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THE LOCAL RESPONSES TO THE SYRIAN REFUGEE INFLUX: THE CASE OF DISTRICT MUNICIPALITIES OF ISTANBUL, TURKEY

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Abstract

More than two and a half million Syrian people in Turkey are concentrated in border towns and urban areas of metropolitan cities, particularly in Istanbul. Therefore, Syrian refugee influx is now considered an urban issue. In connection with this, municipalities are expected to cater more to the needs of the refugees. The literature generally confirms that responses of municipalities to these challenges are necessary but far from sufficient. Policy papers focus only on how to engage municipalities more in planning and action processes to respond to the Syrian refugee influx more effectively. This study suggests that due to the lack of clear legal responsibilities, resources and authority designated to municipalities in Turkey, the decision-making and problem-solving capacities of municipalities are varied since their engagement has been determined by their existing human capital, their status within the administrative structure, relations with civil society organizations and their ability to create alternative funding opportunities. The main aim of this study is to analyze the current situation and address various challenges municipalities face and their responses to these challenges. For this purpose, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with five district municipalities in Istanbul and the data was analyzed employing a comparative approach to grasp the peculiarities of the municipal capacities and their responses to the refugee crisis.
Local Responses
to the Syrian Refugee Movement
The Case of District Municipalities of Istanbul, Turkey
GÜLÇIN BALAMIR CO ¸SKUN, ASLI YILMAZ UÇAR
Abstract: More than two and a half million Syrian people in Turkey live in urban areas of
metropolitan cities, particularly in Istanbul. The basic needs of the Syrian population are
provided by central agencies authorized by national regulations. However as the number
of the refugees increase in urban areas and as they spend more time in their neighborhoods,
refugee movements have inevitably gained an urban character. Thus, municipalities in
Turkey are more pushed to engage in the provision of services they have no legal respon-
sibility to provide. How should municipalities respond to these challenges? This study
focuses on the case of local governments within Istanbul, and their responses to the move-
ments of Syrian refugees. For this purpose, our research team conducted semi-structured,
in-depth interviews with representatives from ve district municipalities in Istanbul. This
was then followed up by a data analysis employing a comparative approach to grasp the
peculiarities of municipal-level responses to the movements of refugee. It suggests that
local governments in Turkey develop varied responses. However, all local governments
have been pushed to find alternative ways to bypass or interpret the rules and regulations;
in some cases, they also develop discourses opposing the central government.
Keywords: refugees, local governments, Syrian refugees in Turkey, migration policy,
asylum seekers in Turkey
Since the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011, over 5.6 million people have fled Syria
to Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan; almost 93% of these displaced people live outside
camps, since the capacities of refugee shelters are extremely limited (UNHCR 2018).
This means that almost 5.2 million Syrians are dispersed in various regions of the
countries in which they live. For this reason, the total population living in camps has
stayed more or less stable, although the urban, semi-urban, and rural population has
been increasing regularly since the beginning of the refugee movement (ibid). The
case of Turkey does not differ from other neighboring countries in that the number of
Syrian refugees in Turkey exceeded 3.5 million in 2018; almost 96% 3.4 million
have settled in 10 provinces of Turkey, living outside the 26 camps in border towns
and in urban areas of metropolitan cities (DGMM 2018).
movements | Vol. 4, Issue 2/2018 | www.movements-journal.org
104 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
As the number of Syrian people has increased in urban areas, as they have begun
to spend more time in their neighborhood, and for several other reasons, it has also
become obvious that there are significant roles to be fulfilled by local governments.
Indeed, since municipalities are the closest governmental unit in their neighborhood,
Syrians have turned to them as the first contact point for their needs. Because of this,
the refugee issue has turned out to be a local and an ›urban‹ issue for Turkey, just like
in the other neighboring countries of Syria.
The increasing demand for urban and local tasks, such as social services, housing,
transportation, etc. as well as being the closest and first contact point force municipal-
ities to address Syrian refugee policies and practices. However, in Turkey, national
legislation dictates that the basic needs of refugees, such as education and health-
care services, are to be provided by national governmental agencies and the scope
of local governments’ authority related to the refugee issue is not clearly defined by
law. Nevertheless, both policymakers and researchers are already aware that munic-
ipalities carry out important work and spend significant amounts of time and money
on refugees, despite of the lack of authorization. This means that each municipality,
however, develops unique policies and practices regarding the Syrian refugee phe-
nomenon within their jurisdictions and within their limited scope of authority.
