Empty Lands and the Making of the Individual Property Regime in Western Anatolia: Actors, Debates and Policies (from the 18th to the early 20th century)

2025/11/10 by İrfan Kokdaş · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Islamic Studies and History #Ottoman Empire History and Society #Turkey's Politics and Society

paper · doi:10.1163/18775462-bja10082

openalex publication_date 2025/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/11/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Abstract This study attempts to read the making of the Ottoman individual property regime during the nineteenth century in Western Anatolia, specifically in the Meander Valley, through the lens of empty lands. It suggests that the historical trajectories of empty lands can be read in terms of an interplay between the intra-elite and inter-elite struggles in the Meander region. Reading the struggles over empty lands in this way highlights the fact that the construction of an individual property regime in the Tanzimat period relied on an already conflictual landholding system, with origins dating back to the eighteenth century. The study suggests that the new regime, marked by continuity as well as rupture relative to eighteenth-century practices, engendered the structuralisation of landlessness and the dispossession of the peasantry.

Discussions

• 論文　アナトリア西部における空閑地と個人的土地制度の形成 Kokdaş, İrfan. "Empty Lands and the Making of the Individual Property Regime in Western Anatolia: Actors, Debates and Policies (from the 18th to the early 20th century)", [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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