A Unique Economic Actor Type in Anatolia: “Homo Kaysericus”

Abstract

Kayseri, from past to present, has become a city with its trade culture as well as its many social and historical characteristics. For thousands of years, rooted trade culture has provided a unique position for Kayseri compared with other Anatolian cities. The dominant feature of the image of "natives of Kayseri" in general has been measured with their successes and enterprises in the economic area. In this paper, this identity in the economic area occurring in combination with the geographical, historical and social interactions has been explained with the conception of Simmel's "objective culture". The concept of the "Homo Kaysericus" as a specific trade type has been developed according to money economy with the perspective of Simmel's "form-content" relation. The trade culture of Kayseri consisting of the long historical moments objectified and revealed a system according to itself by determining actors' behaviours and habitus in the economic area. The actors in the economic field have been identified by the objective culture, also they each are perpetrators and transformative for action. The actors are not only the carriers, but also re-producers. Collective actuator type revealed by the actors who are the carriers of the Kayseri’s originality in the economic area has been called as the “Homo Kaysericus” in this research. In this sense, the aim of this paper is to reach an abstraction for this social type by starting some patterns of concrete objective culture. It has been traced the Homo- Kaysericus in the light of the different data such as in-depth interviews with the traders of Kayseri, the observations, the narratives of Kayseri. Thus, it has been provided a contribution to sociologic frame of economic area of Anatolia in the case of Kayseri.

Keywords

• Homo Kaysericus
• Nesnel Kültür
• Ekonomi Sosyolojisi
• Kültürel Aktarım
• Kayseri