Interspecies Labor and Shared Precarity: Donkeys and Humans in Garbage Collection in Mardin, Türkiye

Abstract

Abstract This paper concerns the interspecies labor in the municipal cleaning services of Mardin, a city in southeastern Türkiye. In Old Mardin, the city’s most touristic area, garbage collection is carried out through the labor of both humans and donkeys. Based on ethnographic research, the paper examines the forms of insecurity surrounding human and donkey workers. The donkeys are widely known as “Mardin’s permanent donkeys,” a designation assigned by the municipality. Yet behind this designation, garbage collection, often regarded as “dirty work,” is perceived as even “dirtier” in the sense that it is inextricably linked to the cultural positioning of donkeys as lower status animals in Old Mardin. The paper reveals that the discourses, norms, arrangements, and hierarchies shaping human and donkey workers’ vulnerability and insecurity overlap and produce a shared precarity between human and donkey workers.