Challenging Capitalism Begins in Everyday Lives: The Culture of Meci,the Gift and the Commons

Introduction

Although all aspects of our lives are radically framed by the logic of capitalism, the idea that capitalism cannot survive in its current form continues to receive widespread attention all over the world. Refusing the notorious ‘end of history’, people everywhere are unwilling to see capitalism as the final stage in which humanity triumphs and prospers. Ursula Le Guin’s passionate speech gives hope in a Fukuyamean time when it seems impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative: ‘We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings’. ¹ Translating Ursula’s optimism, the study raises a politically ambitious question: If capitalism is never indestructible, what will replace capitalism and how?

The question here is intriguing and complex. At a time when an unshakeable belief persists that any anti-capitalist project, even in the realm of imagination, is doomed to fail, this study remains keenly aware of the phenomenon known as capitalist realism (Fisher, 2022). However, this study takes Holloway’s idea of creating cracks in capitalism as a practical–theoretical activity (Holloway, 2010: 8) as its point of departure and insists on seeking answers to big questions. Challenging the notion that capitalist realism is inevitable, Holloway calls for the creation, expansion and multiplication of interstitial movements running from the particular to radically change the world. In this respect, I oppose the claim that capitalism offers an unquestionable blueprint for a better world and instead seek to explore viable alternatives to capitalist logic in the crevices of everyday lives. In other words, I echo Holloway’s urgent call: We cannot wait for a future revolution, and change must start here and now.

This study then proposes a distinct perspective to construct an alternative project from the struggle of everyday practices, as social sciences are constantly accused of offering ‘unrealistic blueprints without much basis in reality’ (Bauman, 1976: 9). For this very reason, the study first presents the fundamental aspects of the immemorial culture, meci, in the Fındıklı district of Rize, Turkey, based on the findings obtained from the fieldwork. As a practice grounded in solidarity, meci primarily implies ‘togetherness’, which motivates people to cooperate and work together for the good of the entire community. In a broader context, the culture is inspired by ‘the enjoyable sensation of uniting with people sharing a collective understanding’. Thus, meci can be defined as the act of serving humanity without expecting anything in return.

As we search for the roots of resistance to capitalism in the cracks of everyday lives, this study draws attention to the concepts of ‘the gift’ and ‘the commons’ to pave the way for a counter-attack on ‘economic science’, which glorifies ‘economization practices’, ‘the principle of self-interest as an explanatory principle of almost any human behaviour’ and ‘demonizing collective movements’. So, how can we justify choosing ‘the gift’ and ‘the commons’ as an alternative path towards a post-capitalist future? First and foremost, the gift differs radically from the logic of the market economy, in which products and services are exchanged for their value. The gift can be broadly defined as follows: ‘the act of one person transferring an object to another person through a gesture’ (Guéry, 2013) and ‘any exchange of goods and services with no guarantee of recompense to create, nourish, or recreate social bonding in any society’ (Godbout and Caille, 1998: 20). Leaving aside the inherent contradictions of the term, it is evident that the gift is often characterized beyond the realm of pure economism and animated by non-market rationality. In this context, akin to Marcel Mauss’ (2002) pioneering work, I embark on the exploration of a social bond that holds people together.

The idea of the commons also carries the seeds of a new post-capitalist future as ‘the social organisation that refuses individualised notions of property and ownership’ (Chatterton and Pusey, 2020: 30). By relying on the revolutionary definition of Hardt and Negri (2009: 139) in Commonwealth where the commons is ‘not only the earth we share but also the languages we create, the social practices we establish, and the modes of sociality that define our relationships’, I celebrate the idea that the commons are owned, maintained and administered collectively by the community.

Against this background, the study attempts to emancipate itself from the mental and physical dominance of capitalism and poses two fundamental questions to construct a new way of imagining against the capitalist reasoning that throws all other systems into doubt and disarray: (1) Can meci be conceived as the gift? (2) Can meci be conceived as the commons? In fact, the primary motivation behind structuring the study within the gift and the commons is that the culture of meci encompasses the distinctive characteristics of both concepts, profoundly embodying their inherent meanings.

The study begins with a brief review of the motivation and methodological issues related to the fieldwork, followed by a description of the culture and its revival in the region after the 2019 election. Next, I aim to investigate whether meci can be viewed from the perspective of either the gift or the commons, depending on the specific questions posed to the interviewees. In doing so, I aim to unveil the essence of the culture and its inherent contradictions. By highlighting the very necessity of finding cracks in capitalism, the study concludes that the potential of the underlying principles of meci might pave the way for imagining a humanistic future.

Describing the Field: The Motivation, Scope, Method and Purpose

The story of the fieldwork began in June 2019 with a short trip to Fındıklı District. Fındıklı, formerly known as Vitze in the Laz language, is a district of Rize Province on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. The district covers an area of 409 km² with a 13-km coastline. There are 22 villages and 8 neighbourhoods in the district, with a total population of 16.163 residents. The geography of Fındıklı is characterized by rugged and mountainous terrain. The town centre is located between two valleys and the coastline is relatively narrow. The climate in the district is wet and warm: cool summers, mild winters and rainy in all seasons. Examining the economic structure reveals certain variations. While those who live in the centre of Fındıklı engage overwhelmingly with fisheries or employed within the public/private sectors, ‘tea’ is the primary source of income for the villages.

