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Blaming Others:Agency Among Unionised Unskilled WorkersThesis submitted to theInstitute of Social Sciencesin partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of ArtsInSociologybyErkan SakaBoğaziçi University2001
The thesis of Erkan Sakais approved byDoç. Dr. Nükhet Sirman (Committee Chairperson) ....................................................Prof. Dr. Ferhunde Özbay ....................................................Yrd. Doç. Dr. Hakan Yılmaz ....................................................August 2001
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Doç. Dr. Nükhet Sirman. I would not be able to complete this thesis without her continuous academic guidance and support, her great patience during my thesis writing and her contributions to my personal development in general. I would also like to thank her because she began to teach me the craft of anthropology.I would like to thank Prof. Ferhunde Özbay who taught many courses I took in the department of Sociology with great pleasure.I would like to thank Yrd. Doç. Dr. Hakan Yılmaz, who gave the inspiration to prepare thisthesis.I would like to thank all my interviewees for their kindness and readiness to help me. My specialthanks are due to Ali Rıza and Erdoğan from the field, the officials from Istanbul branch of Öz-Çelik and factory management.I would like to thank Prof. Aydın Uğur, the dean of Faculty of Communication at Istanbul BilgiUniversity (IBUN). He accepted me to be his teaching assistant and I believe that it would bevery difficult to complete this thesis without the financial and occupational benefits of IBUN.I would like to thank Dipesh Chakrabarty, Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin who were so kindto reply my e-mail inquiries and told me the titles of some crucial readings.There are so many lovely people to thank and I hope those whom I forget to mention here willforgive me. Thanks "Malta Collective" and especially Veli Gederet, Çetin Tankoç, GökçeKaçmaz, Yusuf Karabulut, Osman C. Parlakışık from the collective who are among the mostlovely people I have ever met and with whom I spent precious times.I would like to thank Adviye Tolunay, who was my colleague at IBUN. I have never fullyappreciated her moral support and constructive critiques about me. Adviye, please forgive me.Thanks Istanbul Branch of Özgür Üniversite and its crew. Especially Yıldız and Gülizencouraged me to prepare a seminar in which I discussed this study with a small but focusedgroup and thanks Sevda who was the most interested among the people who attended theseminar.I would also like to thank Özge N. Serin, Aslı Telli, Almıla Özdek and Ebru Kayaalp, whohelped me in the translation of quotations and I would like to thank my dear friend Fatih Durmazfor his financial aid.Finally thanks Dino Mujadzevic, Bekir Cantemir, Elif Çelebi, Kenan Alpay, Dicle Koğacıoğlu, Nazan Üstündağ, Nurullah Ardıç and my family who always encouraged me to prepare thisthesis.I dedicate this study to my father, the great labourer and a man of mercy and emotion.
ABSTRACT
Blaming Others:
 
Agency Among Unionised Unskilled Workers
The purpose of this study is to find out the sources of agency among a group of unskilledunionised workers. I argue that the lives of workers are situated in two domains, home and work,and family and union membership respectively become the sources of agency coupled with adiscourse of blame. The discourse of blame, which is the daily form through which a sense of impotence among workers, is consciously used by unionised workers under the leadership of union representatives. This serves the construction of an imaginary community of workers basedon the idea of a society in harmony and balance. The broader historical context in which mystudy can be situated in Turkey’s post-1980 period. In this period, export oriented industrialismwent hand in hand with a kind of de-industrialisation and adoption of flexible productiontechniques both of which undermined the power of trade unions and the discourse of the welfarestate. Thus my study can be understood as an attempt to demonstrate a moment of unionisedworkers’ responses to these processes. My thesis is based on a fieldwork that took place betweenSeptember 1999 and June 2001, in a factory, which produces electronic spare parts in Sefaköy. Ialso visited frequently the union centre in Aksaray. It mainly depended on in-depth interviewsand observations in the factory but I also attended a few leisure activities outside the factory andmeetings in the union centre.
KISA ÖZET
Ötekileri Sorumlu Tutmak:Sendikalı Vasıfsız İşçilerde Fail Olmak 
Bu çalışmanın amacı bir grup vasıfsız işçi arasında fail olmanın kaynaklarını araştırmaktır.Tezimde, işçilerin hayatlarının iki alanda, yani evde ve işte kurulduğunu ve buralarda da aile vesendika üyeliğinin gündelik bir sorumlu tutma söylemiyle birlikte fail olmanın kaynakları halinegeldiğini iddia ediyorum. İşçiler arasında bir acizlik hissinin gündelik olarak yeniden üretildiğisorumlu tutma söylemi sendikalı işçiler tarafından sendika temsilcilerinin liderliğinde bilinçliolarak kullanılmaktadır. Bu da uyum ve denge içindeki bir toplum düşüncesine dayanan hayali bir işçi cemaatinin kurulmasına hizmet etmektedir. Çalışmamın içine yerleştirilebileceği dahageniş tarihsel bağlam Türkiye'nin 1980 sonrası dönemidir. Bu dönemde ihracat yönelimli bir sanayileşme, bir tür sanayisizleşme ve esnek üretim tekniklerinin benimsenmesiyle el ele gitti.Tüm bunlar sendikaların gücünü ve refah devleti söylemini sarsan gelişmelerdi. Bu yüzden,çalışmam sendikalı işçilerin bu süreçlere olan tepkisini göstermeye çalışan bir an olarak düşünülebilir. Tezim, Eylül 1999 ve Haziran 2001 arasında, Sefaköy'de elektronik yedek parçaüreten bir fabrikada yaptığım saha çalışmasına dayanmaktadır. Saha çalışması boyunca fabrikadagözlemler ve derinlemesine görüşmeler yaptım. Ama fabrika dışında işçilerle bazı eğlenceamaçlı etkinliklere ve sendika merkezindeki toplantılara da katıldım.
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