The goal of this article is to contribute to the literature on local approaches and
responses to Syrian refugee movements by comparing and contrasting data collected
from five municipalities (Ba˘
gcılar, Sultanbeyli, Kadıköy, ¸Si¸sli, and Esenyurt) in Is-
tanbul. We conclude that each municipality has developed varied approaches towards
Syrian refugees and has applied practical solutions to face these challenges, based on
their diverging political, administrative, and financial capacities.
This article consists of three parts. In the first part, we present a brief literature
review on local approaches to the movement of refugees. In the second part, we re-
view the legal-administrative dimensions of the refugee issue and conclude that the
Turkish government jealously guards its authority on the issue and avoids delegating
any power to local governments. We also show that, despite the fact that municipali-
ties have no legal authority, they are nevertheless engaged in implementing migration
policy in practice. In the third part of the article, we analyze the semi-structured in-
depth interviews that we conducted and evaluate the de facto role of municipalities in
dealing with refugees. We demonstrate that the five municipalities have all developed
specific reflexes to engage in the process, differing according to their political affilia-
tion and to their available capacities. Since there is no binding regulation that requires
municipalities to do more in terms of refugees, their ability to cope with the current
situation appears to depend solely on their own capacities and willingness. And it
should be concluded that there is an urgent need for an amendment of the rules and
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 105
regulations on migration and the role of local governments, one which would involve
local governments in refugee policy formulation and implementation.
THE LITERATURE ON LOCAL APPROACHES
TO THE SYRIAN REFUGEE MOVEMENT
The role of local governments in the policies and practices of governing Syrian
refugees has been emphasized in reports by global policymakers, and the challenges
local governments face have been stated. In this context, the Center of Mediterranean
Integration (CMI) held a workshop in Amman between May 30 and 31, 2016 on
the topic »Municipalities at the Forefront of the Refugee Crisis« with the support
of various international organizations, bringing together 140 participants, including
70 municipal representatives from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and
Europe. Participants strived to share knowledge and good practices about the role
of municipalities acquired by host communities, and to strengthen the coordination
network among them (CMI 2016). According to the CMI report, municipalities have
been forced to expand the scope of their tasks and provide education, employment,
and aid relief, as well as emergency shelter, healthcare services, etc. due to the pres-
ence of Syrian refugees. They all agreed that it was necessary to develop resilient
approaches and strategies to face future shocks and crises (ibid).
Policy papers, as it is stated above, have focused on a highly significant question:
how to make municipalities engage in the formulation and implementation of poli-
cies responding to the Syrian refugee movement (and other refugee situations) more
effectively. Nevertheless, the case studies focusing on the role of municipalities and
the challenges that they face are only now beginning to receive more attention among
scholars from different parts of the world,1and this genre of literature shows that the
approaches each municipality develops and the challenges they face widely vary.
The challenges stated above sometimes appear to point to a conflict between a more
central government vis-à-vis a more decentralized one. And local approaches have
only been addressed in a more theoretical approach within the debate on »sanctuary
cities.« According to Bauder (2016), there are dozens of cities in the USA, in Canada,
and in the UK which have attempted to protect »illegalized«2immigrants or refugees
1 | See Caponio/Borkert (2010); Betts/Ali/Memi¸so˘
glu (2017); Lidén/Nyhlén (2014).
2 | Bauder explains why he preferred this term by this means: »My use of the term ›illegal-
ized‹ migrant rather than undocumented, unauthorized, irregular, or non-status migrant is
106 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
by way of legislation or local policies that are contrary to the desires of the respective
central government:
»In the context of the USA, Canada, and the UK, four aspects define a
sanctuary city (Bauder 2017): (1) legality, i.e. an official commitment
by the municipal legislative body to support sanctuary policies and prac-
tices; (2) discourse, i.e. challenging exclusionary narratives that portray
migrants and refugees as criminal and undeserving; (3) identity, i.e. the
formation of collective identities expressing unified membership in an
urban community; and (4) scale, i.e. rejecting national migration and
refugee laws, and articulating policies and practices of belonging at the
municipal scale. These four aspects combine in various ways in differ-
ent contexts.« (Bauder/Gonzalez 2018: 125f.)