Despite not being there for scientific research purposes, my brief time in Fındıklı left me with a strong desire to explore the region. Upon my homecoming from the short visit in 2019, my curiosity about the district, its culture and the lifestyles of people grew day by day. It is widely known among people born or naturalized in Turkey that the Rize province is largely characterized as the centre of conservative, religious and nationalist political thought – we can describe it as ‘right-wing politics’. However, the events that I witnessed and the people that I spoke to led me to believe that such a totalizing attempt may not hold true. My initial impressions led me to conclude that (1) the people of Fındıklı embrace and promote left-wing political views, (2) they are not fully engaged in capitalist relations, (3) they also preserve the core of their culture, meci, which means ‘togetherness’ and ‘meeting everybody’s needs by working collectively with a shared understanding’ to a certain extent and (4) they developed their way of life by adapting their traditional knowledge to a modern context after the electoral success of the socialist figure, Ercüment Çervatoğlu, in 2019.

I made these observations from a hostel located in a valley surrounded by mountains. During my journey in 2019, I was also able to observe the transformation initiated by the newly elected mayor. In both the 2019 local elections and the subsequent unfolding events, the mayor and the citizens prioritized the solidarity-based culture of meci and advocated that producers, referring to the people in the district, should be the rulers, creating a fresh political paradigm.

The removal of the door of the mayor’s office after the election captures a new historical moment in the region. There are numerous examples that underscore the emergence of a new way of life in Fındıklı. A citizen donated his 16-decare tea garden to the municipality, and people in the region willingly engaged in tea harvesting with the donated tea, driven by a spirit of volunteerism and devoid of any expectations of reciprocity. Thanks to meci, the municipality built a rehabilitation centre for stray animals using the income generated from the sale of harvested tea. ²

Fındıklı boasts a wealth of cultural and intellectual knowledge; however, it lacks facilities necessary for cultural activities, such as cinemas or theatres. Nonetheless, the modern interpretation of meci opened up a multitude of possibilities in the region. In addition to the necessary infrastructure and day-to-day responsibilities, the municipality fulfilled various cultural events, such as rock concerts, book days attended by literary figures, cinemas and theatre halls, social facilities and many other projects. Although it is not possible to list all achievements, we can still summarize one of the main ones as follows: organic seeds were produced in an area called the ‘Agriculture Park of Meci’. ‘The People’s Grocery Store’ was built based on the concept of ‘from us to us’. ³ Cooperative practices were revived, allowing for the direct sale of products from local producers to citizens without any market intermediaries. Furthermore, solidarity-based institutions were created to enable women to produce and sell their own products.

Following the completion of the ethical approval process for the research involving human participants, I organized the fieldwork in Fındıklı and began interviewing with the participants. I was physically in Fındıklı from the late months of 2021 until the early weeks of January 2022. I stayed in three different places: a natural life house, a mountain village pension and a village house. During my sojourn, the fieldwork turned out differently than I had imagined. I did not just observe and interview the participants; I fully immersed myself in the community, almost forgetting that I was conducting scientific fieldwork. In addition to scientific methods, such as formal and informal interviews, group interviews and semi-structured interviews, I participated in various social and cultural activities, such as the meci of paving stones, New Year’s Eve celebrations, crowded dinner tables, friendly conversations and daily cooperation with people. Upon returning home from Fındıklı, and partly due to the pandemic’s impact, I continued learning from participants using visual methods. Subsequently, I commenced my analysis and the process of writing.

For the reasons outlined here, my intention was to conduct ethnographic fieldwork to study the everyday practices and lives of the people in Fındıklı District. In addition to participant observation of individuals and groups, I drew on a range of sources of data: various forms of informal and semi-structured ethnographic interviewing methods, my own field notes and documentary analysis. Furthermore, I mainly used a device that records audio to capture interviews and conversations. This was done with permission from the interviewees, and then I transcribed the recordings. In the cases where recording was not feasible, I attempted to be fully immersed in the conversations, took notes on every word to the best of my abilities and later wrote down the missing parts from memory to the extent that I could remember. This is an essential practice for any researcher: ‘S/he participates, overtly or covertly, in people’s daily lives, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions; collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues with which s/he is concerned’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007: 3). Consequently, I reported the findings across various themes in a narrative manner.

A qualitative researcher, particularly an ethnographer, can be considered as a ‘bricoleur’ to some extent, as described by the French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss (1966) in The Savage Mind. A bricoleur is akin to ‘crafts-people who creatively use materials left over from other projects to construct new artifacts’ (Rogers, 2012: 1). In Lévi-Strauss’ words, ‘the bricoleur’s universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with “whatever is at hand”’ (Lévi-Strauss, 1966: 17). The bricoleur skilfully constructs a pragmatic approach by using a diverse array of materials to achieve specific goals (Kineşçi, 2017: 11). In this vein, during the fieldwork, following the bricolage technique, I attempted to creatively utilize every available resource and perform a wide range of tasks, from conducting interviews and observations to analysing personal and historical documents and engaging in daily routines.

Whom did I conduct in-depth interviews with? The sample consisted of prominent figures in the region, seniors with vivid memories of the earlier version of meci, municipal employees, active members of local councils and assemblies, individuals deeply involved in meci practices and workers in non-governmental organizations. I also spoke with young people who are not yet familiar with the culture. In summary, I interviewed a total of 30 people. To maintain their anonymity, I assigned each interviewee a number from 1 to 30. The average age of the participants is approximately 46. At least 20 of the participants hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. I emphasize ‘at least’ as I did not collect data on the participant’s graduate or doctoral status. Two participants completed a 2-year university programme, six participants completed high school and two participants completed elementary school; 11 of the participants are female, and 19 are male.

Meci as a Solidarity-Based Culture: Serving Humanity?

When one speaks of meci in the region, almost all participants begin their definitions by grasping meci as a traditional and historical category. At first glance, meci can be conceptualized as a tradition that historically emerged from the pursuit of collective action, engaging in activities together with a sense of unity and shared responsibility. Participant 15, a musician, and Participant 3, a municipal official, unaware of each other, formulate their definitions based on the challenges imposed by geographical impossibilities. Participant 15 argues that meci emerges directly due to the harsh geographical conditions and technological deficiencies. However, she or he does not view this inadequacy as the sole reason and broadens the definition: ‘People from villages come to the city on specific days because of their economic requirements and socialization needs. They used to do it with a shared truck, that is, meci is an effort to surmount impossibilities’. Similarly, the municipal official begins the same idea and expands on it by adding some crucial points:

The geographical conditions here are violent, and there is an absolute need for meci. We call meci a reciprocal exchange of labour, and voluntary participation is the norm. Meci is ‘a way of life’ that revolves around helping those in need.

