Organizational Unit: Humanities and Social Sciences
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Book PartPublication Restricted Conclusion(Springer, 2023) Şahin-Mencütek, Z.; Gökalp-Aras, N. E.; Kaya, A.; Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan BethThe findings of this in-depth case study provide insights for generalisations about how strategic temporality may operate in other refugee-hosting countries as well as specific findings about state responses to mass migration situations. Some key findings can be summarised as including a (1) complicated and fragmented legal system, (2) multiplicity of actors, (3) re-nationalisation and restrictiveness, (4) increased complexity and uncertainty in all layers of rules and practices, (5) consistent liminality experienced by refugees. These characteristics are observable in concrete policy practices in diverse sub-policy fields involving remote border controls, blocking reception, downgrading protection and slowing integration. As we showed, the concept of strategic temporality, along with its related components of liminality, uncertainty and complexity, is helpful for understanding state responses across time and sub-policy fields.
ArticlePublication Metadata only From competitive to multidirectional memory: a literary tool for comparison(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Sert, Deniz Şenol; International Relations; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen Günay; SERT, DenizRecent research shows that Turkish society is very polarized and that different identities and ideological perspectives are in constant struggle with each other. In a multicultural society such as Turkey’s, the question of how to think about the relationship between different social groups’ histories of victimization becomes crucial. Following Michael Rothberg’s conceptualization of multi-directional memory – beyond competitive memory, this article presents an archive for comparative work through a data set of novels on the military coups in Turkey. The major argument here is that while these novels are promoting the idea of competitive memory as a zero-sum game, if it is looked at more closely, there are traces of multi-directionality, of ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Doing so, it is argued, would help to reframe justice in the society, where different victimizations are not competing with each other, but start to talk to each other. This article is an attempt to create a literary tool of comparison on different stories of victimization as a first step towards transitional justice in a polarized society.ArticlePublication Metadata only Gender of trauma in İstanbul İstanbul(Taylor & Francis, 2020-09-01) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen GünayBurhan Sönmez’s İstanbul İstanbul (2016) is a powerful addition to contemporary prison novels in Turkey. The novel revolves around prisoners who experience systematic torture and are unable to escape the grim destruction that surrounds them. The discussions in the novel around Islamic faith, free will, solitude and captivity produce self-reflexive stories of memory and forgetting, in which gender also comes to the fore as an important center of gravity. In this grand scheme of brutality and torture, the only female prisoner, Zinê Sevda, is limited to sign language, and she facilitates men’s transformative recognition of their trauma through her ghostly presence. In this article, I explore how Zinê Sevda’s silent witnessing transforms men into overseers of themselves and comment on the implications of her sign language. I argue Sönmez’s play with traumatic memory and its resilience is an excellent metaphor for the recurrence of military tutelage in Turkey.ArticlePublication Metadata only Working-class entrepreneurialism: Perceptions, aspirations, and experiences of petty entrepreneurship among male manual workers in Turkey(Cambridge University Press, 2019-11) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; BİRELMA, AlpkanThis article examines working-class entrepreneurialism in Turkey from a comparative perspective. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul, the article focuses on the perceptions, aspirations, and entrepreneurial attempts of manual workers employed in formal jobs. It aims to contribute to the understudied literature on working-class entrepreneurialism, which is often overlooked or underestimated by the critical research on labor and the working class. First, the article demonstrates that the level of entrepreneurialism among manual workers is rather high. Alongside revealing the popularity of aspirations for self-employment and the working-class roots of many self-employed individuals, I present an ethnographic account of five workers' transition from wage work to self-employment. Second, the article finds that a colloquial phrase, "el isi" or "a stranger's business," is widely used to refer to wage work. I argue that this phrase perfectly manifests the popular resentment felt toward wage labor in a social milieu where self-employment seems accessible. Finally, by drawing on a review of a scattered set of studies, I claim that entrepreneurialism among working-class men seems to be quite common, especially in peripheral countries.BookPublication Metadata only In pursuit of belonging: Forging an ethical life in european-turkish spaces(Berghahn Books, 2019-01-01) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan BethBelonging is a not a state that we achieve, but a struggle that we wage. The struggle for belonging is more difficult if one is returning to a homeland after many years abroad. In Pursuit of Belonging is an ethnography of Turkish migrants’ struggle for understanding, intimacy and appreciation when they return from Germany to their Turkish homeland. Drawing on an established tradition of life story writing in anthropology, Rottmann conveys the struggle to forge an ethical life by relating the experiences of a second-generation German-Turkish woman named Leyla.ArticlePublication Metadata only Convict Labor in Turkey, 1936–1953: A Capitalist Corporation in the State?