In addition to the cases in the USA, Canada, and the UK, a few cities from other coun-
tries have begun to apply similar policies without using the label of sanctuary cities.
»Refuge city« (Barcelona, Spain), »Commune of Reception« (Quilicura, Chile) or
»Solidarity City« (Freiburg, Germany) are examples of how cities develop policies
and practices to protect »illegalized« immigrants and refugees and include them in
the local community (Bauder/Gonzalez 2018). In fact, this new municipalist move-
ment reflects tensions between national governments and local authorities as well as
quests for new kinds of belonging.
What about the municipalities in Istanbul? Do they make use of sanctuary city
policies and practices?
The number of studies on local approaches to Syrian refugees’ in Turkey is rather
limited. The literature which refers to the local aspects of the Turkish case often
focuses on administrative aspects of migration. Scholars often start with a given cat-
egorization of the policies and practices between national and local governments:
social integration with local inhabitants, provision of cultural services, social work,
education, and vocational education including employment services, are considered
»local« governmental issues, whereas the bureaucratic aspects of sovereignty such
as entry into the country, implementation regarding visa and residence procedures,
and managing work permits and citizenship processes are considered to be in the
hands of the central administration (Daoudov 2015). In this framework, municipal-
ities in Turkey are called upon to play a prominent role in the social integration of
Syrian refugees (Kaypak/Bimay 2016). Within the scope of the roles attained by local
intended to draw attention to national laws, policies, and practices that deny migrants full status
or legal residency« (Bauder 2016: 1).
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 107
governments, some scholars have also explored the challenges for central and local
administrations and emphasized the legal and financial challenges that municipalities
face (e.g. Demirhan/Aslan 2015). The studies mentioned here thus approach Syrian
refugees from an administrative and legal perspective, making a few generalizations
in an effort to engage local governments in policies and practices.
The most comprehensive research on the role of municipalities in the management
of Syrian refugees was released in January 2017 (Erdo˘
gan 2017). A research team
at Hacettepe University’s Migration Research Center conducted in-depth interviews
with representatives of all the district municipalities in Istanbul. The report contained
valuable statistical data on the role of municipalities and makes policy recommenda-
tions to incorporate municipalities into the management process. The report also ex-
amined the similar legal, administrative, and financial obstacles municipalities face in
the management of this process. However, like the studies mentioned above, Erdo˘
gan
also employed a holistic approach and made generalizations about the municipalities’
responses.
As we indicated earlier, municipalities’ responses concerning the lack of legal au-
thorization for their involvement in migration policies and practices differ from each
other. We argue that these varied responses can only be captured by a comparative
analysis of the municipal approaches by employing qualitative field data. In one re-
cently published work, Yeseren Eliçin (2018) focused on the varied local approaches
to Syrian refugee movement. Her field research dealt with three district municipali-
ties of Istanbul Zeytinburnu, Sultanbeyli, and ¸Si¸sli. Using the data she obtained,
she analyzed challenges that municipalities face, as well as what types of services are
delivered to refugees, and how they are organized. According to her, »the solutions
which the mayors find are also proportional to their creativity, financial and human
resources they can deploy, and their institutional capacity« (Eliçin 2018: 94). Along
with Eliçin’s study, but not limited to its scope, we aim to contribute to the litera-
ture on the cases of municipal approaches and responses in Turkey to Syrian refugee
movements.
By employing a comparative analysis of the qualitative field data on municipal
approaches to Syrian refugee movements, we aim to analyze the distinctive elements
of approaches and responses of municipalities in Turkey to the refugee movement
within the conceptual framework of Bauder’s conceptualization of sanctuary cities.
108 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
TURKEYSSYRIAN REFUGEE POLICY:
LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS
The main pillar of the policy on Syrian refugees in Turkey is the granting of ›asylum
seeker‹ status rather than ›refugee‹ status, in that displaced people are considered
›guests‹ who have temporarily fled to Turkey to return to their country when the
emergency situation ends or to move to another country. According to this logic, it
is enough to focus on meeting the basic needs of these displaced people, particularly
those living in shelters. These basic services such as education, healthcare, and social
support are provided by national governmental agencies to Syrian refugees within
the shelters according to national rules and regulations. Moreover, since the Syrian
refugees’ movement is temporary, there is no need for long-term social integration
services and local / urban authorization, so local governments can be ignored.