A retired participant who runs his own guesthouse, on the contrary, grasps meci as a traditional and historical category, considering geographical difficulties as a secondary reason:

Meci has been a part of our lives since childhood and it always had a carnival mood. Everyone in here harvested their hazelnuts by themselves. But removing hazelnuts from the bracts. . . . In big mecis (plural form of meci), there was great enthusiasm. We were waiting throughout days with great excitement as if we were anticipating for a feast day. Everyone would participate in with pleasure, it would be a festival, it was in a carnival mood. As soon as there were festive occasions, the desire to work was increasing because everyone was having fun. Otherwise, a person becomes bored and emotionless when s/he is in solitude. (Participant 1)

Participant 18, a leading figure in the region, puts meci in the context of solidarity:

Meci means ‘standing in solidarity’, ‘sharing’ and ‘helping each other’. But it is mostly ‘standing in solidarity’, rather. Is someone building a house in the village? S/he does whatever s/he can. Some carry pebbles, some mix cement, some carry trees, and some carry roof tiles. So do whatever you can. We used to grow corn fields. Harvesting was done with meci. Harvesting hazelnuts, removing hazelnuts from bracts, harvesting tea, and building bridges have always been possible with meci. There used to be timber bridges, in one piece, seven, eight, or nine meters long. It was possible to remove that tree from the forests with meci. So whatever comes to mind . . . People were so helpful to each other. (Participant 18)

In general, solidarity-based cooperation practices are defined as meci in the region. For example, 60 years ago in the high valley of Fındıklı, all the houses in the villages were constructed through meci. Logs large enough that only 20–30 people could lift jointly to build any villager’s house were carried on the shoulders by the collective efforts of the villagers. Or, in a village near the sea, a small group of neighbours caught fish on a tiny boat, and distributed the catch to the rest of the villagers free of charge.

It seems crucial to share an experience from modern times to avoid presenting an outdated image rooted in traditional times. In 2020, the newly elected mayor made a solidarity call to revitalize the spirit of meci, the culture that sank into oblivion for years. In response to this call, a citizen who owns a tea garden decided to donate all the income from his tea garden to the municipality. Thereupon, the people of Fındıklı went to the donated garden en masse and harvested tea. Harvesting tea took just over 1 day. Throughout the day, some harvested tea, some motivated citizens by playing a musical instrument, or tulum (bagpipe), some prepared traditional meals to feed the people and some rushed to the secondary work left behind. The people’s ultimate goal in harvesting tea all day long was to generate income for the municipality and channel it towards social welfare. Spending on social welfare might take the form of establishing a centre for stray animals, providing scholarships to students or meeting the needs of the entire population. The citizens who dedicated their entire day to meci participated voluntarily without pursuing any individual benefits. In essence, this was an ‘altruistic’ action.

However, Turkey’s transition to neoliberalism during the 1980s led to the demise of the culture. The words of a retired teacher and active participant in local councils are remarkable: ‘Since people are individualized and weakened due to capitalism, the culture of “let me win”, or “I should have” spread. Meci naturally slowed down. Therefore, significant gaps emerged’. In a similar vein, a municipal official confirms the damage caused by the neoliberal counter-revolution: ‘Neoliberalism alienated people to such an extent that it destroyed the culture of solidarity that existed within our traditional roots’.

In March 2019, Fındıklı witnessed a historical moment with the local elections. After 30 years of right-wing rule, a socialist candidate named Ercüment Çervatoğlu, was elected as the new mayor. The newly elected mayor’s primary goal was to revive the long-standing tradition of solidarity in Fındıklı, that is, ‘taking meci a step further by preserving its traditional context’. Before imagining meci as the gift and the commons, respectively, here is the mayor’s election manifesto:

In our childhood, we used to announce the village by walking around the neighbourhood before the day of meci. We used to dream of delicious food we would eat on the day of meci and we would be happy. Meci means ‘helping’, ‘sharing’, and ‘overcoming problems together’. Meci would be meaningful if we were together. There is room for everyone in our meci. There is a place for everyone without ‘being marginalized’. As the participation increases, there will be more places. As you are a part of horon (a traditional Turkish folk dance that is very common in the Black Sea Region), our circle widens. ⁴

Meci as ‘The Gift’: Chain of Solidarity Without No Reciprocity?

After briefly reviewing of the culture and its modern reinterpretation in Fındıklı, we can concentrate on our research question: Does meci hold the same meaning as giving a free gift to someone? To put it in more accurate terms, is there a reciprocal relationship in meci? The question stems from a curiosity about whether meci operates on an implicit expectation of reciprocity on the ground of the gift relationship.

In its traditional context, meci is a carnival-like collective action where needs are met in an area with geographical difficulties and technological inadequacy. Nonetheless, the modern version of meci provides hints of building a new social order within the shells of the old. To that end, reading meci in connection with the gift phenomenon, although it may seem unusual, can potentially guide us towards seeking out paths for political, social and economic possibilities. In this respect, conducting fieldwork and engaging in theoretical debates, that is, ‘thinking not only with practical but also with appropriate theoretical concepts’ (Exner, 2020: 31), can also open up new avenues for a political alternative that ‘rejects being governed and takes our lives into our own hands’ (De Angelis and Stavrides, 2010). The modern interpretation of the culture is one of continuous transformation experienced by people and constantly moving forward with ‘small steps’. Therefore, the culture inherently carries the seeds of radical transformation.

