Between ‘moral economy’ and ‘social banditry’: harvest theft in a peasant community

ABSTRACTThis article studies avocado theft in southern Turkey's peasant communities, where a significant avocado market formed between 2010 and 2020. In the context of the country's neoliberalized agricultural regime, avocado as a 'high-value food' became a lucrative alternative for farmers struggling with decreasing profits from traditional crops. This new market economically benefited larger farmers, while smallholders, hampered by market liberalization policies of the preceding decade, were left behind. This article employs two well-known concepts, 'moral economy' and 'social banditry', to unpack harvest theft as a community-level crisis in southern Turkey.KEYWORDS: Moral economysocial banditryharvest theftcommodity boomshigh-value foodssmallholders AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Alan Klein and Nil Alt for their comments on early drafts of this work. I would also like to thank the editors and anonymous referees of the Journal of Peasant Studies for their extremely helpful and constructive feedback.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethics approvalThis research study was reviewed and approved by The Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (IRB) on August 26, 2019. (NU IRB #: 19-08-18)Notes1 In Mexico, the largest supplier of avocados worldwide, the annual average producer price of avocados more than doubled, increasing from 491.3 USD/tonne to 1,012.6 USD/tonne, between years 2000 and 2010 (FAOSTAT Citationn.d.).2 Names of all interviewees have been replaced with pseudonyms to protect the identity of research participants.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBaran KarsakBaran Karsak received his PhD degree in Sociology from Northeastern University, Boston, MA. He is currently a Lecturer in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Koç University, Istanbul.