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2020 - Volume 4 - Number 2

Post-Materialist Waste: A Study of Turkey’s Importation of Rubbish

Michael Babula  * michael.babula@ku.ac.ae * ORCID: 0000-0002-3567-6700
Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Glenn Muschert * glenn.muschert@ku.ac.ae * ORCID: 0000-0003-3748-4961 * ResearcherID: AAK-9232-2020
Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Open Journal for Sociological Studies, 2020, 4(2), 115-126 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojss.0402.06115b
Received: 14 March 2020 ▪ Accepted: 28 May 2020 ▪ Published Online: 20 July 2020

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

ABSTRACT:
Focusing on the case of Turkey’s rubbish importation, this article examines the discrepancy between Turkey’s importation of foreign rubbish and its national agenda to become a zero-waste society. Drawing upon the sixth (2012) wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) conducted in Turkey, analysis has identified a noted shift in the social values respondents hold, indicating a shift from traditional strong-economy values, known as materialist values, and the emergent environmentally-friendly values, known as post-materialist values. Most of the Turkish population shares concerns for both types of values, while a growing Turkish minority holds post-materialist values. The analysis draws on chi-square tests, which indicate that a shift towards post-materialist values has produced prioritizing environmental concerns over the strength of the economy among this sample. Rather than pursuing a waste-free society due to a rubbish apocalypse, the results indicate that further development in the Turkish economy will facilitate further shifts toward post-materialism, in which context the population would become increasingly positive toward waste refurbishment and other environmental concerns.

KEY WORDS: world values survey, materialist values, post-materialist values, environmentalism, Turkish social values.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Michael Babula, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, UAE. E-mail: michael.babula@ku.ac.ae.

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