Sermaye-Doğa İlişkisi ve 21. Yüzyıl Tarım Sorunu: Ekonomi-Politik ve Politik Ekolojiyi Buluşturmak

Year 2025, , 198 - 231, 13.02.2025

Zehra Taşdemir Yaşın

https://doi.org/10.53376/ap.2025.08

Abstract

21. yüzyıl tarım sorunu, küresel ölçekli sermaye birikimi süreçlerinin artan doğa tahakkümü üzerinden genişlemesi ve derinleşmesi kapsamında dönüşmektedir. Bu makale, 21. yüzyıl tarım sorununu kapitalist dünya ekonomisinin sosyo-ekolojik çelişkileri bağlamında ele almaktadır. Makale, öncelikle mevcut eko-Marksist yaklaşımların kritik bir incelemesi aracılığıyla kapitalizmin ekolojik çelişkilerini anlamaya yönelik teorik bir perspektif ortaya koymaktadır. Daha sonra bu yaklaşım üzerinden, Marksist ekonomi-politik literatürde geleneksel tarım sorunu anlatısının güncel tarihsel düzlemdeki sınırlarını göstermekte ve tarımı bir üretim alanı olmanın ötesinde, aynı zamanda sosyo-ekolojik bir yeniden üretim ilişkisi olarak konumlamakta ve bu ilişkinin nasıl bir dönüşüm geçirdiğini sorunsallaştırmaktadır. Bu kapsamda, tarımın ekstraktif bir değer üretim modeli olarak yeniden yapılandığı; bu doğrultuda tarım, toprak ve doğanın artan ve çeşitlenen biçimlerde küresel değer ilişkileri ve zinciri tarafından domine edildiği ve bu süreçlerin bir ürünü olarak tarım-çevre-gıda-toprak eksenli bir sosyo-ekolojik kriz dinamiği ortaya çıktığı tartışılmaktadır. Bu tartışma, Türkiye'de tarım ve kırın dönüşümü ile sermaye-doğa ilişkisinin tarihsel olarak nasıl yeniden inşa edildiğine dair kavramsal bir çerçeve sunmakta ve özellikle kırsal-çevre hareketlerinin genişlettiği politik-ekolojik alanın önemine ve bu dönüşümle ve sosyo-ekolojik krizle ilişkisine işaret etmektedir.

Keywords

21. Yüzyıl Tarım Sorunu, Doğa Eksenli Tarım Sorunu, Ekstraktif Tarım, Sosyo-Ekolojik Kriz, Politik Ekoloji

Supporting Institution

Bu çalışma, Avrupa Birliği’nin Avrupa Araştırma Konseyi (ERC) Synergy Programı tarafından desteklenmiş ve REAL projesi (ERC-2022-SYG REAL 101071647) kapsamında fon almıştır.

Project Number

ERC-2022-SYG REAL 101071647

Thanks

Özyeğin Üniversitesi LOAF Lab ve Yerküre Yerel Çalışmalar Kooperatifi bünyesinde “Türkiye Tarım Tartışmaları Mirası ve Geleceği Kuşaklar Arası Seminer Dizisi” adıyla Türkiye’de tarım ve kır tartışmalarına önemli bir güncel zemin kazandıran ve böylece bu makalenin hazırlanmasına vesile olan Candan Türkkan, Atakan Büke ve Murat Bayramoğlu’na ve değerlendirmeleriyle bu makaleye katkı sunan iki hakeme teşekkür ederim.

Capital-Nature Relation and the 21st Century Agrarian Question: Bridging Political Economy and Political Ecology

Abstract

The 21st-century agrarian question is transforming in the context of an expanding and deepening domination of nature through global-scale capital accumulation processes. This article addresses the 21st-century agrarian question within a broader context of the socio-ecological contradictions of the capitalist world economy. It first presents a theoretical perspective to the understanding of the ecological contradictions of capitalism through a critical examination of existing eco-Marxist approaches. Then, through this perspective, it demonstrates the limitations of the traditional accounts of the agrarian question in the Marxist political economy in the contemporary historical context and specifies agrarian relations not only as a social relation of production but also as a socio-ecological relation of reproduction, problematizing how the latter has undergone major transformation. In this context, it discusses how agriculture is restructured as an extractive value model; how agriculture, land, resources and nature are increasingly and diversely dominated by global value relations and chains; and how these processes produce a socio-ecological crisis dynamic centered around agriculture, environment, food, and land. This discussion primarily offers a conceptual lens for understanding and exploring how the agrarian relations, the countryside and the relationship between capital and nature in Turkey have been reconfiguring, highlighting the significance of the political-ecological field created and expanded by rural-environmental movements in connection to this transformation and its socio-ecological contradictions.

