Abstract
Reading the Conditions the Rural Structure in Turkey Through the Magazine ‘Yön’
The years of 1960-70s, which is one of the important stages of Turkey’s rural debates, are not independent of the conditions of import substitution industrialization within the framework of development plans. This situation includes the new axis of development on the one hand and the genealogy of Turkey’s intellectual climate on the other. In this context, the yön magazine, which is the subject of this study, spoke of a left Kemalist line about the economic, political and social life of Turkey during the 1960s, not being limited to the countryside. The main purpose of this study is to reveal the approach of the yön magazine to the rural/agricultural problem. In this context, the study discussed the inequality of ownership in the countryside, borrowing practices, views around the draft law on landing the farmer, and the reflections of the views of rural development around the yön magazine. In this context, the origins, developments and the forms these relations take during the 1960s and 1970s in different parts of the Turkey’s geography has also been covered in the yön magazine. Indeed, subjects such as center-local power relations and the reproduction of these relations in local networks are frequently covered in the magazine. In addition to its determinations about the periodization problems of the rural areas of Turkey, Yön magazine also expressed various solution suggestions. In this context, the yön magazine, which offers a more egalitarian rural policy, has also revealed the dynamics of a socialist power strategy in the countryside. Hence, suggestions such as expropriation, consolidation, cooperativization, and active participation of the villagers in the process are the solutions frequently mentioned by the magazine.
The study was built on scanning the weekly issues of the yön magazine during the 1960s. Inaddition, the texts related to the magazine and the political economy of the period were reflected through second-hand sources.
Keywords
Agricultural Problem, Rural Development, Yön Magazine.