Socio-cultural and religious change in the urbanization process: The case of Belenören villagers

Cities have been an important part of human history for thousands of years. However, as of the 19th century, cities became an important problem. Important events, especially the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, caused rapid social changes. Intense migrations from rural areas and the peripheries of cities to the city center; While shaping the cities on the one hand, on the other hand, the cities have been a determinant on the social change. In Turkey, especially with the 1970s, there has been intense migration from rural to urban areas. This process has led to many changes, especially social, economic, cultural and religious. Our research aims to see the social, cultural and religious change experienced in the urbanization process in Turkey over three generations. The research was shaped by in-depth interviews with a total of 42 participants from 13 families from Belenören villagers in Bursa's Keles district. The first generations of the participating families started the urbanization process by starting to establish relations with the city. In the second and third generations, the integration with the city has been completed to a large extent. In order to see the social, cultural and religious change experienced in this process, interviews were held with three generations of each family. In the first part of the study; a conceptual and theoretical framework on social change, religious change, the city, urbanization, urbanization and migration is presented. In the second part, personal and demographic information about the participants is given. In addition, the factors affecting the socio-cultural and religious changes of the participants and how the migration processes of the participants were shaped were discussed. Finally, the religiosity levels of the participants were discussed over the dimensions of belief, worship, experience, knowledge and influence. In the third part, in the urbanization process; If there is a change in some religious practices, male-female relations, family structure and wedding ceremonies, the course of this change has been tried to be understood. A number of issues such as common-law unions, dating, head of family, consanguineous marriage are included in this context. In addition, the course of the urbanization process has been tried to be seen over three generations by considering the people, institutions and resources that the participants see as religious authorities. Within the scope of religious authority, it was focused on how the participants viewed religious groups and whether they saw the aforementioned groups as a religious authority. Cities, unlike rural societies, have a heterogeneous social structure that brings together people of different cultures, beliefs, languages and lifestyles. In our study, the situation of the participants in the urbanization process and their attitudes towards the differences were discussed.