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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/6

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    PublicationOpen Access
    The promising momentum and collective practices of the recently expanding network of consumer-led ecological food initiatives in Turkey
    (İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2020) Department of Sociology; Al, İrem Soysal; Department of Sociology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities
    The main objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussions on the collective ecological food initiatives in Turkey that the academic literature has to a large extent ignored. This study provides a current and detailed analysis of these initiatives in Turkey, whose momentum has expanded considerably in recent years, especially in Istanbul. The study investigates food communities and consumer food cooperatives as two significant forms of consumer-led collective ecological food initiatives, comparing these in terms of their motivations, organization models, and functions. A comprehensive picture of almost 20 consumer-led ecological food initiatives is presented, and 11 prominent examples of these possessing transformative ambitions in Istanbul are discussed in detail. The fieldwork is based on my participant observation of the Kadikoy Cooperative, of which I have been a member for one year, and close interactions with the members of other ecological food initiatives for two years, as well as 20 in-depth interviews with the members of these initiatives. This paper examines the commonalities in these initiatives that differentiate them from other alternative food channels, as well as the connections, relationships, and collaborations among these recently emerging collective ecological initiatives. The paper discusses concrete examples of the alternative relations in food production, distribution, and consumption that these urban ecological food initiatives try to offer in practice and that indicate the potential power these initiatives have for transforming current food relations and for contributing to the emerging food sovereignty struggle in Turkey. The study also illustrates how the consumers and producers in this network of initiatives have conceptualized their practices and ambitions within the food sovereignty movement.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey: recent patterns and practices
    (2021) Department of Sociology; Mert, Aslı Ermiş; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 292273
    This article sets out to understand the recent patterns and practices of women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey, and by investigating its demographics using quantitative methods, critically discussing microcredit as a policy tool, evaluating the reinforcement provided by civil society and public institutions specifically based on the action plans of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB), the aim is to examine whether existing entrepreneurship opportunities and support mechanisms enhance women’s skills and potential based on Nussbaum’s (1999; 2000) combined capabilities approach and human powers concept. This article finds that there is no particularly restricted demographics of women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey, specifically referring to marital status and educational level. In terms of microcredit as a common practice, discussions underline that it does not seem to contribute to women’s human powers to a large extent in terms of strengthening their position in the job market and society. Finally, it is seen that there are various sources of support towards women in entrepreneurship in Turkey offered largely by NGOs as well as public institutions, yet at the level of action plans the main target is mostly increasing the number of entrepreneur women, who are considered as a part of special target groups rather than being regarded as a separate focus. Based on Nussbaum’s combined capabilities approach (1999), this article underlines that public institutions and social policies as primary external capabilities need to continue supporting women’s internal capabilities (via training, networking activities etc.) in entrepreneurship, yet also concurrently focus on the expansion of the scope and fields of women-owned businesses to enable the execution of their human powers. / Bu makale, Türkiye’de kadınların güncel girişimcilik örüntülerini ve konuya ilişkin pratikleri irdelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Öncelikle, kadınların girişimciliğinin demografik yapısı nicel yöntemlerle incelenmiştir. Ardından, mikrokredi bir politika aracı olarak tartışılmış ve bu konudaki sivil toplum ve sosyal politika destekleri özellikle Küçük ve Orta Ölçekli İşletmeleri Geliştirme ve Destekleme İdaresi Başkanlığı (KOSGEB) aksiyon planları bağlamında değerlendirilmiştir. Makalede, girişimcilik imkanları ve desteklerinin Nussbaum’un (1999; 2000) birleşik yapabilirlikler yaklaşımı ve insan güçleri kavramı çerçevesinde kadınların bu alandaki yetenek ve potansiyellerini geliştirme kapasitesi ele alınmıştır. Sonuçlar Türkiye’de kadınların girişimcilik örüntülerinde özellikle medeni durum ve eğitim seviyesi açısından çok kısıtlı bir demografik yapıya işaret etmemiştir. Yaygın bir uygulama olan mikrokredinin ise kadınların insan güçlerine istihdam ve toplumdaki statülerini geliştirme bağlamında yüksek düzeyde bir katkı sağlamadığı tespit edilmiştir. Son olarak, sivil toplum alanında kadınların girişimciliğine ilişkin çeşitli destek mekanizmaları olduğu görülmüştür. Kamusal aksiyon planları çerçevesinde de girişimci kadınlara yönelik adımlar mevcut olmakla birlikte çoğunlukla bu alanda çalışan kadınların sayısını artırmanın hedeflendiği ve spesifik olarak kadınlara odaklanan politikaların eksikliği dikkat çekmiş, girişimci kadınların özel hedef grupları arasında değerlendirildikleri gözlemlenmiştir. Bu çalışma, Nussbaum’un (1999) birleşik yapabilirlikler yaklaşımına dayanarak, en önemli dışsal yapabilirlik öğelerinden olan kamu kuruluşu destekleri ve sosyal politikalar bazında girişimci kadınların içsel yapabilirliklerini (eğitim imkanları, ağ oluşturma aktiviteleri vb. aracılığıyla) pekiştirme süreçlerinin devamı ile birlikte kadınlara ait girişimlerin kapsam ve alanlarının genişlemesine ilişkin çalışmalara odaklanılmasının öneminin altını çizmiştir.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Between the state and the world market: small-scale hazelnut production in the Black Sea region
