Dr. Canay Şahin

This project addresses a neglected area of studies, that is, the multi-layered aspects of the transformation of the landed property in Samsun by a micro study on the survey of çiftliks, which emerged in the first decades of the nineteenth century. It sheds light on the disputed and complicated process of the registration and identification of the land and the landowners over the big estates. It aims at highlighting the interconnectedness of global, imperial and regional dynamics with regard to the agricultural production. It analyses the multiple actors and their claims on the land (the Ottoman central government, the local power-holders, the tenants) and the transformation of the usufructuary and property rights over the çiftlikised land during the global era. This project, in sum, involves the transformation of de facto ownership rights into de jure rights over the land in the nineteenth century within the general framework of the legal, economic, social and administrative changes.