Syrians as ›Asylum Seekers‹ under Temporary Protection
The main international document that regulates the legal status of refugees is the
1951 Refugee Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, agreed on in Geneva
on 28 July 1951. The Convention defines the term »refugee« and outlines the rights
related to this legal status. With the 1967 Protocol, the Convention was amended;
geographical and temporal limitations of the definition were removed, and universal
coverage was enacted. Turkey approved the Convention in 1961 by Law No. 359, and
the Protocol by a Decision of the Council of Ministers (1968). However, Turkey kept
the geographical reservation of the refugee definition and preferred to apply the Con-
vention »only to persons who have become refugees as a result of events occurring
in Europe« (Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees 1967). With this addition,
Turkey became the only member of the Council of Europe that kept a geographical
reservation to the Refugee Convention (Amnesty International 2016: 6).
The Convention and the Protocol (with the reservation) remained the basic and sole
regulation regarding migration policies in Turkey for almost 30 years. The first na-
tional regulation, called the Regulation on Asylum, was adopted in 1994 (Regulation
on Asylum 1994). Its aim was to establish the basic principles and procedures of
regulating migration and to authorize the relevant institutions to address this task. By
keeping the geographical limitation in the Regulation, Turkey declared that it would
only accept European asylum seekers fleeing persecution as »refugees«.3The Regu-
3 | The 1994 Regulation created the new category of »asylum seekers« for refugees from out-
side Europe. The Regulation can be considered to be a response to the refugee movements
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 109
lation of 1994 was revised in 2006. However, the refugee definition was maintained
as it was. In this revised version, there were some amendments concerning migrants
considered to be of Turkish origin, but there is nothing new for the others.
Therefore, when the displacement of Syrians reached its peak in the beginning of
2012, they did not qualify as refugees in the eyes of Turkish authorities according
to this legal framework. The government preferred to refer to Syrian refugees as
›guests‹ who would soon return to their country, as they expected the war to end
before long. However, this prediction did not come true, and it became necessary
to make legal arrangements to effectively address this humanitarian crisis. For this
reason, the Turkish government granted Syrians the status of »asylum seekers« in
April 2012 with a »Circular on Syrian Refugees« by the Prime Minister’s Office
(Prime Minister’s Office 2012).
As a party to the Protocol and to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Turkey permits
fleeing Syrians to reside for a »reasonable« period of time and thus provides a »tem-
porary asylum« right until they are accepted as refugees by a third country on the
condition that these people fall under the refugee category as laid out in the 1967 Pro-
tocol and the 1994 Regulation (Ertu˘
grul 2017: 157). However, with the increasing
number of Syrians who fled to Turkey, this legal framework became conspicuously
insufficient. Thus, Turkey adopted its first asylum law, Law No. 6458 on Foreigners
and International Protection, in 2013.4First, the Law defines three types of inter-
national protection: »refugees« (art. 61),5»conditional refugees« (art. 62),6and
»subsidiary protection« (art. 63).7In addition to these types of international pro-
tection, the last section refers to the category of »temporary protection«. According
to art. 91(1), »Temporary protection may be provided to foreigners who have been
forced to leave their country, cannot return to the country that they have left, and
have arrived at or crossed the borders of Turkey in a mass influx situation seeking
immediate and temporary protection« (Law No. 6458). The second paragraph of art.
coming from Iraq and Iran at the beginning of the 1990s (Regulation on Asylum 1994, quoted
according to Altunok 2017: 302).
4 | It is necessary to emphasize that this law had also been prepared according to the acquis
communautaire within the framework of membership negotiations with the EU.
5 | Those who are fleeing from events in a European country are accepted as »refugees«.
6 | Those who are fleeing from events outside Europe and who must await resettlement to a
third country are classified as »conditional refugees«.
7 | Those who are not suitable for the previous categories but who require protection because
of mortal danger in their country of origin are provided with »subsidiary protection«.