We are now in a position to consider whether meci could be understood within the gift relationship with a strong reference to key concepts, such as the notion of ‘reciprocity’ and the notion of ‘(non)voluntary action’. To this end, I would like to begin with the observations from a group interview I attended in a ‘laz’ village of the Çağlayan Valley during the first days of the fieldwork. The underlying purpose of such a preference is, in fact, to fully understand the complete process of transformation at the core of meci and the variation in how the culture is positioned in people’s minds. Hence, it will be very possible to carry out discussions on the gift in a wide intellectual range, from Bourdieu to Derrida.

In the early moments of the interview, in order to ensure that the fieldworker fully understood the somewhat ‘pure’ and ‘innocent’ nature of the culture, a rough definition of meci was given by the interviewees as follows:

Meci is a gratuitous act. If you notice someone in need of help along the road, such as when s/he is chopping wood, you go to her/him and help without a second thought. You do not expect anything in return. However, a feeling of anger arises with you, questioning ‘why you did not call me when you needed help?’ Meci is such an act of pure ‘giving’.

Similarly, Participant 13, a housewife in her late fifties, who graduated from primary school, portrays an image of ‘quasi-moneyless’ social order:

‘In the past, people used to improve the conditions of those who were in trouble. There is no greater feeling in this world than cooperation and compassion. It is not all about money. I never expect anything in return when helping others’.

She adds: ‘I even went to yarıcılar (sharecroppers) to help, I mean harvesting tea. Why should not I?’. Participant 12, a wise man in his sixties, provides a metaphorical example that takes the concept one step further:

In the days of Auld Lang Syne, you could see ‘a white sheeting’ in the villages. It simply means that ‘there is a need’. You would go to that place where the white sheeting was hung and help without any expectation in return. Meci is giving someone in need a helping hand. Meci, above all, is a ‘great revolution’.

The man in his sixties explains the revolutionary characteristic of meci in a ‘romantic communist’ ⁵ sense:

Meci exists in our essence, even in religion. ‘A man is not a believer who fills his stomach while his neighbour is hungry’ (he refers to a hadith in Islam). This is a clear expression of meci. This is the real meaning. Humanity first, not money. By helping each other, you can achieve anything. The one who helps her/his enemy the most is a good human being. Meci is a pure and innocent concept. We can stand together around it.

The interviews clearly illustrate what can be described as ‘left-wing melancholia’. One of them, a 35-year-old critical young man, who has managed to turn the ruined building inherited from his great-grandfathers into a boutique hostel with his own efforts, defines meci in a broader sense:

Meci is ‘a labour of love’, or ‘the act of doing a job without being stubborn against nature’. It is a struggle to bring something into existence. There is no need for an invitation in meci. If she/he does not have any wood, a meci for collecting or chopping wood is done. What is done for her/him one day will be done for me another day. The revolution begins in the countryside. Being together is the main idea here.

I consistently discover similar tendencies in the interviews:

Meci is made free of charge (he means there is no expectation of a counter-gift) to those who are old, have children, or are in difficult situations. No reciprocation is expected. (Participant 15)

People come voluntarily. Everyone comes and goes for help without expecting anything in return. (Participant 2)

There is no personal advantage or interest in meci, there is a social contribution, and there is the enrichment of life. (Participant 3)

When we say meci, we mean that if you have a task today, we will come to help you. If I had a task the other day, they would come to help me. These acts were not reciprocal. Today, I paved stones on the road, but I did not expect any reciprocity. I managed to work for an hour at this age, there is no such thing as ‘reciprocity’ here. (Participant 18)

From these very similar sayings that define meci as a revolution built on a chain of solidarity and helping each other without any concern about reciprocity, we can draw forth a similar account of meci concerning the pure gift, which ‘indicates only the gift that one gives’ (Esposito, 2010: 5). The same line that keeps the definition of meci as a purely gratuitous act is quite common in the memories of the people in Fındıklı. In this respect, meci appears to be definable only in the context of ‘the pure gift, one that did not require a reciprocal counter-gift’ (Karatani, 2014).

Now, we can get directly to the heart of things by frankly positing debates in academic circles. Feeling indebted to Mauss for the definition, the gift was ‘prestations which are in theory voluntary, disinterested and spontaneous, but are in fact obligatory and interested’ (Graeber, 2001: 27). Mauss’ intention is purely to establish a social bond on account of the gift that makes today’s civilized world possible, while being aware that there is no pure generosity. However, Karatani (2014: 42) reinterprets the Maussian gift and introduces a novel notion: ‘pure gift-giving with no obligation for reciprocity’.

Most interviews glorified pure forms of gift-giving that lacked the principle of reciprocity, within the context of this theoretical framework. At this very moment, Marxist terminology of appearance and essence reminds itself: ‘All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided’ (Marx, 1967: 817). Therefore, I proceeded with caution and introduced other forms of the gift instead of pure generosity without any expectation in return.

It seems indispensable to recall Bourdieusian contribution to gift theory before broadening the scope of the gift paradigm in the context of meci. Bourdieu, citing his ethnographic fieldwork on the Kabyle of Algeria, opposes the logic of the Maussian gift. For Bourdieu, what distinguishes gift practices from bartering is the lapse of time between gift and counter-gift. Giving and receiving in a gift exchange requires pretending to be an act of generosity, thus denying the claim that it is entirely grounded on the principle of self-interest. In other words, the act described as generosity is a ‘pretence of generosity’, or ‘subterfuge’ (Graeber, 2001: 28). At this point, it seems tempting to quote in reply a short piece of writing in which Bourdieu (1998: 94) brings together many questions evaded by Marcel Mauss: ‘the interval had the function of creating a screen between the gift and the counter-gift and allowing two perfectly symmetrical acts to appear as unique and unrelated acts’.

