Paul Stirling was an anthropologist who lived in the Sakaltutan and Elbaşı villages of Kayseri between 1949-1951 for his scientific studies. Later, he made various visits until the 90s to document social change. During these visits, his doctoral thesis titled “THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF TURKISH PEASANT COMMUNITIES,” his 1965 monograph named Turkish Village, the 8000 pages of field notes he kept, and thousands of photographs could not be disseminated as much as they needed to be following his death in 1998. These contents can be accessed at this address.
http://era.anthropology.ac.uk/Era_Resources/Era/Stirling/index.html
Because Turkish writers depicting the social life in our country during that period could not step outside their own perspectives, they did not feel the need to explain things that were obvious to them at the time but which we cannot understand right now. Because Paul Stirling and his wife Margaret were completely foreign to the culture and because they tried to record everything, important or not, due to their anthropological approach, their works are of invaluable worth for us to know our past.
From family structure to migrant labor, from agricultural practices to commercial enterprises, one of the most effective instruments we have to get to know this culture, which is as foreign to us as it is familiar, might be the works of Paul Stirling.