An inner Aegean peasant-miner community in transformation: Uncovering migrant workers' perspectives in the Soma coal basin

With 301 causalities, the May 2014 Soma mine accident constituted the biggest mining accident in Turkish history and the biggest worldwide in the 21st century. Although the underground mining sector has the second-highest workplace accident rate, mining is a popular job in the So-ma region even after the 2014 accident. Why do miners continue to work in the mines even though they lose their friends, sons and fathers working there? This thesis aims to answer this question by examining an inner Aegean peasant-miner community from a small village near Kütahya. It builds on field research with the community along with archival research. Based on interviews with three generations of men who worked in the Soma mine pits in three different historical periods (1960-1980, 1980-2002 and 2002-2020) and their families, the study traces changing patterns of migration and labor against Turkey's chang-ing socio-economic context. The thesis argues that the miners' and their families' experience with the general socio-economic conditions of Turkey have shaped their perspective towards their occupation. These experiences have to do with; the labor market defined by the rise of unemployment rates, labor surplus, the high number of minimum wage workers and informality; inner migration; the transformation of agriculture; and the transformation of social policies. Given these dynamics, mineworker families consider underground mining as a better job in terms of income, social security and retirement age compared to other unskilled jobs in Turkey. The study contributes to the literature on miner communities in Turkey firstly by focusing on a different geographic area (Aegean) rather than Zonguldak, which has mostly been the study site. Secondly, it brings in mineworkers' families and household strategies into the anal-ysis rather than just focusing on male workers. Thirdly, by covering a wider time span through its focus on the experience of three genera-tions, it offers a broad perspective of the miner community from its first formation and reveals the dynamics that have changed over time.