Treating the acts of gift-giving in the culture of meci as an example of pure generosity and making them the determining cause of the practices might be a reductionist interpretation: every field in human behaviour cannot be predetermined, that is, any action of human beings should be referred to for a great many reasons. This is where Graeber’s remarkable insight comes into play. According to Graeber, ‘what Bourdieu says that there is no area of human life, anywhere, where one cannot find self-interested calculation is undeniably true’; but only ‘on some level’: ‘Neither is there anywhere one cannot find kindness or adherence to idealistic principles: the point is why one, and not the other, is posed as “objective reality”’ (Graeber, 2001: 29).

Once these theoretical preliminaries are established, it is now possible to proceed to the examination of meci in a critical sense. To that end, Participant 17’s point of departure for meci is quite interesting. Being a member of a civil society organization and city council in Fındıklı, Participant 17 makes an introduction to her words with the potlach analysis in Mauss:

When I thought of meci through anthropology, it reminded me of the ‘potlach’. It is somewhat reminiscent of it, but there are some differences. There is debt in meci. Meci is ‘doing something together’ with the community that you cannot do alone. In fact, you promise her/him to do something in return for being indebted to her/him. This is how houses were built. If one day I help you chop wood, I expect you to help me chop my wood one day.

In line with Jacques Godbout’s book, The World of Gift, in collaboration with Alain Caillé, gift-giving is perceived as a state of indebtedness: ‘In a gift-giving relationship, a voluntarily sustained state of indebtedness is the normal state’ (Godbout and Caille, 1998: 32). Participant 17’s view of meci as a reciprocal relationship that creates a burden to be paid off is also embraced by many participants. Working in a civil society organization, Participant 19 expands the context by accepting ‘being indebted’ underlined by Participant 17, and adding the vital roles of ‘time’ and ‘unspoken agreement’ in meci:

The only thing, I think, is ‘time’. There may be half-reciprocity, but I do not think there is such a thing as ‘no reciprocity’. In other words, there is no ‘pure reciprocity’ in meci. Here (pointing to meci in the traditional sense), there is ‘an expectation in return’. Since you do not have a chance to say that ‘I cannot help you in your meci’, there is an unspoken agreement, a contract, or a rule. You just do not make it clear, but you already know you will help when she/he calls.

It is not by accident that Participant 19 expresses meci in these terms. Since the capitalist transformation of almost everything in Fındıklı is inescapable, the penetration of the money economy due to the emergence of tea as a commodity shook almost all economic, social and political relations. Participant 19 draws attention to this point, arguing that:

After the emergence of ‘tea’ as a commodity in markets, mecis for tea begins. It is undoubtedly not a concept that belongs to the times of traditional life. ‘Let’s make a rational calculation; you came to my help for two days, I will help you for two days in return’ does not exist at that time. It is all about the emergence of tea as a commodity.

The careful reader will catch a glimpse of the epochal shift as issues related to ‘reciprocity’ emerge: ‘You came to help me for two days, and I will help you for two days in return’. Meci reaches its full expression in this simple sentence in Participant 19’s view. Henceforth, meci is a reciprocal relationship in which the gift giver expects to receive something in return. I discover a new concept as the contentious result of the fieldwork: güne gün in the Turkish language or ektua in the Laz language.

Güne gün or ektua can be defined as the principle that states that if a person helps another, she or he should receive an equal amount of help in return from the same individual. In this regard, we can translate güne gün or ektua as ‘a day for a day’: ⁶

I come to your aid and help you, you come to my aid and help me, too. (Participant 25)

It is necessary to understand meci as a two-sided relationship. There is reciprocity, and it might be defined as a corrupted form of meci. (Participant 10 and Participant 28)

In the midst of so many different interpretations, we understand that ektua represents mere reciprocity as a subcategory of meci. However, Participant 21 accepting ektua as a kind of meci, opposes the idea of ‘corruption’:

Ektua is a different phenomenon, a subcategory of meci. Ektua is a kind of labour exchange in the absence of a market economy. Using the word ‘corruption’, is not correct. Because this is not a situation where you pursue your self-interest. I have three days of work, you came to my aid. In the future, I can help you for three days with any task. Sometimes there can be some kind of agreement at the beginning. On the other hand, there may not be direct reciprocity in return. For example, I am a lonely person, and fifty people come to my assistance. I may not have a chance to help all fifty people in return. Briefly, we can say that ektua is not a corrupted form of meci, but only a different version of it.

Combining these ideas with observations culled from the fieldwork, we can make some crucial claims. One key point to note is that in addition to the original version of meci, reminiscent of a pure gift, there is a variety of meci based on reciprocity: you helped me, and I will help you in return. However, people engaging in ektua do not behave as Bourdieu argues: ‘economizing does not always go on’. In fact, people often behave in ways that may appear to be irrational. This point is noteworthy enough to be mentioned, as seen in the words of the municipal employee:

There is no defined or predetermined notion of reciprocity in meci: no strictly direct reciprocity or being obligatory. There is a situation that arises from social life. You know, it is an ‘intrinsic motivation’ like ‘you came to my aid, and I should go to help’. There is no economic calculation or seeking for personal gain in the original version. For example, if there were such a thing as ‘direct reciprocity’, it would be like this: If I pluck five kilogrammes of tea for you, I would ask the same from you. However, there is no such thing in meci.

Without producing a myth in trying to explain meci, many people in the region do not deny the notion of reciprocity. However, this is ‘rare’ and has nothing to do with the innocence of meci. A dialogue between a retired teacher and an activist in a civil society validates this statement:

Participant 18: When I talk about meci, I am implying that ‘you had something to do, we were with you for your help, and when the time came for me to have some work to do, you were there to support me’. These things were not based on reciprocity. I paved stones today (he refers to the paving stones meci of the municipality), and there is no reciprocity, no expectation in return. I could only last one hour because of my age. There cannot be such a thing as reciprocity here.

