Transformation and Europeanization of migration policy in Turkey: multiculturalism, republicanism and alignment

Author(s): Ayhan Kaya,Bianca Kaiser / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This chapter scrutinizes the historical forms of managing migration and diversity in Turkey, as well as the development of the Europeanization process of Turkey’s migration policy. We argue that managing diversity in Turkey can be historicized in three epochs: Ottoman multiculturalism, Turkish republicanism, and the contemporary model of Europeanization. Turkey has so far witnessed both multiculturalist and republican forms of integration being implemented respectively by the Ottoman state and the modern Turkish state.

Deconstructing the Gender-Migration Relationship: Performativity and Representation

Author(s): M. Murat Yüceşahin / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

A rainbow variety of theories has been proposed to explain the underlying dynamics and reasons behind migration. The majority of the research in the field confirmed that the main motivation behind migration is the drive to attain a dignified standard of living with elevated economic, social, and environmental status. Not limited to economic developments alone, migration presents its obvious aspect, that it is “culturally produced, culturally expressed and cultural in effect” (Newbold, 2010: 136).A close look at the nature of migration will immediately reveal its selective nature. “Migration selectivity”1 manifests itself as the migration tendency that is determined only in accordance with various factors such as diverse characteristics of an individual’s socio-demographic, socio-economic, and socio-cultural status (Yüceşahin et al., 2015). Therefore it is obvious that this diversity in such characteristics as age, education, wealth, and other factors may or may not trigger migration, and at various levels of intensity, even if it does.

Introduction: Revisiting Gender in the Context of Migration

Author(s): M. Murat Yüceşahin,Pinar Yazgan / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Gender in migration studies, we believe, is linked to feminist studies in the broader sense. The concept of feminism comes from the term womanism and was first used in the 1890s. It is used as a general label for women's movements and the struggle for equal rights for women. Whilst it reflects a wide range of definitions, its purpose is to create awareness on the secondary status of women compared to men. It also examines the associated discrimination imposed on woman through culture and religion. This discrimination produces unequal power relations between men and women. In a broad sense, feminism is an act that aims to rearrange the world on the basis of gender equality in all forms of human relations and to act against gender-based discrimination. The movement seeks to neutralise gender based bias and declare a world with equal rights for all by virtue of their common humanity (Tilly and Gurin, 1990: 20).

Gendered Pathways: Central Asian Migration through the Lens of Embodiment

Author(s): Natalia Zotova,Victor Agadjanian / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave a start to mass international migration (Heleniak, 2008). Migration flows were first fueled by the regional insurgence, ethnic conflicts and civil war in Tajikistan (1992-1997), subsequent instability and economic turmoil. The shift from limited spatial mobility to development of massive population flows happened in a short historic span. While Russia became the destination country of choice for labor migrants from former Soviet states (Heleniak, 2008; Abashin, 2014), the patterns of mobility, motives and participants changed over time. Migration from Central Asian countries is fueled by economic difficulties; however, the causes of migration should not be limited to economic terms only. Rather they could be defined in a broader context of human insecurity.

For Love or for Papers? Sham Marriages among Turkish (Potential) Migrants and Gender Implications

Author(s): Işık Kulu-Glasgow,Roel Jennisen,Monika Smit / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Under the impact of globalization and continuing migration flows to the European countries, marriage migration became an important way of immigration to these countries. The countries of the European Union (EU) apply restrictive marriage migration policies towards non-EU citizens. In addition to the implementation of stricter requirements transnational couples have to fulfill (e.g., regarding income and pre-integration of the immigrating partner even before migration), there has been increasing political attention to combat sham marriages. At the request of several European countries, the European Commission recently provided a Handbook with common guidelines to identify and combat sham marriages (COM/2014/284). According to the Handbook and the EU-directive that describes the rights of EU-citizens and their family members regarding their free movement within the EU (2004/38/EG), a marriage is considered to be sham if its sole purpose is to gain a residence permit for the potential immigrant partner.

