Preliminary Programme

In the last decades, Turkey has become a commonly used transit route through which migrants from Africa and Asia pass on their way to their preferred destinations, such as Europe, United States, Canada and Australia. Iraqi migrants constitute the largest group among the thousands of migrants coming to Turkey with the intention of moving to a third country. This paper aims to provide a descriptive analysis about the Iraqi transit migrants in Turkey and examines the construction and the functionining of their social networks in Istanbul from a sociological perspective. Having in mind the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of Iraqi migrants (namely, Kurds, Turcomans and Christians), I discuss their particular engagement in local and transnational social networks by using the concept of 'social capital'. Recently, migration studies scholars have been frequently employed the concept of transnationalism in varied ways. Within the general theoretical framework of transnationalism, I also investigate the validity and the limits of the concept in the case of Iraqi migrants in Istanbul, who are mobilizing and using various transnational networks. (Show less)

The paper will talk about the different experiences of the first and second- third generation rural- urban migrants in large cities, in Turkey.it is based on on-going research on rural urban migrants in three metropolitan cities in Turkey.
First generation migrants, as they moved into cities around 1960s, developed many survival strategies and their own life styles and tastes. Their children, however, who grew in a very different social environment, changed their points of reference. Is the the cultural and social capital transfered is going to be effective or what are the chances for openness to new effects? Will this change of reference,will work for better or worse for the prospects of second and third generation migrants?What are the "risks" involved? And how they deal with those risks as different from their parents?
These will be some of the questions which the paper will try to discuss. (Show less)

For many in Turkey, “to go away” has been seen as a choice for escaping the uncertainty of economic and political constraints. This paper discusses the process of ‘brain drain’ in Turkey and what will be defined as the ‘Potential Brain Drain/er’. It focuses on the causes and potential of ‘brain drain’ in Turkey in the globalisation age, via the sample of Information Technology Specialists. The IT specialists are considered as immaterial labour in the age of post-industrialisation. The concept of “potential migrant” is used for individuals who have a high potentiality of being international migrants. They have not migrated yet, but they are planning to go abroad now or in near future. It is assumed that potential migration is at least as important as actual migration. A survey was carried out in 2002 among a sample of senior/ graduate students and graduates from departments of Computer Engineering, Electric-Electronic Engineering, and Industrial Engineering in Middle East Technical University, Ankara. In addition to the survey in-depths interviews with experts engaged in information technology in Turkey were conducted. (Show less)

I would like to present part of my ongoing PhD research about the relationship between migration and extreme poverty conditions in an inner city slum neighborhood of Istanbul, namely Tarlabasi. It was originally a 19th century non-muslim middle income level neighborhood which gradually lost its original inhabitants as well as its socioeconomic status and became one of the poorest neighborhoods of Istanbul.

The population turn-over is incredibly high, that is, every 20-30 years the profile of the population completely changes in that neighborhood where no one wishes to stay long time. Among actual inhabitants are gypsies, Africans, transvestites, prostitutes and Kurdish migrants. Although Kurdish migration to Istanbul is not a new phenomenon, those who settled in this neighborhood are constituted nearly exclusively of those who experienced forced internal displacement and this aspect presents numerous new characteristics compared to the previous migration flows from East and Southeastern Turkey to the Western metropolis.
In my paper, I plan to present the physical living conditions and economic survival strategies (for example, street vending, child work…) of the Kurdish families who are directly or indirectly influenced by the internal displacement process in Turkey after 1993 and who are now living in that inner city slum neighborhood that some researchers define as a "ghetto". My intention in this paper is to see the aftermath of displacement, when the people have been displaced and settled in the metropolis, to observe their coping strategies with their new livelihood, whether they can cope with it or not. (Show less)