Nomads, peasants and vagrants in the Ottoman Empire (13th century– beginning of the 20th century): Disaffiliated figures?

In this article, we focus mainly on three supposedly disaffiliated groups who would have left their mark on the Ottoman Empire. Starting from Robert Castel’s concept of disaffiliation, we have apprehended its relevance with regard to what made the center and what made the periphery from the 13th century to the beginning of the 20th century, but also the legitimate conditions of recourse to the notion of exclusion. While nomads were central characters in the expansion of the Empire, they were forced to settle down. Peasants, who were at the heart of a redistributive economy and the stratification of the social order of the Empire, were forced to be attached to the land. Finally, the indigent will be categorized into types very early on, with deserving beggars on one side and able-bodied beggars on the other. Faced with these figures, the Empire’s policy oscillated between conciliation, control, prohibition, expulsion and repression.