Abstract This artistic research project investigates the endangered material culture, ecological knowledge, and social structures of Anatolia’s Yörük nomads, whose traditional lifeways are under threat from forced settlement policies, climate instability, and capitalist extraction. Through participant observation, filmmaking, and collaborative ethnography, we explore how Yörük tent-making, goat-hair weaving, herding, and seasonal migration (Göç) embody a metabolic balance misaligned with the extractive logic of the Capitalocene. Rather than treating Yörük practices as folklore, we engage with them as valid epistemic systems, centering co-creation, shared decision-making, and relational trust to resist extractive research paradigms.

Initial fieldwork with tribes in Ahmetli, Kuyucak, Başaran, Yatağan, and the Taurus Mountains reveals a spectrum of adaptation and precarity: from the fragmentation of migration routes by privatization and industrial expansion to the resilience of pragmatic adaptations, such as solar-powered tents and digital connectivity.

The Yörük’s decentralized, undogmatic knowledge systems, rooted in cyclical mobility, communal labor, and reciprocal relations with the land, offer counter-models to the homogenizing forces of modernity. Their tents, weaving techniques, and seasonal rhythms reflect an ecological intelligence now strained by ecological degradation and economic pressures.

Initial findings, including video documentation of Göç traditions and tent-making, highlight the tensions between memory and practice, as elders’ testimonies and adaptive strategies (e.g., solar panels, boot-making revival) reveal both loss and resistance. Future research will deepen these engagements, joining the 2027 Göç to document how Yörük communities navigate a shrinking world, where ancestral pathways and meanings are increasingly fragile. The project aims to co-create a multimodal archive that preserves their knowledge.