CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Ozturk, Zeynep |
|---|---|
| Title | "We Are the Producers, We Will Be the Ones Who Govern" Grassroots Politics in the Yeni Celtek Coal Basin |
| Summary | Previous scholarship has predominantly examined the causes of workers’ collective actions. This thesis shifts attention to their enduring consequences and transformative potential. Through an examination of the outcomes of a workplace-based movement, I demonstrate how these results not only facilitated continuity, but also substantially expanded the scope of the struggle. Engaging theoretical debates on the tension between productive and reproductive labor, I ask: Why and how do workers’ movements extend beyond the workplace and connect with broader popular mobilizations? This approach reveals that labor movements’ strategies developed in the workplace, when coordinated with those in the spheres of reproduction and social reproduction, can create sustained self-governance initiatives. To address this question, I revisit a lesser-known episode in labor history in Turkey: the grassroots movement in the Yeni Çeltek coal basin from 1975 until its suppression by state forces in 1980. Drawing on in-depth oral history interviews and archival sources, I conceptualize this movement as an exemplar of self-governance informed by Marxist labor theories. The findings reveal that the movement brought together diverse forms of labor around the political and economic centrality of coal. After improving their working conditions with community support in 1976, the Yeni Çeltek miners developed a stronger working-class identity and solidarity with both local communities and other workers. Their workplace-based organizing evolved into a broader political mobilization, a legacy encapsulated in the enduring slogan, “We are the producers; we will be the ones who govern”. These findings challenge prevalent assumptions about the decline of movements after material gains, the sharp divide between productive and reproductive labor, and the ephemerality of collective action. Theoretically, this study demonstrates how principles of self-governance can effectively operate across multiple scales and contexts, sustaining their transformative impact and relevance across historical trajectories. |
| Supervisor | Claudio Sopranzetti, Prem Kumar Rajaram |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/ozturk_zeynep.pdf |
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