Between ‘moral economy’ and ‘social banditry’: harvest theft in a peasant community

Abstract

This article studies avocado theft in southern Turkey’s peasant communities, where a significant avocado market formed between 2010 and 2020. In the context of the country’s neoliberalized agricultural regime, avocado as a ‘high-value food’ became a lucrative alternative for farmers struggling with decreasing profits from traditional crops. This new market economically benefited larger farmers, while smallholders, hampered by market liberalization policies of the preceding decade, were left behind. This article employs two well-known concepts, ‘moral economy’ and ‘social banditry’, to unpack harvest theft as a community-level crisis in southern Turkey.