From the KiÅŸlak to the Yayla
The Material Culture and Technology of Transhumance
Credit to Faruk
From the KiÅŸlak to the Yayla: The Material Culture and Technology of Transhumance is a PhD project led by Tara Panesar funded by the University of Leicester. Tara is based between London, UK and Fethiye, Türkiye, and the research will be carried out by herself and a project team in collaboration with Yörük researchers and practitioners.
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Yörük, translating to 'nomadic' from Turkish, denotes a wide group of settled, semi-transhumant and transhumant families who have been based across Anatolia and the Balkan peninsula for thousands of years. Constituting of a number of different tribes, such as the Sarıkeçililer , Karakeçililer and Sarıtekeliler, Yörük people that continue to live a transhumant lifestyle migrate from the KiÅŸlak (the winter pasture) to the Yayla (the summer pasture) each year. This migratory process usually begins in April and lasts for around thirty to forty days (Yolda).
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The survival of this practice of regular migration and animal husbandry through well known, fixed routes has become increasingly difficult with each passing year. Expanding industrial agriculture and urbanization have led to fragmented migration routes and grazing areas, with abundant and essential pastures furthermore depleted of natural water resources and devastated by forest fires.
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Similar to Anti-Gypsyism and ethnic prejudice in Europe against the Roma on a personal and institutional level (Kende et al, 2021) Yörük groups are also met with pressure to relinquish their transhumant lifestyle through social prejudice and difficulty accessing public health services and education. This is not to mention the difficulty many Yörük pastoralists experience when trying to enter their goat-based products (meat, dairy and textiles) into the local and international market. Yörük market exclusion is an issue directly addressed by organizations such as Geççi and the Yolda Initiative.
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The project, based at Leicester’s School of Museum Studies, is supervised by Professor Sandra Dudley and Dr Yunci Cai.
Credit to Jane Akatay
Credit to Jane Akatay.
Glossary
Transhumance
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In the context of Yörük people, transhumance denotes the practice of moving livestock from the KiÅŸlak (winter pasture) to the Yayla (summer pasture) to graze in seasonal cycles.
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It is different to nomadic pastoralism in the sense that Yörük follow regular, rather than irregular patterns of migration in search for fertile land.
