Dissertation Abstracts
Expert Views and Local Responses Towards Iraqi Turkmen Humanitarian Refugees in Ankara, Turkey
Author: Cigdem Manap Kirmizigul, cigdemmanap@yahoo.com
Department: Sociology
University: Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Sibel Kalaycioglu
Year of completion: 2017
Language of dissertation: English
Areas of Research: Migration
Abstract
This dissertation is based on the stories and perceptions of the local people about the refugees in their daily relationships in Ankara. With an aim to reveal the local people’s perspective about the refugees, the fieldwork of this study was carried out in Abidinpa?a District, where the population of Iraqi Turkmens is concentrated in Ankara. The local people’s perspectives about the refugees are analyzed based on Simmel’s concept of “stranger”, and relying on Park’s “marginal man”, Siu’s “sojourner”, and Bauman’s “stranger”. Related to the official discourse produced about refugees in Turkey, the local people consider the refugees as temporary and assume that they will go back to their country when the conflict is over there. The concept of “consanguinity”, which facilitates the acceptance of the Iraqi Turkmens by the local people, is harmed since these people’s stay in Turkey extends. Thus, this study focuses on the processes of transformation of the Iraqi Turkmens into “strangers” and their marginalization in the eyes of the local people. The definition of the refugees as “stranger” and/or “guest” leads to the crystallization of the division between “us” and “them”, and sets various borders between the two groups in many ways.