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