Participant 19: I remember old times. She/he did not attend my meci and I did not go to her/his meci.

Participant 18: It is very rare, very rare.

The dialogue between two participants becomes clearer with the words of another participant, a musician. Participant 15, a bit reluctantly, agrees that there might be some sort of ‘unseen reciprocity’ in meci: ‘There might be an “invisible reciprocity”, but it is harmless. It is not possible to assess meci in terms of reciprocity. Meci is performed with no expectation’. Furthermore, Participant 21, a business owner and activist, expands on this argument beyond what the other participants discussed:

Meci sounded like a socialist practice to me. Because it is a gratuitous act with no thought of reciprocity. Because the idea of reciprocity does not exist in the villages. Reciprocity is a word that urban culture teaches people. My mother did not help people by thinking that ‘this is unreciprocal’. There is no such word as ‘reciprocity’ even in minds. My mother thinks that this is something that needs to be done. So she evaluates it through the idea of good or evil. There are no market terms. Meci is simply an ethical behaviour that has strong moral roots.

In this context, we encounter an opportunity to establish a common ground of similarity between some participants’ assertions and Derrida’s concept of ‘the impossible gift’. According to Derrida (1992: 16), ‘[f]or there to be a gift, it is necessary that the gift not even appear, that it not be perceived or received as a gift’. The gift is ‘impossible’, ‘invisible’, ‘unsayable’ and furthermore, it does not even exist in minds. Derrida’s primary focus is on the impossibility inherent in the gift. There is also a sense of ‘impossibility’ in this interpretation of meci, but with a key distinction. The gift is impossible because there is no concept of reciprocity in minds, so it never exists. Instead, meci is rooted in strong moral and ethical foundations. The driving force behind behaviour is not the expectation of reciprocity, but rather whether the behaviour is deemed good or bad.

Finally, the practical logic underlying ektua is aptly summarized by Participant 20, an artist, as ‘today you, tomorrow me’:

In ektua, let’s say ‘corn’, all corn has to be planted in seven days, and you are on your own. You cannot plant corn in seven days by yourself. There is ‘a state of being alone’. There might be bears, pigs, or weasels. For example, in order not to walk alone on the one-hour pathway, you need someone with you. Let’s complete the planting of all my corn in one day so that I can come to your aid and help you on other days. For instance, once the tea harvest has started, it should be completed in twenty days. I cannot harvest four tons of tea alone. If I am a day late, I am screwed. Thus, I go and find ten people, and we do in one day collectively what I do in ten days by myself.

From this point of view, ektua, is positioned quite apart from the interpretation of meci as a debt relationship (Figure 1). Instead, it is a smart cooperation under time constraint: ‘You cannot plant corn alone. It is a race against time. Thus, collaborating with someone on a reciprocal basis is necessary’.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Different interpretations of meci as the gift.

Meci as ‘The Commons’: Emancipation From Capitalism?

The idea of the commons can be widely seen as a range of alternative struggles and practices aimed at breaking free from capitalist hegemony. Rather than purely defining the concept in materialistic terms, the commons is ‘the inheritance of humanity as a whole, to be shared together’ (Hardt and Negri, 2009), encompassing various aspects of life, including both material and immaterial categories. In the words of Hardt and Negri (2009: 139), the commons is ‘not only the earth we share but also the languages we create, the social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define our relationships, and so forth’. De Angelis (2017: 11) portrays the commons as a practice of developing alternatives to the logic of capitalism within the context of collective action. Aptly summarizing, the commons is no longer just a category akin to commodities, but social systems that make life meaningful, hence the basis of life.

To understand meci as the commons, a thorough day-long fieldwork experience in Fındıklı would be a good starting point to provide a deeper perspective that transcends the boundaries of academic literature. The municipality of Fındıklı posted an announcement for the ‘last meci of the year’ via its social media platforms on 28 December 2021. The primary subject of this meci was the restoration of the street’s paving stones in Fındıklı. In the early hours of the morning, around 40–50 individuals, including the mayor, began to pave stones all day long. The municipality’s official workers had prepared the entire street the day before the meci, creating a solid base and even surface. Remarkably, the mayor actively participated alongside the community in the paving stone process. In this collaborative form of management, the whole process was equitable, non-hierarchical and non-exploitative.

Throughout the day, a sense of joy permeated the air. Despite our consistent emphasis on the carnival-like character of meci, it did not hinder or impede the progress of the work. For example, one of the participants humorously remarked, ‘we need to find ways to take a break from work some time’, yet remained dedicated to the task at hand. She or he occasionally paused work for a tea break, then promptly urged others to resume work after they finished their first cup. The overall atmosphere became even more enjoyable with the involvement of young people who voluntarily played tulum (bagpipes), while others engaged in playing the traditional dance known as horon. During the lunch break, local dishes, prepared by the community, were savoured. The process was expedited and became more efficient as people lined up and carried the paving stones from hand to hand. At the end of the day, a clean and publicly built street was largely completed.

The revitalization of meci in Fındıklı demonstrates that meci is not a uniform category as the culture itself is structured by diverse principles encompassing economic, moral or political dimensions. The mayor strives to demonstrate that it is possible to reinterpret meci in other ways while acknowledging its historical and traditional essence. In the meci of paving stones, there is no ‘need’ in real terms. A municipality already exists where needs can be easily met, but the underlying purpose pursued here seems entirely different. Similarly, the economic value that arises from the entire process may be one of the first things to be overlooked. What is truly fundamental here, rather, is the construction of a progressive movement that contrasts with the logic of capitalism:

Meci is a culture of social co-production in which large masses participate. Paving stones is perhaps the least important part of the job, but there is an effort to raise social awareness in meci. Previously, meci was basically about doing the job that necessitates labor, but now our attempt here is to get people involved, in other words, creating the idea that ‘we can produce together’. Paving stones can be done in any case. (Participant 21, a business owner and activist)

Since meci points towards a liberation movement from capitalism and goes beyond Hardin’s tragedy completely and the Ostromian perspective to a certain degree, one still needs guiding principles to determine whether meci is the commons or not.

