Volume 5 • Issue 1 • 1000284
J Trauma Treat
ISSN: 2167-1222 JTM, an open access journal
Research Article Open Access
Çaya, J Trauma Treat 2016, 5:1
DOI: 10.4172/2167-1222.1000284
Research Article Open Access
Journal of Trauma & Treatment
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ISSN: 2167-1222
Keywords: Peasant; Villager; City-dweller; Citadin; Turkish
Introduction
For all the taints of social anthropology here and there, this work
falls into the domain of rural sociology in essence. Te work’s peculiarity
stems in the intention to comprise the Turkish countryside in its entirety.
So, the whole countryside constitutes the materials in this case. As to the
method, with respect to a single village monograph, some ambiguity or
controversy may arise when the reader looks at it as an article. Yet, reliance
on vast literature survey (in Turkish, English, French and German if I do
say so myself) and an evaluation of previous life experience (Erlebnis)
where a series of participant observation incidents had spread out,
could represent the only possible means enabling the work to go on
to completion. As for data, recalling from mental fashbacks related
memories, which gave way to numerous case illustrations on pages, is
what approximates the data collection process at best. As a matter of
fact, in a sense I had been collecting data along the course of my past life
whenever the occasion presented itself! Now I consider myself lucky as
an individual who had been well equipped in the long run to cope with
such a study. It is important to emphasize that I consider myself lucky as
an individual who had been well equipped in the long run to cope with
such a study. Tis is because I come from the middle class. Universally
this social class possesses certain peculiarities. For example, American
scholars point out that the new cults recruit members mostly from the
middle classes. Middle class people are more gullible, believing promises
of eternal happiness more easily. Tey also usually crave for integration
with a closely-knit group. Te street smart lower classes are too worldly
and too cunning to be tempted by cult leaders.
In July 2009 I indulged in some travels in the countryside of Eastern
Trace in order to get some new impressions. I tried to collect some
artefacts and other objects peculiar to peasants. Tose transactions
facilitated my interaction with villagers. But the artifacts were worth
the trouble per se. Some are scanned and put to the appendix at the
end of this dissertation. When the occasion presented itself, I also took
photographs (Figures 1-14).
In August of the same year I also took a trip to the Aegean region,
concentrating around Aydın and Denizli districts. Not owning a car (and
not being able to drive) was a handicap. I took minibuses or trains to reach
or pass by villages. I returned from Denizli to Edirne by a direct bus. I was
pleased to discover a villager next to me. He had got on the bus in Isparta
before me. Te forty-seven-year-old, moustached, partly bald, stoutly-built
man was from a village in Trace. I got friendly with him and we became
travel comrades for fourteen hours. A former farmer, he later worked for
a town bakery and then set up his small roll bread (simit) furnace in his
own village. His name is Ahmet the Roll-Bread Maker. Te man’s wife died
*Corresponding author: Sinan Çaya, Engineering Faculty, Marmara University,
Göztepe, 34722 Istanbul, Turkey, Tel: +9002163480292; E-mail: sina.caya@gmail.com
Received Appril 29, 2015; Accepted January 11, 2016; Published January 15,
2016
Citation: Çaya S (2016) The Peasant: Is He Necessarily the Victim in Confrontation
with the City-Dweller? J Trauma Treat 5: 284. doi:10.4172/2167-1222.1000284
Copyright: © 2016 Çaya S. This is an open-access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
The Peasant: Is He Necessarily the Victim in Confrontation with the City-
Dweller?
Sinan Çaya*
Engineering Faculty, Marmara University, Göztepe, Istanbul, Turkey
Abstract
Turkey is a fast changing country with a young population. True, it used to be defned as an agrarian state; but,
it is getting urbanized at tremendous speed. This change brings the citadin in interaction with the peasant under
many possible circumstances. The former usually has the upper hand in this relation and on occasion does not
even conceal his contempt for the latter. But the latter sometimes carries off his own victory despite disproportionate
disadvantages and absolute deprivation.
under a collapsing wall four years ago. His daughter is married to a tea-
house owner in the nearby town. His son has just graduated as an engineer
from Süleyman Demirel University. All villagers have connections to cities
and urban ways and a hundred percent peasant is almost impossible to
locate on our day. Ahmet’s son found an engineering job in private sector
in Çorlu. Already too busy he gave a proxy petition to his father for him to
get the diploma. Ahmet got it and put it on his chest in a case underneath
his shirt. He was proud to be fetching that precious document, the results
of years of sweat and energy. I said he got his son’s “şahadetname” and
Figure 1: Tractor-driven multiple ploughs for cultivating the land, in Thracian
Turkey (Photo by the author―S.Ç.).
Figure 2: A Thracian peasant woman with a dignifed-facial-expression, selling
her own garden’s products at the weekly city market (Photo by the author―S.Ç.).