Forced migrant's sense of place: the case of Syrian refugee-workers in Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

The issue of the integration of migrants has long been at the heart of public debates taking place in the societies of the Global North. Many of the refugees who move to these societies start their journey by first entering (often illegally) a neighboring country in the Global South, after which they tend to move to another country with better conditions. A good example is the case of those refugees who go to Indonesia and then to Australia or those who go to Turkey or Libya to arrive at a European country. This leads to more negotiations and collaborations among the states of the Global North and Global South. However, in these negotiations, the voices and lives of refugees are not considered; in the best cases, their rights and interests are acknowledged only “nominally”. This is because Global North states seek to stop the flow at any cost. In contrast, the Global South states (mostly governed by authoritarian regimes) are interested in acquiring funds or other political benefits (see Sørensen et al., 2017). Furthermore, research about refugees is almost always done with a structural approach that does not consider refugees' and asylum seekers’ subjectivities. Moreover, there is little research on forced migrants in the Global South because of power relations in academic production; Global North institutions dominate the field and its interests and agenda.2 Therefore, more research is needed about refugees' integration into societies of the Global South based on their perspectives. This research studies refugee integration in one city of the Global South (Istanbul) by focusing on refugees’ sense of place. It is divided into four parts; first, it reviews the available literature and explains the grounded theory developed in my previous research conducted among Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Berlin. The second describes the methodology used in the present research. The third, which is the largest part, presents the findings.