    (İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2020) Erköse, H. Yener; Şahin, Osman; Yükseker, Deniz; Department of Sociology; Sert, Hüseyin Deniz; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities
    Turkey is the world's largest hazelnut producer and exporter, yet hazelnut farmers have been growing hazelnuts in increasingly difficult conditions even for the years when production levels and hazelnut prices are high. In this paper, we take up the contradictions in hazelnut cultivation in Turkey and seek to show that, despite the commonsense opinion that the problem stems from small-scale cultivation, the more important problem is the unequal power relations that exist in the hazelnut market. We make the following arguments in the paper based on some of the findings from the field study we carried out in the Western and Eastern Black Sea regions in 2017. Issues exist regarding productivity and profitability in hazelnut cultivation characterized by small holdings. Hazelnut farmers are often unable to meet the expenditures and investments required for raising productivity. These problems arise more from the farmers' demographic profiles and debt levels and the unequal power relations in the hazelnut market with respect to small-scale production. Therefore, resolving the problems in hazelnut cultivation might require making changes that favor small farmers' power relations in the hazelnut market rather than enlarging holdings. / Türkiye dünyanın en büyük fındık üreticisi ve ihracatçısı konumunda. Ancak fındık üreticileri, bazı yıllar bol mahsul veya mahsullerine iyi fiyat alsalar bile, giderek daha zorlu koşullarda üretim yapıyorlar. Bu yazıda, Türkiye’de fındık üretiminin barındırdığı çelişkileri ele alacağız. Sorunların kaynağında fındık işletmelerinin küçük olmasının yattığı yönündeki genel kabulün aksine, sorunun aslen fındık piyasasındaki eşitsiz güç ilişkilerinden kaynaklandığını göstermeye çalışacağız. 2017’de Doğu ve Batı Karadeniz Bölgeleri’nde yaptığımız alan araştırmasının verilerinin bir bölümünün bulgularına dayanan makalede şu savları ortaya koyuyoruz. Türkiye’de küçük işletmelerde yapılan fındık tarımının verimlilik ve kârlılık konusunda sorunları vardır. Fındık üreticilerinin çoğu verim artırımı için gerekli harcamaları ve yatırımı yapamamaktadırlar. Bu sorunlar, üretim birimlerinin küçük olmasından çok, fındık üreticilerinin demografik profili, borçlanma ve fındık piyasasındaki eşitsiz yapıdan kaynaklanmaktadır. Dolayısıyla, fındık üretimindeki sorunların çözülmesi için üretim ölçeğini büyütmekten çok, eşitsiz güç ilişkilerinin hâkim olduğu küresel piyasada üretici lehine değişiklikler yapmak daha uygun olabilir.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    The ISSP 2017 social networks and social resources module
    (Taylor _ Francis, 2020) Sapin, Marlene; Joye, Dominique; Wolf, Christof; Andersen, Johannes; Bian, Yanjie; Fu, Yang-Chi; Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin; Marsden, Peter, V.; Smith, Tom W.; Department of International Relations; Çarkoğlu, Ali; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 125588
    This special issue introduces the 2017 Social Networks and Social Resources module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). This module has been newly developed based on specific, up-to-date theoretical and methodological foundations. Within certain limits the designers of this module aimed at allowing comparisons with the previously fielded ISSP modules on Social Networks from 1986 and 2001. The module encompasses measures on social capital and social resources, assessed by both a position generator and questions on social resources coming from network members or formal organizations. They are complemented by other important social network dimensions capturing network structure and opportunities to access and mobilize social relationships. A strength of the new module is to assess multiple dimensions of social networks and social resources, which are crucial either for instrumental or expressive outcomes also introduced in the survey. The special issue includes first an introduction presenting the motivations behind the 2017 new module on Social Networks and Social Resources, the underlying model of the final questionnaire, a description focusing on the core of the social networks and resources measurement with some descriptive results on social capital, network support and sociability, and open the discussion toward some research questions it allows to examine in a comparative perspective.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    The impact of remittances on human development: a quantitative analysis and policy implications
    (Centre of Sociological Research (CSE), 2012) Irdam, Darja; Department of International Relations; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 238439
    This paper contributes to the discussions on the nexus between migration and development by assessing the effects of remittances on human development. We do so first through a quantitative approach, and second, by elaborating the findings of our quantitative analysis within a broader theoretical and policy framework. By using OLS, we measure the impact of remittances on human development and compare it with the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA). The findings indicate that remittances have a positive correlation with the human development level and are indeed an effective way to enhance human development in countries with medium income, especially in the medium run. We demonstrate that remittances show divergent developmental effects in countries with different government approaches to migration. In the second part of the paper, we discuss different hypotheses about the causes of the problems that our findings reveal and compare different actual policy solutions found in the developing world. We argue that remittances have the most positive effect in terms of boosting human development in the countries where the state perceives migration as an effective labour export strategy.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Protest, memory, and the production of 'civilized' citizens: two cases from Turkey and Lebanon
