Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10679/5962

Browse

Browsing by Author "Nimer, M."

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Placeholder
    ArticlePublicationMetadata only
    Language learning through an intersectional lens: Gender, migrant status, and gain in symbolic capital for Syrian refugee women in Turkey
    (Walter de Gruyter) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Nimer, M.; Humanities and Social Sciences; Piller, I.; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
    This paper sheds light on Syrian refugee women’s negotiation strategies in language learning classrooms and in their broader social contexts from an intersectional perspective. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups complemented by participatory observation in language classes, we use a post-structuralist approach to examine gendered language socialization. Our research combines an intersectional framework and a Bourdieusian perspective on symbolic capital to show how women perform gender and negotiate their roles in classrooms, within families and vis-à-vis the host society. The findings demonstrate that being a woman and a migrant presents particular challenges in learning language. At the same time, learning language allows for the re-negotiation of gender relations and power dynamics. We find that gender structures women’s access to linguistic resources and interactional opportunities as they perform language under social pressure to conform to prescribed roles as mothers, wives and virtuous, and shy women. Yet, these roles are not static: gender roles are also reconstituted in the process of language learning and gaining symbolic capital.
  • Placeholder
    ArticlePublicationMetadata only
    Logistification and hyper-precarity at the intersection of migration and pandemic governance: Refugees in the Turkish labour market
    (Oxford University Press, 2022-03-23) Nimer, M.; Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
    This article analyses the governance of migration and the Covid-19 pandemic on precarious Syrian refugees in Istanbul. Drawing from a review of state policies and interviews with refugees before and after the pandemic, we argue that the intersecting governance of migration and the pandemic compounded inequalities. While refugees initially lost their employment without notice in lockdown periods, their partial lifting revealed unequal expectations towards their labour, as they were reincorporated within even more hyper-precarious labour relations. Unlike citizens who were somewhat protected by the state, refugees were under the limited care of international funders and subject to the whims of the market. Pandemic governance resulted in increased hyper-precarity and the need to rely on individual coping mechanisms for refugees. This research shows how shifting inclusion and exclusion shapes refugees' hyper-precarity related to Covid-19 governance, transforming Syrians into 'market buffers' to prevent or delay bankruptcies.
  • Placeholder
    ArticlePublicationMetadata only
    Migration regime and “language part of work”: Experiences of Syrian refugees as surplus population in the Turkish labor market
    (Sage, 2020-10) Nimer, M.; Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
    The literature on migration, language and employment is dominated by the human capital approach and promotes multilingualism as a universal good. This paper examines the relationship between language and work for migrants illustrating how they are ascribed value as capital according to their position and the "language part of work." First, we trace a genealogy of the migration regime in relation to the labor and linguistic market of migrants in Turkey, characterized by informality and exploitation. Then, we look at the experiences of refugees qualitatively to show how language is differentially valued and has modest effects on social mobility. We argue that language learning instead of stemming from individuals' possession of capital should be examined within a broader linguistic and employment framework. This research goes beyond conventional wisdom about the centrality of language as a means to improve employment by shedding light on the structure that shapes language value.
  • Placeholder
    ArticlePublicationMetadata only
    'We always open our doors for visitors' - Hospitality as homemaking strategy for refugee women in Istanbul
    (Oxford University Press, 2021-09) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Nimer, M.; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
    This article examines social relations for Syrian women in Istanbul by focusing on micro-level lived relationships of hospitality. Through an ethnographic, qualitative approach to key sites of encounter, the article explores how migrants navigate a public milieu in which hospitality has partially been taken away from the local community's moral oversight in a context of a national political discourse on hospitality. We also analyze 'hosting' and 'guesting' as mutually negotiated and contested practices. This study highlights the agency and resistance strategies of Syrian women to their 'differential inclusion' into Turkish society. It examines how they navigate (in)hospitality and also unpacks the use of virtuous dimensions of hospitality (1) to reverse discriminatory ethnic and class discourses and renegotiate subjectivities that are imposed upon them as 'guests'; (2) to bring forward perceived cultural similarities between Syria and Turkey; and (3) to revalorize their roles and status in their families. The contribution of this study is to focus on hospitality as a means of theorizing how women navigate complex and conflicting, familiar and yet also new, social ecologies as they make themselves at home.