Two giants of autonomist Marxism and feminism, George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici (2014: 101), eloquently argue that ‘[c]ommons are not given, they are produced’. Keeping in mind that there is ‘no commons without a community’, as highlighted by Maria Mies (2014), a Marxist feminist scholar, creating the commons is only possible when our lives are defined through social cooperation, that is, ‘putting our lives in common’ (Caffentzis and Federici, 2014: 103). This corresponds exactly to what Participator 28, a 76-year-old intellectual, states:

We produced and consumed everything together, that is ‘solidarity’. What is mine is yours, and what is yours is also mine. We would gather at home in the evenings and eat together. Why should we remain separate from each other during the day?

This serves as a clear illustration of what meci signifies for the people of Fındıklı. As the commons extends beyond the mere material sphere and encompasses a relational process (Gibson-Graham et al., 2006), the perspective broadens:

We can define meci not in terms of a commodity but in a radically different way, for example, based on ‘helping others’. For instance, if a villager is sick, visiting her/him for assistance can also be described as meci. It is crucial to think of the concept in a broader sense; we should not confine it to a narrow scope. (Participant 28)

On the whole, I can assert that meci guaranteed the reproduction of lives in the region, not only in a material sense but in nearly every aspect of the lives of people in Fındıklı.

For a better understanding of meci within the context of the commons, Caffentzis and Federici’ (2014: 102) strong emphasis on ‘equal access and egalitarian decision making’ is crucial. According to two ‘giants’, access to the commons should be both free and equitable for all. If the commons is a social reproduction with ‘the participation of all’, this naturally leads to equality for all’. In the meci of paving stones held in December 2021, there was a state of pure freedom without any presence of leadership or hierarchical structure. Individuals from various social classes, including peasants, housewives, workers and teenagers, actively participated. At the same time, everyone had the freedom to express their thoughts without any restrictions. There were also some criticisms, or half-joking and half-serious words. One of them centred around the notion that traditional meci is a reciprocal activity, where both sides benefit from meci, but in the modern one, the mayor constantly demands. Besides, the traditional version of meci was inherently founded upon a philosophy that advocates for equal standing among all. Participants 19, 20 and 25 precisely emphasize the egalitarian nature of meci: ‘Everyone comes to meci, even those who do not understand. People simply want to be a part of this. We are all partners here’.

De Angelis (2014), an emeritus professor of political economy, strongly emphasizes that ‘commoning’ involves a process of negotiation and even struggle. In an interview about the commons, De Angelis and Stavrides (2010) refer to the Zapatista movement, underscoring its profound significance. ‘Inter-community negotiation’, as a notable method of negotiation among Zapatistas, is rooted in the principle that people should participate in assemblies as an alternative form of collective self-governance. De Angelis and Stavrides (2010) view inter-community negotiation as an experience of radical and direct democracy in which everyone takes part. The idea of ‘actually getting involved themselves’ and ‘governing by obeying the community’, as opposed to merely participating in a form of representative democracy, reaches its zenith through the rotation system of the Zapatistas.

Zapatistas take the concept of negotiation to a new level by ‘governance through obeying the community’ and ‘preventing any form of accumulation of individual power’. The meci of paving stones brings to mind such a practice. In an environment where nearly everyone enjoys equal freedom of speech and negotiation, any community member can suggest or warn others when a problem arises. City councils and local assemblies, including the women’s assembly and youth assembly in Fındıklı, embody Zapatista-like practices. The key principle at play is that political leaders cannot act as decision-makers for the people as their representatives. Instead, they only function as the community’s delegates, responsible for implementing decisions reached through local assemblies.

The case of Fındıklı also serves as a noteworthy example of conceiving the commons as a practice of ‘struggle’. The struggle of women against the construction of a stream-type hydroelectric power plant in Fındıklı is truly enlightening (Yavuz and Şendeniz, 2013). The women’s movement, driven by the argument that ‘if we lose our river, we will lose everything’, directly struggles with the enclosure practices of capital, which exploit the commons as a means of new capitalist expansion. Further insights can be gained from a similar example. In 2017, the residents of the region protested against a planned hydroelectric power plant project. They opened a banner declaring, ‘We are resisting for our urban spaces’, and marched with the slogan, ‘Rivers are free, they will flow freely’. ⁷ The struggle ended in a clear victory, thwarting the central government’s ambitions to construct the power plant. Through their resolute struggle, the community protected their urban places, their ‘commons’.

Continuing along the same line as the aforementioned propositions, the commons are broadly centred on the idea of democratizing political processes, which entails rejecting of all principles of exclusion or hierarchical structures (Caffentzis and Federici, 2014; Hollender, 2016). The objective of city councils and associated local assemblies in Fındıklı is to actively pursue an alternative structure that avoids hierarchy and instead employs a pyramid-shaped model with significant modifications. The mayor’s ideas are extensive and debate-worthy:

We defined a pyramid before the election. In the traditional pyramid-shaped organization, people are positioned at the bottom. Candidates introduce their political program and promise to get to the top of the pyramid. Once elected, politicians reach the top of the pyramid, break their promises, and create barriers to the community’s access to them. However, we said, ‘We will reverse this understanding’ and we reversed the pyramid. In this new pyramid, the mayor is at the bottom, the official municipal assembly is above the mayor, followed by the councils comprised of local assemblies, and the people of Fındıklı are at the top.

