Publishing Experience of the Urban Poor: Katik Newspaper

Solid waste recycling workers, who work in the streets and garbage of Turkey, were publishing a newspaper called Katık, in order to share and struggle the problems they encounter in both work life and various spheres of social life.

This study is on Katık newspaper. The study endeavors to read poverty through the pages of Katıkand attempts to find the answers of questions such as “How do the urban poor experience, make sense of and express their poverty, their exclusion from society and their encounters with others?”

This study is designed as an ethnographic research and uses qualitative methods and techniques. The data of the study is collected by analyzing some documents, participant observation and interview techniques. The main analysis material is 9 issues of Katık newspaper. In addition to this, the data collected through participant observation process, such as the production phase of Katık, the working and daily lives of recycling workers are also included in the analysis. Another information source for the study is the semi-structured and informal interviews with the editors of the newspaper and recycling workers. Other reference sources used in this study are, the original forms of Katık’s content, in other words, manuscripts as well as various videos, reports and relevant legislation documents focusing on recycling workers.