An Ethnographic Study From Home to Workshop, From Workshop to Factory: Case of Devrek Canes

Abstract

This study aims to determine how production processes that change with industrialization effect the traditional profession. In this context, the study, which has placed the Devrek Walking Stick in its focus, combined the relationship of industrialization with social changes with the transformation story of the walking stick. The study, which assumes that traditional professions have lost their resistance against the machine, emphasized their objectification within the consumer society supported by the modern production system. The transition process of the Devrek Walking Stick from the workshop to the factory was considered as the result of objectification. Increased profit motive and anxiety to reduce the cost of the work turned the "dogwood tree" cane into a "wooden board" made of tree. The walking stick, which turned into a wooden board, has lost all the meaningful practices produced by the master. The qualitative research design was used in the study. Interviews were made with 10 walking stick masters in Zonguldak/Devrek. The data are analyzed under three main headings: "Problems and interpretation of the profession", "discovering the effect of mechanization on the culture of the walking stick" and "difficulty of transferring the profession to the next generations." In the study, it was an important result that mechanization reduced the value of the walking stick and turned it into a touristic commodity.