The denial of moral complexity: accusations against migrant waste pickers by Turkish scrap dealers in Istanbul

Abstract

In Istanbul, Turkish scrap metal dealers characterize their work as a negotiation of dual economic moralities, private interest and social obligation, and claim that their labor is righteous and socially productive as a result. In contrast, they often accuse migrant waste pickers of operating under a single economic morality, theft, and assert that waste picking is therefore an immoral and socially harmful form of work. This article analyzes how these accusations form a discourse of labor hierarchy that illuminates scrap dealers’ normative ideas about work, social relations, and belonging. It argues that perceptions regarding the presence or absence of economic moralities in competing forms of work can mediate relations between citizen and migrant workforces. The article demonstrates that accusations about economic moralities are key mechanisms by which scrap dealers draw moral boundaries between themselves and migrant waste pickers. It identifies the social and political conditions in which competing circuits of commerce emerge between these groups. Finally, it concludes that the denial of economic moral complexity in migrant workers is a distinct form of anti-migrant discourse – one that aims to exclude newly arrived migrant workers across multiple scales.

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