This article examines how the labor market in seasonal migrant work in agriculture in Turkey has changed with the influx of refugees from Syria. Based on both qualitative and quantitative fieldwork in ten provinces of Turkey, the article discusses precarity in seasonal migrant work in agriculture and the impact of the entry of refugees on this labor market. The analysis of precariousness of both Turkish-citizen migrant workers and refugees suggests that precarity is a relational phenomenon. The multifaceted vulnerabilities of groups in the lower echelons of the labor market resonate with one another and the adverse incorporation of vulnerable groups into the labor market pushes the market in a more insecure and informal direction.

By focusing on recent water struggles in rural Turkey against run‐of‐the‐river hydropower plants (SHPs), the research delves into the societal and economic factors that enable or inhibit the emergence of strong mobilizations through a comparison of four localities of the Eastern Black Sea region. The main aim of the cross comparison is to determine whether there is a relationship between the forms of rural livelihood (and class position) and political mobilization against SHP construction. The article offers a multilayered relational framework to analyse rural mobilizations. Through a comparative spatial analysis of material and immaterial territories, I argue that the spatio‐economic transformation of the localities that unevenly transform rural settings in terms of production and consumption activities have an impact on the patterns, discourses, and agency in contemporary “rural” mobilizations. This is especially observable with regard to upward mobility and the middle‐classization processes embedded in crop system and household accumulation opportunities. The children of upwardly mobile farmers who became city‐based middle‐class actors tend to present an estheticized and carnivalesque framing in their resistance strategies through the re‐invention of traditions and culture, whereas the lower‐class peasants voice their grievances based strictly on material concerns.

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the paper according to their abilities, and their names are listed alphabetically by surname. CASAS is a network emerging from the 2019 Journal of Peasant Studies Writeshop on Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism in Beijing, China, and expanded through its following three annual editions till 2022. Self-organized by former Writeshop participants, CASAS aims to promote scholarship and activism in critical agrarian studies and to also seek ways to navigate the structural barriers in academia by following principles of solidarity and mutual care (https://casasouth.org/). This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.