Browsing by Subject "Commercialization"

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Commercialization of agricultural production in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire: property acquisition and local notables
(2024-07) Laçin, Bedirhan
This dissertation analyzes the transformation of agrarian relations and their impact on the commercialization of agricultural production in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century in the southern Balkans and western Anatolian hinterlands. It examines the process by which the growth of the illicit wheat trade as an empire-wide development, influenced by changes in the urban-rural trade structure and the level of foreign and domestic demand, gradually reshaped imperial wheat policy. It examines shifts in land tenure and the emergence and consolidation of local elites in the context of landed-estate agriculture. This is achieved through a comprehensive prosopographical study of land tenure and local elite phenomena in Karaferye from the late fifteenth to the second half of the eighteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the analysis is extended also to the Selanik province, with a special focus on Selanik hinterland and in western Anatolia to Bergama in the context of çiftlik investments and illicit wheat trade. This micro-level examination allows for the observation of concurrent changes and continuities in land tenure and the impact of shifts in taxation practices on rural indebtedness and on the labor forms in different regions. It is argued that the growth of the çiftlik market and direct purchases, facilitated by the economic incentives of investor local elites and notables, led to the commodification of wheat through the illicit trade.
Open Access
New inclinations towards land usufruct in the 18th century Anatolia
(2017-07) Laçin, Bedirhan
This thesis attempts to investigate the changing features of 18th century Ottoman agricultural production in the context of commercialization. New emerging landowners, long-termed usufruct of arable lands and the sharecropping system are analyzed in conjunction with one another respectively. It discusses the implications of the titles held by individuals who purchased arable lands and claims that the Empire’s inability to maintain the classical state structure intact from the second quarter of the17th century had particular impact on long-termed land usufruct and on the emergence of new land owners whose profession was not cultivation. It is argued in this thesis that in the 18th century, there was an inclination towards purchasing arable lands by individuals who resided in towns and city-quarters. It is argued that these new landowners made use of these fields, which were held long-term, by engaging in sharecropping contracts with villagers to receive a surplus of income. The main argument of this thesis is supported by analyzing empirical data composed of court cases regarding land sales and sharecropping contracts. This will display the inclinations of individual who purchased fields and engaged in sharecropping contracts. The empirical data used consists of 5 court registers: 3 of them belong to Konya and the remaining 2 to Antakya. This thesis aims to present an alternative perspective to previously conducted research by analyzing the commercialization phenomenon of agricultural production in the 18th century by suggesting that the sharecropping system was an important aspect of obtaining extra agricultural produce through the process of commercialization.