Proposal for Final Work

Migration from outside to Turkish mainland is not a novel experience which for the case Balkans goes back to the population exchanges in the aftermath of the First World War. Waves of migration occurred during 70’s and 80’s and lastly during after the Bosnian war in early 90’s. Hence the common acceptance of Bosnian/Balkan identity as not in conflict with the Turkish identity as the mainstream nationalistic discourse suggests, I think that this specific issue of Bosnian migrants lacks in the academic literature which gave me an incentive to write my research on.

I’m interesting on how their self perception of identity with relation to the official institutional discourse, both of the states and of their local institutions, has formed. Do they belong to their places of nationality or do they belong to the place where they moved to? What’s the interplay in between? If there’s any.

I’ll conduct my research focusing to the two (may be one?) districts of Istanbul (Pendik and Bayrampaşa-Yıldırım) where Bosnian migrant community has a population density. Other than relying on the academic literature I’ll be conducting in-depth interviews and since the community also has many foundations, associations, etc so I’ll be also looking at their official discourses.  Along with the interviews, the articles and websites which were listed below will help me through the process.

-       Ruud Koopmans and Paul Statham, 2001. 'How national citizenship shapes transnationalism: A comparative analysis of migrant claims-making in Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands' Transnational Communities Working Paper Series, WPTC-01-10. Oxford: ESRC/University of Oxford, pp.1-42

-       Georgescu, Oana. "“I am a Swede born in Bosnia with roots from Montenegro”-Communication and identity development for second generation immigrants in Sweden–a pilot study." (2012).

-       Voloder, Lejla. "Secular citizenship and Muslim belonging in Turkey: migrant perspectives." Ethnic and Racial Studies ahead-of-print (2012): 1-19.

-       Kirisci, Kemal. "Refugees of Turkish origin:“coerced immigrants” to Turkey since 1945." International Migration 34, no. 3 (1996): 385-412.

-       Fassmann, Heinz, and Rainer Munz. "European east-west migration, 1945-1992." International Migration Review (1994): 520-538.

-       http://193.170.80.15/vid/download/paa07_fliegenschneeetal.pdf

-       Türkiye Bosna Hersek Kültür Dernekleri Federasyonu

-       Bayrampaşa Bosna Sancak Kültür Yardımlaşma Derneği

-       Istanbul Anadolu Yakası Bosna Sancak Derneği

-       Pendik Bosna Sancak Sosyal Yardımlaşma Kültür Derneği

-       Sefaköy Çağdaş Bosna Sancak Dayanışma Eğitim Kültür Derneği

-       Alibeyköy Sancaklılar Kültür Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği

-       Çağdaş Balkan Türkleri Dayanışma Eğitim Kültür Derneği

Immigrants and immigrant suffering

In this very last week of our class we’re assigned to read two articles, one is by Sidonie Simith and Gisela Brinker-Gabler " Introduction: Gender, Nation, and Immigration in the New Europe ” and the other one is by Madelaine Hron “ Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture ” . The first article is very interesting gives a general understanding of the international politics and has a gender perspective but I think it is kind of hard to focus on a single blog post so I’ll be focusing on the latter one.

The article begins by providing some facts from migration todays world. And some very striking statistics mentioned that by 2005 there were around 34 million uprooted people worldwide and roughly 22% of this people are hosted at unstable countries like Iran and Pakistan. Of course the numbers don’t show any suffering of the immigrants but still gives a framework of how big is the issue.

One another important aspect of the article is a clear up attempt of the terminology. At this point I think the quote from Iva Pekarkova is meaningful. She remarks on ‘suffering enough’ to point out the distinction between immigrants and refugees and satirizes this with what she calls the ‘legal language game’ which we’ve also talked a couple of times in class ( also in one of the previous readings there was this men pretending as if to get the asylum etc.)

Academic exile vs. Immigrant I think is also important and we perhaps will be talking over it during the class.

........

And on the pain part... There’s again another great quote (this week It seems like I’m on the literature side but there are really great quotes which speak for the issue in a very dense way. Well chosen by the author) , one from Virginia Woolf who observed that literature rarely portrays bodily pain in her essay “On Being Ill”;

“English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear,”  “has no words for the shiver and the headache…. but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”

How perfectly expressed the hardness of expressing pain for a native, expert on the language...Which brings the hardship of translating (the author takes immigrant expressions as translations) the pain to another language! Do you think Pain really needs to be translated? that it is not something universal?

