Migration from balkans to Anatolia and social change: The case of Yeniköy

This study draws on how social change is experienced and interpreted by three different generations living in the Yeniköy village of Manisa province as a result of exchange that took place between Turkey and Greece following the Lausanne Peace Treaty signed in 1923. In this regard, the study lays out a village monograph of the Yeniköy by utilizing such concepts as social change, subculture, exchange, forced migration and Bektashism. In the study, by employing cognitive ethnography framework, qualitative research methods and techniques have been adopted. In this direction, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 30 participants that represent three different generations and participant observation has been carried out. The first generation involves the exchangees or their children; the second generation consists of the children of the first generation; the third generation comprises the grandchildren of the first generation. The collected data have been analysed by following the content analysis and divided into themes, categories and codes by focusing on shared situations, problems, considerations and other cultural elements. The collected data have been interpreted by adopting the Dynamic Social Field model developed by Sztompka (1993). At the end of the study, it has been observed that people of Yeniköy, who were first migrated to Anatolia from Khorasan, then to Balkans and finally to Manisa, maintain their 400 years of sociocultural repertoire. However, this sociocultural repertoire has been found to show differences considering how it is experienced and interpreted by different generations. For instance, in the contexts of marriage preferences, wedding and funeral ceremonies, Hıdırellez and Newroz festivals, and special days associated with Bektashism, it has been observed that the first generation actively takes part in the maintenance of these traditions, the second generation is aware of these traditions but lacks practices associated with them, and the third generation do not involve these traditions in their personal life. Similar to this observation, it has also been found that the socio-cultural history of the village has been transmitted differently among the generations. Taking these findings into consideration, in the time when the population exchange is about to have its centennial, the current work provides a picture of the lives of the exchangees who left a life behind and migrated to Turkey.