Keywords

21. Century Agrarian Question, Agrarian Question of Nature, Agro-Extractivism, Socio-Ecological Crisis, Political Ecology

Project Number

ERC-2022-SYG REAL 101071647

References

• Adaman, Fikret, Duygu Avcı ve Gökçe Yeniev (2023), “Türkiye’de tarımın dönüşümü: Nesnel koşullardan somut ütopyalara”, Birikim, 406-407: 121-128.
• Adaman, Fikret ve Sena Akkoç (2023), Gıdanın Politik Ekolojisi (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları).
• Akram-Lodhi, A. Haroon (2021), “The Ties That Bind? Agroecology and the Agrarian Question in the Twenty-First Century”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 48 (4): 687–714.
• Andreucci, Diego (2018), “Populism, Emancipation, and Environmental Governance: Insights from Bolivia”, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 109 (2): 624–633.
• Araghi, Farshad (2009a), “The Invisible Hand and the Visible Foot Peasants, Dispossession and Globalization”, A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi ve Cristóbal Kay (Der.), Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question (New York: Routledge).
• Araghi, Farshad (2009b), “Accumulation by Displacement: Global Enclosures, Food Crisis, and the Ecological Contradictions of Capitalism”, Review, 32 (1): 113-146.
• Aydın, Zülküf (2018), Çağdaş Tarım Sorunu (Ankara: İmge).
• Baird, Ian G. ve Keith Barney (2017), “The Political Ecology of Cross-Sectoral Cumulative Impacts: Modern Landscapes, Large Hydropower Dams and Industrial Tree Plantations in Laos and Cambodia”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44 (4): 769-795.
• Barca, Stefania (2020), Forces of Reproduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
• Benegiamo, Maura (2020), “Extractivism, Exclusion and Conflicts in Senegal’s Agro-Industrial Transformation”, Review of African Political Economy, 47 (166): 522-544.
• Borras, Saturnino, Jennifer C. Franco, Sergio Gómez, Cristobal Kay ve Max Spoor (2012), “Land Grabbing in Latin America and the Caribbean”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (3-4): 845–872.
• Borras, Saturnino ve Jennifer C. Franco (2018), “The Challenge of Locating Land-Based Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Politics Within a Social Justice Perspective: Towards an Idea of Agrarian Climate Justice”, Third World Quarterly, 39 (7): 1308-1325.
• Borras, Saturnino, Ian Scoones, Amita Baviskar, Marc Edelman, Nancy L. Peluso ve Wendy Wolford (2021), “Climate Change and Agrarian Struggles: An Invitation to Contribute to a JPS Forum”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49 (1): 1-28.
• Brenner, Neil ve Christian Schmid (2012), “Planetary Urbanization”, Matthew Gandy (Der.), Urban Constellations (Berlin: Jovis).
• Bruna, Natacha (2022), “A Climate-smart World and the Rise of Green Extractivism”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49 (4): 839-864.
• Bunker, Stephen (1985), Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
• Bunker, Stephen ve Paul Ciccantell (2005), Globalization and the Race for Resources (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).
• Bunker, Stephen (2007), “Natural values and the physical inevitability of uneven development under capitalism”, Alf Hornborg, John R. McNeill ve Joan Martinez-Alier (Der.), Rethinking Environmental History: World-system History and Global Environmental Change (Lanham: AltaMira Press).
• Burchandt, Hans-Jürgen ve Kristina Dietz (2014), “(Neo-) Extractivism - A New Challenge for Development Theory from Latin America”, Third World Quarterly, 35 (3): 468–86.
• Burkett, Paul (1999a), Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (New York, St. Martin's Press).
• Burkett, Paul (1999b), “Nature in Marx reconsidered: A silver anniversary assessment of Alfred Schmidt’s concept of nature in Marx”, Organization and Environment, 10 (2): 164–83.
• Chagnon, Christopher W., Francesco Durante, Barry K. Gills, Sophia E. Hagolani-Albov, Saana Hokkanen, Sohvi M. J. Kangasluoma, Heidi Konttinen, Markus Kröger, William LaFleur, Ossi Ollinaho ve Marketta P. S. Vuola (2022), “From extractivism to global extractivism: the evolution of an organizing concept”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49 (4): 760-792.
• Commoner, Barry (1972), The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (New York, Knopf).
• Crippa, Monica, Efisio Solazzo, D. Guizzardi, Fabio Monforti-Ferrario, Francesco N. Tubiello ve Adrian Leip (2021), “Food Systems are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions”, Nat Food, 2: 198-209.
• Elson, Diane (1979), Value: The Representation of Labour in Capitalism (London: CSE Books).