Undocumented Migrant Women in Turkey: Legislation, Labour and Sexual Exploitation

Author(s): Emel Coşkun / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Turkey, a traditionally migrant sending county, has become a destination and transit country for migration and refugee movements since early 1990s. Today, in addition to hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, more than 2.7 million Syrians living in Turkey under “temporary protection” status. Previous research suggests that political changes in neighbouring areas, being located at conjunction of the East and West, a closer and cheaper neighbouring country with a relaxed visa regime, and the European Union's (EU) restrictive migration policies made Turkey more attractive for many migrants and tourists (İçduygu and Kirişçi, 2009). Initially, a significant number of transit migrants and asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran but also from several African and Asian countries came to Turkey to find their way to enter the wealthy Europe since 1990s.

Family Perspective in Migration: A Qualitative Analysis on Turkish Families in Italy

Author(s): Gül İnce Beqo / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The main purpose of this research is to understand the migration phenomenon from a family perspective because family, as a relational social unit, can be a lens which reflects the transnational and intergenerational impacts of migration both on receiving and sending society. For the main purposes of this study I will refer to a relational definition of the family. Donati (2007) argues that family, different theoretical sociological approaches have framed/ considered the family as a structure of roles created by external factors like the social division of labour, the level of economic development, the type of political regime or communicative technologies. This vision caused the exclusion of the relational character of the family from its definition. Family is thus seen as a unit which is driven by the external forces that are not directly related to human experience “while it should be observed instead as a morphogenetic network of relations, or rather as a primordial and original network emerging from the mediations that the family, as a sui generis social relation, act between nature and culture, between public and private, between individual and society (Donati, 2007: 10).

Effects of Refugee Crisis on Gender Policies: Studies on EU and Turkey

Author(s): Pelin Sönmez / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Debates on "migration of women" got stronger when globalization and its challenges were felt around 1980 and onwards. In Europe, the period between 1960 and 1973 was known as the golden age of social welfare state while in the 1990s this social welfare model came into a crisis and many European governments cut resources on social services. Suddenly, migrant women began to be a rational choice to compensate the gap as they provided cheap labour for social welfare services. As a result, home care became the most common social welfare service supplemented by migrant women (Öner, 2015: 358). This actually increased the demand for female migrant workers who often come from countries outside Europe. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi argues from another perspective in her studies and says that the globalization and implementation of economic policies resulted in the feminization of poverty, which actually refers a situation where “women rather than man are especially at risk of being poor in industrialized countries” (Hyndman and Giles, 2011: 363).

Foreword

Author(s): Philip L. Martin / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Turkey is a special country. Sandwiched between Europe and Asia,Turkey is a secular Muslim country that has undergone many transitions,including from a major source of international migrants to a major destination for them. About five percent of the 80 million people born in Turkey are living outside the country, including over half in Germany. Meanwhile, up to five percent of people in Turkey were born elsewhere, including over half born in Syria.

Gendered citizenship: experiences and perceptions of the Bulgarian Turkish immigrant women

Author(s): Özge Kaytan / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The concept of citizenship, which is a multi-layered construct by itself,consists of diverse structures when it comes to the citizenship of immigrant women. This research investigates whether, how and to what extent social and cultural changes experienced by the Bulgarian Turkish immigrant women,along with changes in their educational lives and labor force participation made an impact on the practice of their citizenship rights. The migration process itself is gendered not simply due to the fact that men and women are differently affected; it is also likely to affect how gender identity interacts with the new identity bestowed upon the migrant women. Transnational migration generates new social inequalities and social exclusion. The tragedy of ethnic oppression and ethnic assimilation and, in extreme cases, the danger of ethnic cleansing are made unbearable through the assaults on women and children. Hence, the victimization of ethnic minorities is almost always feminized.