110 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
91 links the implementation to a Directive to be issued by the Council of Ministers.8
The Temporary Protection Regulation (TPR) was prepared accordingly, and entered
into force in 2014 (TPR 2014). It has constituted the framework for the procedures
and principles related to those under temporary protection. According to the TPR,
»foreigners under this Regulation can be provided with health, education, access to
labor market, social assistance, interpretation and similar services« (ibid.: art. 26).
By way of interim provisions, the TPR grants temporary protection status to Syrians
who crossed Turkey’s borders due to events that have taken place in Syria since April
28, 2011. It means that »health, education, access to labor market, social assistance,
interpretation and similar services« are legally guaranteed to them (ibid.: provisional
art. 1).
Although this new legal framework is more encouraging than the previous one, it
still contains at least two major problems. First, while under temporary protection,
Syrians cannot individually apply for international protection (ibid.: art. 16). Ac-
cording to Öztürk, this situation represents a conflict with the 1951 Convention, since
it restricts their right to apply for international protection (Öztürk 2017: 248–249).
Secondly, the TPR does not provide any time limit for temporary protection status.
This is very problematic, since the temporary protection identification document is
not equivalent to a residence permit, and therefore »its duration shall not be taken
into consideration when calculating the total term of residence permit durations and
shall not entitle its holder to apply for Turkish citizenship« (TPR 2014: art. 25).
However, as the case of Syrians shows us, this ›temporary‹ situation can persist for
years and create a roadblock to developing more specific integration policies.
The Central Administration as the Sole Actor
The administrative organization of Turkish migration policy should be analyzed in
two separate periods: before and after 2013 that is, before and after the establish-
ment of the Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM).
In the first phase of the Syrian refugee movement, before 2013, the administrative
organization of the migration policy was fragmented among various public institu-
tions. The National Police as well as governors were authorized to coordinate the
8 | For the development of the concept of »temporary protection« within the EU and UNHCR,
see Council Directive 2011/55/EC; UNHCR (2014). However, the temporary protection regime
can be also interpreted as a deviation from the refugee regime. For a detailed analysis of
temporary protection and a critical point of view, see Öztürk (2017) and Baban/Ilcan/Rygiel
(2017).
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 111
population in their respective areas. However, the task of coordinating the ›refugee
crisis‹ was given to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) un-
der the Prime Ministry in the first few years of the displacement of Syrians. The au-
thorization of AFAD was not a coincidence, since the Syrian ›influx‹ (or other mass
migration cases) was considered to be a state of emergency, similar to earthquakes,
floods, storms, etc., as it was defined in the Disaster and Emergency Management
Centers Regulation (2011). This ›emergency-oriented‹ perspective clearly dominated
the Circular issued by AFAD (2014b) on the Management of Services Provided for
Foreigners under Temporary Protection numbered 2014/4 in December 2014.
With the rapid increase in the number of Syrian refugees, and as it became obvious
that the conflict in Syria would not be temporary, a civilian agency was established in
2013 to manage migration policy: the Directorate General of Migration Management
(DGMM). Its purpose was to execute the international protection of refugees as stated
by Law No. 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection. As a civilian agency, the
DGMM was authorized to register migrants and decide on their right to movement
within the country. The DGMM registers Syrians and directs them to temporary
accommodation centers or approves their stay in a given province (Law No. 6458:
art. 24).
Syrians living in temporary accommodation centers are provided with healthcare,
education, social assistance, and other related services by the DGMM and other min-
istries and their field units. Nevertheless, Syrian refugees need more than what the
refugee camps can provide, and they flee to the cities. So, how can the needs of the
Syrian refugees living in these metropolitan areas be satisfied?
The daily humanitarian needs and health services of Syrian citizens who live out-
side the camps in Turkey have also been met by related ministries (Ertu ˘
grul 2017:
163). Syrians registered by the DGMM are provided with an ID card that gives them
access to medical and other material assistance services (see ibid.). According to Law
No. 6458 and to the Regulation of 2014, health services are under the responsibility
of the Ministry of Health, and Syrian refugees are entitled to receive treatment at
public hospitals in each province. Educational services are the duty of the Ministry
of Education, and children of Syrian citizens are obliged to register their children in
public schools.9Issues concerning employment fall under the duties of the Ministry
9 | The integration of Syrian pupils into the formal education system is a crucial problem for
the development of a culture of living together, but it is outside of the ambit of this research
paper. For more detailed analyses of this subject, see HRW (2015), Emin (2016) and Heyse
(2016).