    (Routledge, 2012) Department of International Relations; Olcay, Özlem Altan; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
    This article studies the proliferation of discourses of rationality and responsibility among a particular elite social group in Lebanon and Turkey, as they remember student mobilization of their past. I offer these episodes of student mobilization as acts of citizenship that create and make use of rapturous moments in the histories of their countries and institutions. I extend these acts of citizenship to the contemporary context and study the ways in which they become part of discourses of citizenship in unexpected ways. I propose that these narratives draw upon a set of local practices that reflect meanings of citizenship, originating from Western discourses of liberalism, albeit following a different route. In the narratives, violence and irrationality become the defining features of politicized behavior, whereas being civilized epitomizes good manners and rationality. Such boundary-drawing exercises contribute to making conceivable exclusionary social orders based on the idea of a hierarchical distribution of reason and social utility.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Social mixing in urban schools: class, race and exchange-value friendships
    (Sage, 2019) Hollingworth, Sumi; Faculty Member; Migration Research Program at Koç University (MIReKoç) / Göç Araştırmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi (MIReKoç)
    Based on empirical, qualitative research on 'social mixing' in multi-ethnic London schools, this article argues for a conceptualisation of social mixing as an exchange of the self. Through analysis of three working-class, minority ethnic students who attempt to 'cross borders' into White middle-class subcultures, I explore the differing capital value embodied in their raced, classed and gendered identity positions. Friendships across this border are characterised by 'semi-investments' on both sides, and promise only partial possibilities for social mobility via social mixing, through limited access to academic capital and embodied Whiteness.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Philosophical re-thinking of international tax law: an analysis of harmful tax competition
    (Firenze University Press, 2020) Önal, Ezgi Arık; Researcher; Law School; 265197
    This study aims to re-think the harmful tax competition philosophically and through which to open a new route for further studies. With this aim, harmful tax competition is examined from epistemological, theoretical and methodological perspectives. As a result of this study, it is contended that the OECD failed to justify the assumption that tax competition under specified circumstances is regarded as "harmful" around the world in the same way and it harms global welfare. By doing this, the OECD does not take into account that the meaning of harmful tax competition can be constructed differently by different societies. In fact, based on the different meanings of construction, the same kind of tax competition may be regarded as "beneficial" by some states and "harmful" by others. Therefore, to understand the challenges on the definition of harmful tax competition and solve them, more philosophical analysis is needed.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    The 'new' migration for work phenomenon: the pursuit of emancipation and recognition in the context of work
    (Sage, 2019) Groutsis, Dimitria; Vassilopoulou, Joana; Kyriakidou, Olivia; Özbilgin, Mustafa; PhD Student; Graduate School of Business
    This article examines the 'new' migration for work phenomenon gripping Southern Europe since the Global Financial Crisis struck in 2008, by focusing on the case of skilled Greeks migrating to Germany for work purposes. In applying Honneth's concept of emancipation to the domain of work, the article frames emancipation as a phenomenon which emerges from an individual's search for meaningful work and as a form of resistance to deteriorating institutions and social injustice. Informed by this is an assessment of the new migration for work phenomenon from Greece to Germany by employing survey data on the perceptions of skilled emigrants. Following analysis of the findings, it is concluded that migration is a form of emancipation that allows individuals to regain recognition and self-respect while also to protest the erosion of social and human rights in their home country.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Happiness at the macro level: a critical discussion on the compatibility of different indicators
    (İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2022) Department of Sociology; Mert, Aslı Ermiş; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 292273
    This paper presents a critical discussion mainly based on the macro-level (societal) determinants of happiness by focusing on gender equality, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and countries’ commitment to reducing inequality. The aim is to critically evaluate the compatibility of these components through the examples of happiest and unhappiest countries to arrive at conclusions regarding the importance of these means as a whole. Rankings based on these determinants reveal an apparent compatibility to exist for both ends of happiness with countries’ gender equality, GDP per capita, and commitment to reducing inequality as well as gross national income (GNI) per capita (based on purchasing power parity [PPP]) and Gini coefficient. Exceptional cases are discussed based on their sociological and socioeconomic contexts. Further research has been determined to be needed that will examine happiness at the macro level using an inclusive multidimensional approach rather than only focusing on a single indicator, in particular by taking into account various means of inequality, primarily regarding gender, income, living standards/conditions as well as issues such as access to health, education, employment opportunities, and information, as parts of the broader concept.