(Cambridge University Press, 2016) Sipahi, Ali; Humanities and Social Sciences; SİPAHİ, AliThe article proposes the institutional analysis of convict labor as an alternative to both (profit-oriented) economic and (discipline-oriented) political explanations. The specialized labor-based prisons in Turkey from 1936 to 1953 are brought to light by archival research and are presented here as a rich case to discuss the experiential/subjective conditions of unfree labor regimes and the structural effects of institutions on the convicts’ experiences. I argue that the state department responsible for prison labor in Turkey was transformed into a capitalist corporation with bureaucratic management, and the target of convict labor system was neither profit nor discipline, but the creation of the corporate bureaucracy itself. As a consequence, both for prisoners and for the prison staff, labor-based prisons appeared as privileged places. Hence, unfree labor was volunteered.ArticlePublication Metadata only Citizenship ethics: German-Turkish return migrants, belonging, and justice(Sage, 2018-08-01) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan BethThis article examines citizenship for German-Turkish return migrants attending monthly meetings of the Rückkehrer Stammtisch (Returner’s Meetings) in Istanbul. Meeting attendees call themselves “world citizens” and remain deeply concerned about disrespect and inequality they experience as ethnic minorities in Germany and as citizens in Turkey. Drawing on the anthropology of ethics, this research demonstrates the importance of ethical relationships for understanding these migrants’ experience of citizenship. Moving beyond work that views citizenship primarily in terms of state power and legal disciplining, this research demonstrates that citizenship for these migrants is focused heavily on an ethics of care and responsibility developed in the course of personal interactions with fellow citizens. This article also adds ethnographic specificity to the concepts of belonging and justice. It analyzes how ethical relationships established among meeting attendees confer feelings of comfort, intimacy, and a sense of shared humanity that structure migrants’ inclusion in national spaces.ArticlePublication Metadata only Forced migration and the politics of belonging: Integration policy, national debates and migrant strategies(Sage, 2023) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan BethThis research note examines the politics of refugee belonging in Germany, Sweden, Austria, United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Specifically, it explores how migrant belonging is impacted by integration policies and national political debates on immigration in these countries. Prior research suggests that refugees have little knowledge of policy, but that national political or media debates strongly impact a feeling of inclusion. Our research shows that both policy and national/media debates affect belonging. Despite widely differing legal and national contexts, the countries studied largely base integration on principles of cultural assimilation that can be hostile to “outsiders” and lead to insecure and contradictory belonging. The article also examines the strategies migrants adopt to forge belonging, depending on the national context. We find that in some contexts, migrants emphasize that they take individual responsibility for integrating and in others they build belonging on cultural and religious similarities with the host community. Thus, this research shows that the national policy environment not only impacts belonging, but also shapes the strategies migrants adopt to achieve it. The research is based on a long-term study conducted as a part of an EU Horizon 2020 project, RESPOND.EditorialPublication Metadata only In pursuit of intellectual discovery: an interview with Michael E. Meeker(Cambridge University Press, 2021-11) Sipahi, Ali; Humanities and Social Sciences; SİPAHİ, AliN/AArticlePublication Restricted Beyond legal status: Exploring dimensions of belonging among forced migrants in Istanbul and Vienna(Cogitatio Press, 2020-03-25) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan BethMigrants with precarious legal statuses experience significant structural exclusion from their host nations but may still feel partial belonging. This article explores two dimensions potentially relevant for this group’s sense of belonging: city-level opportunity structures and public political discourses. Specifically, we examine perceptions of belonging among forced migrants with similarly precarious legal statuses located in Istanbul and Vienna. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, we argue that opportunity structures in the cities provide a minimal sense of social normalness within a period of life otherwise considered anomalous or exceptional. Any articulations of belonging in this context however remain inherently tied to the conditions of legal limbo at the national level. With regard to public political discourses, migrants display a strong awareness of the role of religion within national debates on culture and integration. In a context where religion is discussed as a mediator of belonging, we found explicit affirmations of such discourses, whereas in a context where religion is discussed as a marker of difference, we found implicit compliance, despite feelings of alienation. Overall, this article shows the importance of differentiating belonging, and of cross-regional comparisons for highlighting the diverse roles of cities and public political discourses in facilitating integration.