Proving One’s Expertise and Its Worth: Agronomists’, Forestry Engineers’, and Veterinarians’ Rhetoric on the Essential Utility of Their Knowledge in the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey

How do members of a novel profession gain recognition for their expertise and negotiate its value? This article examines this historically rooted yet persistently relevant question by focusing on the experiences of agronomists, forestry engineers, and veterinarians in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey (1890s–1930s). These then-nascent professions faced shared challenges: agronomists worked to earn the trust of farmers, veterinarians contested with farriers over livestock care, and all three professions confronted public scepticism, ridicule, and inadequate compensation despite their extensive scientific training and vital contributions to the economy, public health, and environmental conservation. Drawing on their writings in mainstream press and professional journals, as well as historical interviews with them, this study explores the strategies agronomists, forestry engineers, and veterinarians employed to carve out a new social and economic space for themselves. By analysing their efforts, the article uncovers how experts in emerging fields navigate resistance while striving to redefine societal rewards to secure a place in the new world they are helping to shape – one where economic recognition should be rooted in scientific contributions, which they present as the foundation of progress and advancement.