112 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
of Labor and Social Security. Integration and social services are duties of the Ministry
of Women and Family.
Concerning the aforementioned services, the TPR and the Circular 2014/4 (AFAD
2014b) called for cooperation among public institutions, international organizations,
and other relevant institutions. It is striking that all the legal documents mentioned
make only one reference to local governments a single article in Law No. 6458,
which called on local governments alongside other public institutions, universities,
international organizations, and civil society organizations to provide suggestions and
contributions for integration activities to be carried out by the DGMM (art. 96).
In addition to national legislation on migration and Syrian refugees, regulations
dealing with local governments Law No. 5393 regarding the role and function
of urban local governments, and Law No. 442 regarding governments of rural vil-
lages also make no mention of migration whatsoever.10 As such, national rules
and regulations have remained silent regarding local governments’ role in taking care
of the urban / local needs under international or temporary protection.
Indeed, there are legal barriers that even prevent municipalities from providing
services to Syrian refugees:
1. Law No. 5393 on Municipalities limits the municipal service provision to ›cit-
izens‹, meaning that Syrian refugees are not able to benefit from any municipal ser-
vices.
2. Law No. 5779 on the Allocations to be Transferred from the General Budget to
Municipalities states that allocations from the central administration to local govern-
ments are calculated on the basis of the population (referring only to citizens) and the
scale of the municipal territories. Therefore, there are no monetary outlays earmarked
for municipalities to provide services to migrants.
As we have shown, it is clear that the central administration is the sole authority re-
garding all services to be provided under the temporary protection regime in Turkey;
this is stated in legislative documents, and there is no reference made to local gov-
ernments. However, during our interviews, we observed that local authorities have
created institutions or have been cooperating with civil society organizations in order
to provide free services and orientation to Syrians about education, health services,
and training opportunities. This means that they find or are forced to find some
bypass methods, circumventing their exclusion from being granted authority in the
10 | In the administrative structure of Turkey, given its nature as a unitary state, the national
government is responsible for providing the main public services throughout the entire country,
such as education, healthcare, security, etc., whereas local governments are responsible for local
services such as transportation, electricity, water, fire protection, etc. within their jurisdictions.
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 113
migration field, similar to what other cities worldwide have done under the sanctuary
city framework. For these reasons, it is necessary to examine their practices in more
detail.
PRACTICES: LOCAL APPROACHES AND RESPONSES
At the beginning of the Syrian refugee movement, the Platform for Monitoring Syr-
ians in Istanbul conducted detailed field research and published a report, suggesting
that housing, social assistance, healthcare, education, and employment were the main
problems for Syrians, and that municipalities were the first point of contact that they
could turn to (Platform 2013). In other words, as stated above, it is at the municipal
level where refugees primarily contact governmental institutions to satisfy their basic
and immediate needs, ranging from housing to employment.
In this section of the article, we show how municipalities have approached and re-
sponded to this unpredictable situation. In order to do so, we did a small-scale field
research to define the challenges that municipalities face, to uncover alternative solu-
tions that they have developed, and to reveal the similarities and differences between
municipalities’ practices. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews11 with
representatives from five district municipalities12 of Istanbul. Sultanbeyli, Ba˘
gcılar,
and Esenyurt are led by Turkey’s ruling party (AKP) and have the highest proportions
of refugee populations, while the other two, ¸Si¸sli and Kadıköy, are led by the main op-
position party (the CHP) and have relatively small proportions of refugees. In-depth
interviews took place with deputy mayors in charge of Social and Cultural Affairs
in the municipalities of Ba˘
gcılar and Esenyurt (AKP), an expert from the Directorate
of Social Assistance in the municipality of Sultanbeyli (AKP), an expert from the
11 | In-depth interviews have a variety of advantages over other approaches. First, as the litera-
ture suggests, the unsteady nature of macro-politics and the shifting scope of municipal involve-
ment in this complicated situation make it difficult to conduct structured interviews. Second,
semi-structured in-depth interviews provide space for interviewers to lead the interview, which
is crucial to sufficiently probe for further information.