Through this pain and translation the article also looks to the framework of culture, genre, target language and target rhetoric ... One striking point is about the role of pain in social discourse that as politics of pain which address to Nietzche’s ‘power of the weak’. This I think is a legitimate argument in itself up to a point, but remembering the nasty outcomes of the ideology the motto turns out far repulsive to me.

Above I’ve tried to highlight the parts of the reading which are catchy to me. Some class mates were complaining about last weeks’ Derrida readings but I think this week reading are high loaded and there are many things to focus on even in one piece not something to come up with a few basic ideas. seems like too many things to cover this last week before going on with our proposals.soo see you all on monday....

Final Paper Proposal/attempt

Hello my dear friends/ followers (since these two words stand as synonyms for my blog it won’t be wrong to use it this way :P )

It’s been a long time without any posts and It also took me some time to decide on my final paper subject. Initially I wanted to write on the ‘illegal’ Armenian migrants in Turkey (remember we talked it in the class, the ones that our Prime Minister Erdoğan announced that he is aware of them but overlooks.)Anyway to find a gate was very hard especially because there is a time concern so I talked with Anine that I have an alternative idea to work on Bosnian migrant community in Istanbul which has a population density in two district of Istanbul, Pendik and Bayrampaşa-Yıldırım. I’m interesting on their perception of identity and also interesting on the differences in discourses. Do they belong to their places of nationality or do they belong to the place where they moved to? What’s the interplay in between? If there’s any I mean. The community also has many foundations, associations, etc so I’m also willing to look at the official discourse too.

I’ve also found a couple of academic articles related to the issue, unfortunately not so much dealing with the recent 1992-1995 migration but I think it’s manageable when combined with our course material.

So I think that’s all for now but if you have any suggestions, critiques, comments, etc I’ll be happy to hear. 

Another coca-cola advertisement

While looking for this week’s student discovery I found a couple things and just published one but then thought this one might also be interesting. Its’ a coca-cola advertisement aired in Spain for Euro 2012. There’s a polish men, although not literally told we understand from the name and the look, who works as a construction worker and haven’t seen his family since 2006. Here comes the advertising you get a chance to go to Poland for football games, drink more and get more chances, so our guy drinks coca-cola and the Spanish people around passes him their coca-cola bottles in a way give their chances to him. Although no single thing negative about the images of either the migrant or the host, there were some reactions to the commercial. Below I’ll share a couple of them which I’ve get from here. 

Pablo, Seville, 25 

‘The only thing the advert does is tell a story. It’s removed from the nationality of the main character. You could accuse the whole thing of digging deeper into more distorted ideas about Eastern Europe, but the main character is shown in a positive light and fights against that cliché in some way. To be honest the prejudices that exist in Spanish society against migrants from countries like Poland or Romania bother me more. I am a bit tired of the hypersensitivity of certain thematics but I can understand if this annoyed Polish people. It could have been the same thing if the clip was about a Spaniard in Germany. Actually, the most interesting thing about the advert actually is that someone found a job in Spain - in the construction sector!’

Aleksandra, Wroclaw, 26

‘It could have been worse. I don’t know anything about Poles in Spain, so maybe they would be like this construction worker, who is also a loving father and a person who has a random habit of keeping his shoes outside, on the balcony. More seriously, the only damage that this publicity may do to the image of Poles is that people will take Jacek for an average Pole in general. But I guess that would be silly, wouldn’t it? Let’s move on, go to Poland for euro 2012, and get our own opinions.’

Marysia, Warsaw, 26

‘It’s nice that with all the negative PR that Poland seems to get, like Poles coming and ‘stealing’ work (I would have mentioned the plumber and the nurse, but it’s boring), catching and eating swans in the UK (according to the Daily Mail that’s what we eat) or all the opinions on Polish racism and bad behaviour in the stadiums, that what has emerged recently is a positive image of Poles - never mind that this is a soft drink commercial used to sell more drinks.’