Meci can therefore be viewed as a praxis of standing up to authority and hierarchy; it is people who decide. If hierarchy is something that those on the top of the ladder are superior to those below them (Graeber, 2007: 25), then meci aims to destroy top–down hierarchical pyramids. The rejection of exclusion or hierarchization is a fundamental principle of meci: ‘We stand up to authority with meci. Meci is open to everyone and involves unrequited and voluntary participation. The core aim of meci is to empower the people of Fındıklı, placing authority, power, and decision-making in their hands’. ⁸

Envisioned in this way, meci opposes the idea of the state in its traditional form with its call for a revival of horizontality, a self-organizing economy, and further aspirations towards an anti-statist form of communally based self-governance. Hence, the culture itself raises the question of the possibility of forming an alternative space to state power and illustrates ‘a progressive formation of spatial and political autonomy and an institutionalization of power at the local level’ (Melenotte, 2015: 62) to a certain degree. For Sabrina Melenotte (2015: 58–62), autonomy means ‘a voluntary economic break with patronage networks’, thereby ‘refusing power hierarchies’. As can be seen in the Zapatista movement, an autonomous municipality can manifest itself as a ‘freed-from-the-state’ space. Another perspective emerges in Fındıklı: ‘extracting themselves from bad government and identifying a space free from domination’ (Melenotte, 2015: 55–57). Participant 15 thus grasps, with increasing awareness, the moral bankruptcy of the state in the region and criticizes it more trenchantly:

By building the road, ⁹ you (the state he mentions) broke the connection of the people of Fındıklı who have emotionally strong bonds between the sea (the Black Sea) and themselves with the sea. The state built this road as something we should be grateful for. No, you already have to! (He reminds us that the state has responsibilities to undertake; otherwise, it should not be considered praise for the road). You say that it is for my benefit, but how would you know what is for my benefit? How do you intervene in the geography we live in with an ‘upper hand’? You exclude (we can also use ‘ignore’) our identity.

The participant’s critique of the existence of the state takes on a deeper and more radical meaning when one considers the words of another participant, who argues that societies have an inherent capacity to make decisions without the need for a political structure to represent them:

I have to decide for myself what to think. This should be the case in any society as well; we have to decide for ourselves what to think. If we talk in the context of meci, ‘I’ will decide how to do meci. Again, I will decide which slogan to shout and which folk song to sing. If my mother’s song disappears, it will disappear in my heart, or if it is sung, it will be sung in my heart. You cannot treat us like guinea pigs with statements such as ‘We will not destroy your culture, let’s protect your culture’. Where will you protect me? In a zoo that I do not know the name of? I would rather die out in Africa than live in your zoo. (Participant 21)

There is a common theme underlying the statements expressed by two participants: rather than seizing state power, the struggle should be based on democratizing power relations in everyday life and all areas of society by finding state cracks to form alternative spaces (Melenotte, 2015: 53). This perspective echoes John Holloway’s arguments: ‘moving against-and-beyond the state, against-and-beyond all the fetishized forms that stand as obstacles to the drive towards social self-determination is crucial for struggle’ (Holloway, 2010: 242).

Concluding Remarks: Translating Meci Into Political Power and Liberation in the Imaginary

The assertion that capitalism will always remain the dominant form of organization through self-transformation or reform is presented as a ‘stark truth’ that we all should believe in. However, this kind of ‘impossibility in the imaginary’ is, as Rancière (2017) states, ‘putting the fortress in our heads, instituting a circle of impossibility by proclaiming that nothing can be changed before everything has been changed’. For this reason, when we shift our perspective to view change as ‘the invention of specific moments when the very landscape of the perceptible, the thinkable, and the doable is radically reframed’ (Rancière, 2017), rather than solely rejecting totalizing frameworks, it becomes evident that ‘future is now’ and transcending the logic of capitalism starts with the ‘small yet radical steps’ taken in the present moment. The decision of one participant to open a vegan café, despite being aware of only three vegans in the district, illustrates the potential for ‘small’ and ‘particular’ changes to revolutionize everyday life: ‘People in Fındıklı will not be vegan just because I opened a vegan café. It serves as a preliminary stage of transformation. Otherwise, you cannot reach the next level’.

An emancipation project, aimed at liberating from the confines of capitalist reasoning, therefore requires us to invent a new and radical dictionary to make the unthinkable thinkable. In this regard, the culture of meci and its modern interpretation in Fındıklı can offer solutions to a capitalist predicament and carry the seeds of a non-capitalist project within the shells of the old. In other words, Maussian hope remains fresh and relevant for our present-day: ‘It is possible to extend these observations (he addresses archaic societies) to our societies’. By considering the culture of meci in the context of both the gift and the commons, I introduce critical issues and discuss the potential of the culture to look for clues of an alternative social organization in the making. More precisely, I empirically reinvent the gift and the commons to transform the ideas within both concepts that have been defamed and banished in minds through collective practices in everyday life and envisage a liberation project for both the singular and the collective.

At this moment in time, when our political vocabulary struggles to grasp new conditions and possibilities, Hardt and Negri (2009) suggest that new terms should be invented to confront this impasse. The culture of meci is the manifestation of such a search and awaits us to discover it for the making of a new political imaginary thrown into an uncertain future. The set of practices in the district offers angles on blueprints for making a new world. However, like any social movement, it is inevitably ‘far from perfect’ and ‘incomplete’. Nevertheless, the notion that ‘the more people join the horon, the wider the circle becomes’, as explicitly expressed in the meci manifesto, paves the way for a progressive movement grounded in solidarity that transcends the logic of the market in these times, when imagining the end of humanity is easier than the end of capitalism. What a curious researcher endeavours to explore is, then, an ‘emancipatory social science with a human face’, guided by the principle of ‘liberation in the imaginary’ (Graeber, 2004).