Introduction, Çiftlik Debate Revisited: New Findings and New Questions

Abstract

Çiftliks have long been an issue in the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire.* The nature of land ownership and the extent of commercial production are the two principal aspects of this topic, leading to investigation of the following central themes in relevant literature: the actors and methods of çiftlik formation; wealth accumulation and the transformation of agrarian production, property relations, grain cultivation and provisioning; the legal status of the çiftliks, peasant dispossession and local arrangements concerning production and labour contracts; the relationship between çiftlik formation and the institutionalization of tax-farming (iltizam and malikâne); and the role of the eşraf and ayan in the above processes. Depending on the context, even the term çiftlik can itself be elusive. For example, Bruce McGowan defines çiftlik as “an arable holding, sometimes extensive, which is being cultivated to produce a commodity which is readily saleable in near or distant markets.”1 In this issue, we define the term as a specific agrarian establishment based on the separation of land and labour—paid in cash or in kind—and engaged in marketable production.2 From that perspective, it was different from ordinary peasant households engaged in subsistence production on “their” lands with their usufruct rights. In other words, the term çiftlik does not refer to the small subsistence production unit (çift) that was the fundamental component of the agrarian structure in the “classical” period.3 From the sixteenth to the nine- teenth centuries, those çiftlik owners who invested in the usufruct (tasarruf) of the land rather than personally tilling the soil hired laborers of various sorts, their aim being to sell produce and accumulate wealth. The scale, modes of production, and production relations of the çiftliks were shaped by the gradual impact of regional, imperial, and global transformations, leading to constant evolution. This special issue aims to contribute to the literature on the çiftliks by focusing on concrete case studies: we trace long-term agrarian transforma- tions by focusing on çiftlik formation processes in different times and locali- ties, as impacted by changing social and economic relations, legislative reform, local social conflicts, and the varying roles played by the central bureaucracy.