Transformation of construction labor market and daily life of construction workers: A construction site in Ankara

While the urbanization trend in the world continues at full speed, the construction of the urban built environment continues at the same speed. The increase in the density of cities within the current order also causes the construction of the urban built environment and therefore the concentration of construction workers who participate in the process with their labor during this construction. The working class, which is frequently discussed in labor process discussions, usually includes factory and mine workers. Studies on construction workers, whose number is thought to be around five million in official and unofficial censuses in Turkey, from a sociological perspective have been limited. Although the spatial and capital-oriented organizations of cities are frequently addressed in government policies within the scope of neo-liberal urbanization practice, the invisibility of construction workers in this process constitutes the framework of this study. It is aimed to address the daily life practices of construction workers and the transformation experienced in their labor processes within a sociological framework. In this context, in-depth interviews were conducted with construction workers who defined themselves as "expatriates" and working in the construction site with the researcher's eight years of construction experience and auto-ethnographic and qualitative research methods. As a result of the findings obtained in the research, it was observed that the vulnerability of construction workers in all areas of life increased due to the insecure and irregular structure of the construction labor market. It is seen that construction workers are mostly from the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions and are exposed to social exclusion in the places where they work. Subcontracting has emerged intensively due to the irregular structure of the construction labor market. The insecure work of construction workers in the construction labor market has caused them to be more affected by work accidents. Construction workers cannot retire due to the fact that their insurance fees are not paid regularly. Due to the inadequacy of living conditions in the construction site, both the working conditions and the living conditions of construction workers are becoming difficult.