparison to their ‘traditional farmer’ neighbors, neo-peasants tend to have both more and different types of capital, which they invest in and then (re)generate through their farms. Fourth, although they turn to their ‘traditional farmer’ neighbors to supply their much-needed farm labor and to receive day-to-day, hands-on, practical ‘wisdom’ about farming, they frequently criticize the same farmers for being lazy, uneducated, engaging in ecologically harmful farming practices and for caving into get-rich-quick schemes and pressures of the land markets.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Food Production and Sustainability
KEYWORDS
Repeasantization, Agrarian Structures, Capital, Agroecology, Gender