European Union and Turkish migration policy reform: from accession to policy conditionality

Author(s): Birce Demiryontar / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Since Turkey became a candidate country in December 1999, the EU has been typically exerting influence on Turkish domestic policy change through accession conditionality. Since the mid-2000s, the main shortcoming of this reform framework has been its direct interconnection to the country’s accession process, while the country’s prospects for membership were losing their credibility. This loss of credibility in the country’s accession prospects has led to a halt in the EU induced policy change in various policy areas,especially in the ones where the related chapters of the accession negotiation framework were frozen by the EU, or by the individual member states.Despite being one of those policy areas, migration policy presents a deviation from this trend as commitment to the EU induced reform agenda continues despite the frozen status of the Chapter 24, Justice Freedom and Security.

Stuck in the Aegean: Syrians leaving Turkey face European barriers

Author(s): Deniz Genç,Aslı Şirin ÖNER / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In its fifth year, the civil war in Syria has opened Pandora’s Box. In addition to various negative things such as ISIL and its terrorist attacks indifferent parts of the world, the war has triggered a global refugee crisis.Before the war, the population of Syria was 22 million. As the war continues with no end in sight, millions of Syrians have scattered throughout the region.According to the UNHCR (2015a), almost 5 million Syrians are now registered in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Among these countries, Turkey is reported to host the largest number of Syrian asylum seekers.

Syrian Communities in Turkey: Conflict Induced Diaspora

Author(s): K. Onur Unutulmaz,Ibrahim Sirkeci,Deniz Eroğlu Utku / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

After 6 years, Syrian diaspora in Turkey and Europe has been capturing headlines. This edited volume offers insights and evidence to develop sound and responsible policies regarding this particular immigrant group and others.

Contesting Refugees in Turkey: Political Parties and the Syrian Refugees

Author(s): Aslı Ilgit,Fulya Memişoğlu / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Political parties and their attitudes towards Refugees and Syrian refugees in Turkey are examined in this chapter.

Demographic Gaps between Syrian and the European Populations: What Do They suggest?

Author(s): M. Murat Yüceşahin,Ibrahim Sirkeci / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

At least 6 million 148 thousand Syrians have been uprooted as a result of the crisis and conflict ongoing since 2011 in Syria. As of 6 August 2017, 5,165,502 have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq whilst 983,876 moved further to Europe (UNHCR, 2017). A similar volume of population has been displaced within Syria too. This practically makes Syria one of the worst displacement cases in the history as more than half the contemporary population is displaced. Turkey with a long land border with Syria as well as historic links between populations, particularly in border provinces appeared as a favourite destination for Syrians who escape the conflict. As conflict grew and spread, in 2012 and onwards, a sharp increase in the number of Syrians arriving in Turkey was observed (Yazgan et al., 2015; Sirkeci, 2017a). When Lebanon receiving proportionally the largest share of Syrian movers, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq have also accommodated sizeable populations seeking refuge. Unlike the early days of the conflict when most movers preferred neighbouring countries, in later years, an increasing number of Syrians destined to Europe. There can be and are many factors moderating this behaviour. We can cite economic opportunities, democratic environment, as well as aspirations and cultures of migration among these factors. Certain political manoeuvres such as the German Chancellor Merkel’s welcoming message in 2015 have also played a role.

Integration of Syrians: Politics of Integration in Turkey in the Face of a Closing Window of Opportunity

Author(s): K. Onur Unutulmaz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Integration has become one of the most popular concepts in today’s daily, political, and academic discussions. Countries of all sorts with a large number of immigrants and sizable communities with ‘immigrant-origins’ are now conceptualising several issues and challenges related to immigration and the ensuing ethnic and cultural diversity as matters of integration. While both what they mean by the term and how they are trying to achieve it vary widely, the political nature of the whole process and the hegemony of the concept of integration are beyond discussion.

Wymuszone sąsiedztwo

Author(s): Peter Oliver Loew / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Od przedmurza do Borussii

Author(s): Rafał Żytyniec / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Do odwołania?

Author(s): Kerstin Hinrichsen / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Kreatywna i zwodnicza siła zdrady

Author(s): Peter Oliver Loew / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0