12 | Insofar as the study was interested in exploring the differences between municipalities in
the management of the Syrian refugee movement, eight district municipalities with different
political affiliations, socio-economic structures, and proportions of refugee population were
determined in the early days of the study. They were asked for their support or legal permission,
to which only five of them responded positively. One declined, and the rest did not respond at
all. In the end, the field study was conducted in five district municipalities.
114 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
Migration Unit in the municipality of ¸Si¸sli and a researcher in the municipality of
Kadıköy (CHP).
In the following, we employ a comparative approach to analyze the interviews and
to shed light on the similarities and differences among municipalities in terms of their
approaches to the issue and the responses they have developed. We divide the most
important axes of comparison that emerged from the interviews into main categories
and present a comparative analysis of our findings under each category.
A Political Approach to Syrian Refugees
As indicated in the first section, the discourse of the Turkish Government towards
Syrian refugees has not been stable, but has been changing since the first arrival of
Syrians in 2011. At the beginning of the Syrian crisis, they were called ›guests‹ or
›brothers and sisters‹. For example, in October 2014, the AFAD reported about the
official visit of President Erdo˘
gan to Islahiye with the following headline: »(T)he
President celebrated Syrian Guests’ Bayram in Islahiye« (AFAD 2014a). However,
it has changed over time. In July 2016, Erdo˘
gan was talking about the possibility of
citizenship for refugees, in particular for qualified Syrians (BBC 2016).
This general discourse on Syrians has had different repercussions for municipali-
ties. Officials from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have preferred to use
the official narrative of the government. During the interviews, the interviewees from
the Municipalities of Ba˘
gcılar and Sultanbeyli (AKP) emphasized several times that
it was necessary to »help Syrians« because they were forced to flee their homes and
that it was a humanitarian issue. Therefore, we argue that those two municipalities
have developed a humanitarian-moral attitude and that they legitimize their actions
from this perspective. However, it is necessary to point out that the interviewee from
Sultanbeyli made some references to the rights of refugees and the need to maintain
harmonization between Syrians and the host community. It seems that international
projects that involve them and accumulated knowledge from these international net-
works Sultanbeyli is the most engaged actor in projects among municipalities in
Istanbul have moved them to a more rights-based approach, although they do
not advocate it openly. On the other hand, the interviewee from the municipality of
Esenyurt (AKP) did not explicitly contradict the general guest discourse, but added
a new economic dimension. He said that »asylum seekers contribute to the econ-
omy both as consumers and entrepreneurs. Local tradesmen also took advantage of
refugees as cheap and unlicensed labor and used them as guards to open unlicensed
workplaces« without a critical perspective of exploitation. In other words, the mu-
nicipality of Esenyurt preferred using the label »asylum seekers« and is closer to em-
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 115
ploying a more economist-utilitarian approach. In fact, this interview has confirmed
previous academic reading not only on Syrians’ roles as workers in mostly informal
sectors (Akdeniz 2014; ¸Senses 2015), but also on new Syrian entrepreneurs (Gürsel
2017). Consequently, representatives from municipalities with the same political af-
filiation as the ruling party have preferred using the national government’s term of
›guests‹ and have emphasized the ›temporary‹ character of the Syrians’ presence.
The political approach of the interviewees from the main opposition party, the
Republican People’s Party (CHP) was profoundly different. They openly criticized
the ›guest discourse‹ of the governing party and emphasized the right to have rights.
Although the refugee status of Syrians is not officially or legally recognized, they
used the term ›refugees‹ and made references to different rights that Syrians should
have. In other words, interviewees from the ¸Si¸sli and Kadıköy Municipalities (CHP)
appear to have adopted a rights-based approach towards refugees.