• Foster, John B (1999a), Marx’s ecology: Materialism and nature (New York: Monthly Review Press).
• Foster, John B. (1999b), “Marx’s Theory of the Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology”, American Journal of Sociology, 105 (2): 366-405.
• Foster, John B. (2002), Ecology against capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press).
• Foster, John B. (2022), Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press).
• Gerber, Julien-François (2020), “Degrowth and critical agrarian studies”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47 (2): 235–264.
• Gorz, Andre (1994), Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology (London: Verso).
• Gudynas, Eduardo (2021), Extractivisms: Politics, Economy and Ecology (Fernwood).
• Harvey, David (2005), A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press).
• Kallis, Giorgos (2019), Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care (Stanford University Press).
• Keyder, Çağlar ve Zafer Yenal (2020), Bildiğimiz Tarımın Sonu: Küresel İktidar ve Köylülük (İstanbul: İletişim).
• Kröger, Markus (2021), Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions: Monoculture Plantations and Amazon Deforestation (Routledge).
• Leff, Enrique (2021), Political Ecology: Deconstructing Capital and Territorializing Life (Palgrave MacMillan).
• Mahowald, Natalie M., Daniel S. Ward, Scott C. Doney, Peter G. Hess ve James T. Randerson (2017), “Are the Impacts of Land use on Warming Underestimated in Climate Policy?”, Environmental Research Letters, 12: 9.
• MartinezAlier, J. (1995), “Distributional Issues in Ecological Economics”, Review of Social Economy, 53 (4): 511-528.
• Martinez-Alier, Joan ve M. O’Connor (1996), “Ecological and economic distribution conflicts”, Robert Costanza, Olman Segura ve Joan Martinez-Alier (Der.), Getting Down to Earth (Washington, DC: Island Press): 153-183.
• Martínez-Alier, Joan (2001), “Mining Conflicts, Environmental Justice, and Valuation”, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 86 (1-3): 153–170.
• Martínez-Alier, Joan (2002), The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study in Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (Edward Elgar Publishing).
• Martinez-Alier, Joan (2011), “The EROI of Agriculture and Its Use by the Via Campesina”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 38 (1): 145-160.
• Martínez-Alier, Joan, Leah Temper, Daniela Del Bene ve Arnim Scheidel (2016), “Is There a Global Environmental Justice Movement?”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43 (3): 731-755.
• Marx, Karl (1973), Grundrisse (New York: Vintage Books).
• Marx, Karl (1976), Capital I: A critique of political economy (London: Penguin Books).
• McKay, Ben (2020), The Political Economy of Agrarian Extractivism: Lessons from Bolivia (Rugby: Practical Action Publishing).
• McMichael, Philip (2008), “Peasants Make Their Own History, But Not Just as They Please…”, Saturnino M. Borras, Marc Edelman ve Cristobal Kay (Der.) Transnational Agrarian Movements Confronting Globalization (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell).
• McMichael, Philip (2009), “Food Sovereignty, Social Reproduction and the Agrarian Question”, A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi ve Cristobal Kay (Der.) Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question (New York: Routledge).
• McMichael, Philip (2013), Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions (Rugby: Practical Action Publishing).
• McMichael, Philip (2016), “Commentary: Food Regime for Thought”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 43 (3): 648–670.
• Messerli, Peter, Markus Giger, Michael B. Dwyer, Thomas Breu ve Sandra Eckert (2014), “The Geography of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: Analysing Socio-Ecological Patterns of Target Contexts in the Global South”, Applied Geography, 53: 449–459.
• Moore, Jason W. (2000), “Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-historical Perspective”, Organization & Environment, 13 (2): 123-57.
• Moore, Jason W. (2003), “The Modern World-system as Environmental History? Ecology and the Rise of Capitalism”, Theory and Society, 32: 307–77.
• Moore, Jason W. (2010), “The End of the Road? Agricultural Revolutions in the Capitalist World-Ecology, 1450– 2010”, Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (3): 389–413.
• Moore, Jason W. (2011), “Transcending the Metabolic Rift: A Theory of Crises in the Capitalist World-ecology”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38 (1): 1-46.
• Moore, Jason W. (2015), Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (London: Verso).
