Folkloric life in Çanakkale villages: A conceptual model development

Village life has undergone a great change to the present day. In the past, village life was a more dynamic and preferred lifestyle, yet today it is understood that new generations do not prefer living in villages. The increasing attraction of the urban life and the static structure of the village life on the other hand have degraded the charm of life in villages. As a result, the traditional Turkish village culture has come to face the risk of vanishment due to migrations to cities. In this study, Turkish village structure and characteristics, particularly in Çanakkale, are described and discussed from a multidimensional perspective. An eclectic model has been adopted for the analyses of the aspects effective in ensuring villages’ and villagers’ existence as socio-economic structures. The results of the present study have revealed that local market vendoring model today plays a critical role in maintaining the economic and cultural assets of villages, on the verge of disappearing economically, socially and culturally. Maintaining the existence of rural culture and economy requires the emergence of different local markets and the development of local market vendoring in the region. It has been also observed that women’s active role in the marketing of agricultural and dairy products produced in villages plays an important part in maintaining the organizational assets of the villages within the pheriphery of Canakkale. Institutional development of this model should be supported as an important structure in sustaining the existence of the villages as living environments. Moreover, supporting villages through institutional structures, such as cooperatives, play a major role in the survival of village life as a dynamic model. © 2018, Milli Folklor Dergisi. All rights reserved.