ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notables' experience of falling from grace at the southeastern margins of Turkey and its repercussions on their sense of belonging. The local notables in Kilis embody the town's historic identity in their recollections of family biographies better than any other strata. The wealthy families of mercantile origin distinguish themselves from landed notables, calling them esraf and name themselves as esnaf, even though they have been incorporated among the ranks of notables at the turn of the twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the "politics of notables" as a paradigm to explore the old wealth and their social mobility strategies in Kilis town. The esraf identity among the urban middle strata in Kilis town implicates the traditional landed notables with vested interests in the Ottoman social order. According to them, the esraf system came to an end in the 1960s. The esraf status lost its distinctive attributes that used to characterize the traditional landed notables.