Türkisch für Anfänger / Turkish for Beginners

Turkish for Beginners German television comedy-drama series created by Bora Dağtekin and aired on 2006. The series were aired for 3 seasons for 52 episodes. The topics covered in the series included both typical problems of teenagers and the cross-cultural experiences. The show focuses on a blended family of German-Turkish origins- Schneider-Öztürk, in particular on Lena’s life who is the narrator of the show.16 year old Lena and her younger brother Nils are under a culture shock when their mum Doris falls in love with Metin, a police of Turkish descent and move in together. Metin has two children, a daughter named Yağmur and a son named Cem. Cliches are numerous form the way that they speak to wear and act, etc..Like youn son Cem is a classic wannabe macho and Yağmur is a devout Muslim with intolerant behavior. Two cultures are under one roof the show is the story of this Berlin multicultural family. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the link with any link with Turkish or English subtitle. But later on 2012 a movie with the same name was shot. If you would like to watch it, just click here. 

Ethnic Approach to Migration from Turkey to Germany

This week we had to cover 3 articles, plus watch a movie. I’ll try to touch upon some important points in relation to our class.

First Ibrahim Sirkeci’s short article ‘Migration from Turkey to Germany an Ethnic Approach’ deals with some important aspects and first makes out some clearance on the ‘conceptual remarks’. That is both governmental agencies and broader disciplinary specializations classifies migration flows in terms of ‘economic (labor movements) and political (asylum seekers, refugees) and in relation with his subject matter of the article ethnic conflict situation Sirkeci thinks that this distinction is not really helping. So he adopts the notion of ‘environment of insecurity’ and uses it in a war of ‘conceptualizing the role of ethnic conflict within various national migratory regimes. He suggests that this notion includes both material and non material components. His argument in the article is that migration abroad is an exit option among others and that it is a broader opportunity framework which has shaped the international migration of Turkish Kurds.

The article in general is very interesting, especially in the subsection of ‘migration as an alternative to conflict, conflict as an opportunity framework for migration’. At this point he mentions about his fieldwork in Cologne and give some examples from this work, truly interesting migrant stories.

At this point I would like to share with you a small real life story from a fieldwork which I’ve done as a course requirement with a friend. It was back in Denmark when I was an exchange student and taking a Methodology class of Anthropology we made a fieldwork which was questioning the role of kebab shops in integration. We came up with meeting some people and there were interesting life stories. One of the interviewers of us, whose father was a migrant to Sweden back thirty years ago when he was in the primary school, the father works for some time and sends money back home and also saves some and he then returns to’ home’ and buys animals with that money.  Later the son goes to Sweden as illegal migrant and then asks for asylum in economic terms. Stays there for some time and later he’s got rejected. Coming off from a Kurdish origin although when we talk he doesn’t have any special concerns in terms of ethnic conflict, he thinks that he might get the pass if he applies as a political asylum seeker and this time he was a political asylum seeker in Denmark when we met with him. Although this men openly has no problems in terms of ethnic conflict ‘off the record talks’ his cousin who already got the citizenship, whom migrated there in 80’s was very much involved with the Kurdish problem and was a truly political migration flow.  I think these are very much in line with the Cologne interviews which show that the reasons for migrating may not only be multiple but may also change over time.

It is also commonsense knowledge that the ethnic conflict is an important aspect in the Kurdish international migration from Turkey. There can be many other reasons behind and to distinguish an asylum seeker from an economic migrant is not very easy thing to say. Again it won’t be wrong to say that ethic conflict can be one among many explanatory aspects of the international migrations from Turkey.

I don’t want you reader to get bored and still I want to share you something so I’ll finalize my post after writing down a few words about the movie of the week ‘Kebab Connection’ by Fatih Akın. 

It is a family comedy and an absurd love story. The movie is of course have stereotypical images of Turkish fathers and about date relationships within the community and how young Ibo- a second generation?!- deals with all these and more with his dreams of becoming the first director of a Kung fu movie of Germany but rather makes his uncle happy to earn his money. More you see the competition among different migrants of origin Turkish and the Greek, Doner vs Gyros. While watching the movie satisfaction is not guaranteed that tastes differ. But still you may capture some hints of the migrant life in Hamburg Germany.

Ps: If you still didn’t watch the movie and in case you do not have anything to do, plus its Sunday and there’s an early class tomorrow… well you can reach it from here.