• O’Connor, James (1991), “On the Two Contradictions of Capitalism”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2 (3): 107-109.
• O’Connor, James (1994), “Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible?”, Martin O’Connor (Der.) Is Capitalism Sustainable? Political economy and the politics of ecology (New York: Guilford Press).
• O’Connor, James (1996), “The Second Contradiction of Capitalism”, Ted Benton (Der.) The greening of Marxism (New York and London: the Guilford Press).
• Özkaya, Tayfun (2019), Başka Bir Köylülük Mümkün (İstanbul: Yeni İnsan Yayınevi).
• Petras, James ve Henry Veltmeyer (2014), Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism’s New Frontier (Brill).
• Postone, Moishe (1993), Time, labor and social domination (University of Cambridge Press).
• Rosdolsky, Roman (1974), “Comments on the Method of Marx's Capital and Its Importance for Contemporary Marxist Scholarship,” New German Critique, 3 (Autumn): 62-72.
• Salleh, Ariel (1997), Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern (London and New York: Zed Books).
• Salleh, Ariel (2010), “From Metabolic Rift to ‘Metabolic Value’: Reflections on Environmental Sociology and the Alternative Globalization Movement”, Organization & Environment, 23 (2): 205-219.
• Sayer, Derek (1979), Marx’s method: Ideology, science, and critique in Capital (NJ: Harvester Press).
• Sayer, Derek (1987), The Violence of Abstraction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
• Schmidt, Alfred (1965), The concept of nature in Marx (Bristol: Western Printing Services).
• Schneider, Mindi ve Philip McMichael (2010), “Deepening, and Repairing, the Metabolic Rift,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 37 (3): 461-84.
• Schwab, Klaus (2017), The Fourth Industrial Revolution (London: Portfolio Penguin).
• Selwyn, Benjamin (2021), “A Green New Deal for Agriculture: For, Within, or Against Capitalism?”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 48 (4): 778-806.
• Shattuck, Annie, Grajales, Jacobo, Jacobs, Ricardo, Sauer, Sergio, Galvin, Shaila S., & Hall, Ruth (2023), “Life on the land: new lives for agrarian questions”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 50 (2): 490–518.
• Sraffa, P. (1960), Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (London, New York: Cambridge Üniversitesi Yayınevi).
• Standing, Guy (2011), The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (London: Bloomsbury Publishing).
• Taşdemir Yaşın, Zehra (2014), Capital, nation-state and nature: Oil and reproducing Mosul in the modern world economy (PhD diss.) (Binghamton: SUNY).
• Taşdemir Yaşın, Zehra (2017), “The Adventure of Capital with Nature: From the Metaboli Rift to the Value Theory of Nature”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44 (2): 377-401.
• Taşdemir Yaşın, Zehra (2019), “Contextualizing the Rise of Environmental Movements in Turkey: Two Instances of Anti-Gold Mining Resistance”, Onur İnal ve Ethemcan Turhan (Der.) Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey: Landscapes, State and Environmental Movements (Londra: Routledge).
• Taşdemir Yaşın, Zehra (2022), “The Environmentalization of the Agrarian Question and the Agrarianization of the Climate Justice Movement”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49 (7): 1355-1386.
• Taşdemir Yaşın, Zehra (2023), “The Socio-ecological Question, the Global Environmental Justice Movement and Anti-systemic Environmentalism”, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 21: 466-489.
• Toledo, Victor M. (1996), “The Ecological Crisis: A Second Contradiction of Capitalism?”, T. Benton (Der.), The greening of Marxism (New York: the Guilford Press).
• Tomich, Dale W. (2004), Through the prism of slavery: Labor, capital, and world economy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).
• Tomich, Dale W. (2015), “The Limits of Theory: Capital, Temporality, and History”, Review, 38 (4): 329-368.
• Türkkan, Candan (2023), İstanbul'u Doyurmak: Gıda İaşesinin Politik Ekonomisi (İstanbul: İletişim).
• Türkkan, Candan (2025), “Entrepreneurial back-to-landers: Neo-farmers in Turkey”, Journal of Rural Studies, 113: 103503.
• Weis, Tony (2007), The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming (London: Zed Press).
• Weis, Tony (2010), “The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions of Industrial Capitalist Agriculture”, Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (3): 315-341.
• Weis, Tony (2013), The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock (London: Zed Books).
• Zeybek, Sezai Ozan (2016), “Biyo-Politika, Güvenlik ve Anti-Piyasalar: Türkiye’de Endüstriyet Hayvancılığın Seyri”, Toplum ve Bilim, 138 (139): 106-125.