| dc.description.abstract | This is a study of peripatetic adaptation in the Mêrdîn area (Tk. Mardin) in southeastern Turkey based on ethnographic fieldwork in the town of Nisêbîn (Tk. Nusaybin). There is a limited literature focusing on peripatetic adaptation. In this literature, peripatetic adaptation is defined as a mode of subsistence characterised by non-food production (thus a large degree of dependence on other humans as resources for food acquisition) and the use of calculated patterns of spatial mobility to manage these resources. As a mode of subsistence, it is on a par with others such as hunting-gathering, pastoralism, and horticulture. This study examines the transformation of the peripatetic lineages in the Mêrdîn area from around the mid twentieth century up to the present time. By the mid twentieth century, the peripatetic lineages in the Mêrdîn area existed in a binary. Non-peripatetics (in this study, mainly horticulturalist Kurds) viewed tent-dweller peripatetics as strangers whose livelihood was based on sieve- making and “begging,” while they considered village-dweller peripatetics to be familiar musicians. The adaptation of the tent-dweller peripatetics, who are the main focus of this study, underwent a transformation from this time onwards. Charity-seeking, previously the main domain of peripatetic subsistence, declined, and peripatetic men moved largely towards music-making, an activity formerly associated with village-dweller peripatetics. This transformation resulted in shifting the binary categorisation of peripatetics towards a conflation of the two categories, or even a duality. This transformation is completely missing from the existing literature on peripatetics in the Mêrdîn area or generally in Kurdistan. This study will investigate the sources of the transformation of tent-dweller peripatetics’ adaptation. It will focus on the changes leading to this transformation, their impact on the area’s peripatetics and their human resources, and peripatetics’ responses to these changes. Investigation into the two domains of peripatetic economy in the area, i.e. entertainment-related activities and charity-seeking, will reveal the crucial role economic and social concerns and motivations have played, on the part of peripatetics themselves, in the transformation of their adaptation. | en_GB |