EURO-TURKS

This week for the class we’re going to cover 2 articles, one from Levent Soysal ‘Beyond the “Second Generation”- Rethinking the Place of Migrant Youth Culture in Berlin’ and the other one is from Daniela Merolla ‘“Migrant Websites”, WebArt and Digital Imagination’, and also a book co-written by Ayhan Kaya and Ferhat Kentel, ‘Euro-Turks: A Bridge or a Breach between Turkey and the European Union?’. You may purchase it from here.  

Both Kaya and Kentel are Professors from my ex-university. I had the chance to take the courses from Ferhat Hoca and as an expression of my gratitude I want to focus on the book at this post.

The book is in general is an attempt to challenge the stereotypical representations of the Turkish migrants in Europe in the eyes of both the homeland and the host countries. They used the name 'Euro-Turks' as its common tendecy that these people were categorized unlike their heteregonity in terms of their difference in economic, political, cultural,ethnic and religiousity.  The book is a comperative study of 'Euro-Turks' both in France and Germany. Below I'll point you out some highlights from the book.

It is commonsense acceptance that the migrants are highly interested and informed with the politics of the motherland country but not in tact with the host country. But the quantitive research showed that they in Germany by 42% and in France by 50 % percent of Euro-Turks were not interested in mainland’s politics. Again their preference of using voting right in homeland elections is low, unlike commonsense suggests, which is 25 % and 8 % respectively. These all shows that the Euro- Turks being intact with the home country in their civic participation is a more like a myth as the above data suggests at least in terms of their political liability.

Another striking example is about the data about the perception of the most important problems of Turkey, where attendants could vote for more than one item. Here the 2 most rated items vary, also in terms of density, too. That is where in Germany the highest rated problem of Turkey was ‘democracy and human rights’ by around 25 %, the second highly rated item was ‘ corruption, nepotism and clientalism’ which was rated by 20 %.  Where in France the top rated item was ‘corruption, nepotism and clientalism’ again voted by 20 %, this was followed by ‘suppression made to the religious people in the name of laicite’ which rated a bit less than 20%. The difference in the items highly rated I think may be can be due to the effect of the host country over these immigrants. That is their perception is effected and so is shaped by the host countries vision and their status there.

There are many interesting data like these in the book which gives the general idea of the Turkish migrant residents in both Germany and France.   

Another eye catcher from the book is about the citizenship policies; whether its about integration or assimilation. We know that Germany and France do come from different governmental institutional traditions, one hand it is the romantic cultural thought equalizing all cultures inline where at the other one is bases on the material civilizing ideal. With such thinking Kentel and Kaya sketched out a rubric of different types of assimilation and integration for the case of Euro-Turks in Germany and France based on Gordon’s (1964) definition of seven different assimilation and integration forms.

Another important aspect is about Turkish media booming the Euro-Turks. In the book we see that the Notion of Ulf Hannerz ‘habitats of meaning’ is used to explain the stiuation of the local migrant community. That is ‘TV and print media have an important impact on the formation of our habitats of meaning. Just as some people may share much the same habitats of meaning in the global ecumene, others may have rather distinct and localized habitats of meaning’. The mainland turkish media giants has up to a point have the power of shaping the habitus of meanings of the Euro-Turks. The media companies select and telecast the shows, moveis, etc. which they think will be enjoyed by the Euro-Turks was published by the companies under a seperate channel with the heading added ‘EURO’ to their Turkish cast names, such as if the name of the channel is Show TV, it is aired as Euro Show in Europe, etc.

Although with the highly concentrated usage of internet the importance and the locality factor is open to question from now on.

At this point I would like to open a parenthesis for those who enjoy media/cultural studies and have an interest in Iran. I’ve just remembered an article which I’ve read back in my undergrad studies a book by Hamid Naficy, ‘The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television inLos Angeles’. I think the book is a good and relatively easy reading which deals with the role of the media in the formation of the American- Iranian identity. 

I’ll soon finalize this entry not to make the post longer enough to bore you with the content J

I think the book of Kaya and Kentel is rather mind clearing. That is it gives you a sense of the state of the Euro-Turks for cases of Germany and France. Although I don’t generally favor the quantitative research in social sciences, I think at this point some are especially useful to have a picture which at some points contradicts with the commonsense prejudices. Also the comparison factor that the book offers is important because it raises the questions and understanding the importance of local conditions and the tradition of governance of the host country and how it effects the compliance and the acts of the immigrant.