ILPC 2026

This paper attempts to analyse the impact of private sector investments in underground coal mines on rural population with reference to experiences of miner families in Soma coal basin-one of the leading basins of coal reserve in Turkey experienced the biggest work accident of Turkish labour and employment history that resulted in the death of 301 miners on May 13, 2014. Within the scope of the paper, first, huge wave of proletarianisation in Soma that has accompanied the neoliberal transformation of agriculture and coal mining will be elaborated on. Through this wave, entrance of international capital to tobacco farming and implementation of quota for small scale farming have forced small-scale farmer families to sell their labour in labour market. As long as this process has coincided with privatisation of lignite production and increasing attention of big business to invest in Soma basin, male members of these families have started to work in underground mines. Secondly, based on the transformation of the local population into a mining community, local class relations and class formation process in Soma will be analysed with reference to miner families’ way of articulation or resistance to the social structure built by the state and capital before and after the mine disaster of 2014. The related analysis is built upon the field research carried out in Soma within the scope of an ongoing research.