Symbolic boundaries and social capital mobilization among low-income workers in Sincan, Turkey

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Sosyoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: İBRAHİM KAAN UYANIK

Danışman: HELGA İDA RİTTERSBERGER

Özet:

This thesis explores how low-income workers mobilize their social capital in the labor market. Distinguishing accessed social capital from mobilized social capital, it analyzes the criteria of evaluation which low-income workers in their decision to give hand to their connections in job-finding assistance. It employs the concepts of symbolic boundaries and frames to understand why some individuals are deemed unworthy of helping in the labor market. It argues that symbolic boundaries, conceptual distinctions made by actors to categorize people, have reflections on the mobilization of social capital. Thus, this study aims to accomplish three tasks: to analyze the mechanism which produces symbolic distinctions by exploring the frames of work, success and worth, to discover the content of symbolic boundaries and to illustrate their effects on the social capital mobilization. The informants make a distinction within decent and vagabond (düzgün vs çakal çukal) type of people. In the labor market, where active social network to provide inside track of jobs is imperative, their decision-making articulations overlap with the symbolic boundaries they create between decent and vagabond people. They require the job-seeker to be decent (düzgün) in order to mobilize their social capital.