The municipality of Kadıköy, in fact, has tried to put this approach into prac-
tice more. The interviewee from Kadıköy emphasized that the refugee population
in Istanbul was not only constituted of Syrians, but that it also comprises Iraqis and
Afghans, as well as Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin. They emphasized the neces-
sity of creating a culture of living together for all. In order to do so, they designed a
»living room« in a neighborhood where Syrians live. The interviewee explained their
project in more detail:
»The problem that we saw was the following: There is a problem in the
intercommunication among people. They are intolerant towards oth-
ers. We brought couches, tables, and chairs and we built a living room
on the street. We wanted to emphasize the transformation from a tem-
porary situation to a permanent situation. We told them: ›You cannot
tolerate this person since you think he or she is different. Talk among
yourselves‹. There were six Syrians and six people from the local com-
munity [Fikirtepe]. They sat down and drank tea. We saw that laborers
started to talk about the difficulties they face at their workplaces and
they all found out that they had similar problems [.. .]. At the end, a
friendship environment flourished.«
As it can be concluded from this quote, the municipality of Kadıköy (CHP) has pre-
ferred to use refugee-friendly labels within a rights-based approach for the Syrian
refugees in contrast to the national discourse. In that sense the Kadıköy Municipality,
within its limited area of legal-financial authorization, attempts to establish a »unified
membership« within its locality among all disadvantages groups. The municipality
of Kadıköy uses policies and practices similar to the other sanctuary cities, but this is
116 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
not done in the form of an official commitment by the municipal organ, since munic-
ipalities are not granted such a degree of autonomy from above.
The differing political approach towards the Syrian refugee issue is also reflected
in the administrative organization and the qualifications of the personnel employed
within municipalities.
The ¸Si¸sli Municipality (CHP) has established a dedicated unit for migrants, the Mi-
gration Unit under the Directorate of Social Support Services to concern the refugee
issue (¸Si¸sli Municipality 2018). The main task of this Unit is to provide counselling
for migrants regardless of their residence status. ¸Si¸sli Municipality has also recently
built up a Center for Solidarity and Support with Refugees (2018) in cooperation with
a civil society organization (Migrant Solidarity Association 2018) as a contact unit to
provide assistance in order to direct refugees to the proper authorities especially
for health services or to provide translation services.
The municipality of Kadıköy (CHP) has consciously refused to set up a dedicated
unit for refugees since they adopted a comprehensive approach towards all migrants
and disadvantaged groups of society. The municipality of Kadıköy is also unique
in its taking the initiative to authorize a group of young, research-oriented people to
monitor and analyze issues concerning Syrian refugees and migration.
The interviewees in the municipalities of ¸Si¸sli and Kadıköy (CHP) were young,
research-oriented personnel with academic affiliations, which is common for those
municipalities, while those in the municipalities of Ba˘
gcılar, Sultanbeyli, and Es-
enyurt (AKP) were employees with a political affiliation or a bureaucratic back-
ground. Though at first glance this would appear to be insignificant for municipali-
ties, in fact it has significant repercussions for municipal approaches to framing the
refugee issue. AKP-governed municipalities were more likely to use the mainstream
terminology for Syrian refugees, whereas CHP-governed municipalities have aimed
to reframe the mainstream perspective. In this framework, municipalities close to the
ruling party are rather ready to deliver ›services‹ to accommodate ›guests‹ in a more
political and/or bureaucratic way. They emphasize the fact that Syrians are users of
public services provided by local authorities, and mayors as elected persons should
be more sensitive to the ›needs‹ of citizens who will vote in the next elections. The
interviewee from Sultanbeyli summarizes this point:
»The state must adequately explain to society the necessity of citizen-
ship for Syrians and create a consensus. It must open a way for Syrians
who want to obtain Turkish citizenship. [.. .] If providing the right of
citizenship is a difficult task to achieve, the state must provide these
people with the right to vote in the local elections where they live. Be-
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 117
cause mayors are bound to attach more importance to those who vote
for them.«
CHP-governed municipalities, on the other hand, employed research-oriented people
and they have tended to follow recent developments all over the world concerning the
migration issue; they then have used the data and information gathered from the field
to reframe the issue. Interviewees from CHP-governed municipalities emphasized
their worldwide network among municipalities, which shows that they have been ea-
ger to reframe the issue in ways that contrasts with mainstream policies and practices,
such as those of sanctuary cities.
Legal, Administrative, and Financial Barriers and Municipal Responses
Regardless of their political position regarding Syrians, municipalities have to act on
refugee issues within the boundaries of legal rules and regulations. However, munic-
ipalities do not have the authority to initiate and implement policies that respond to a
variety of Syrians’ needs, from housing to employment. Since the legal infrastructure
for municipalities to react to the refugee movement is very limited, they muddle their
way through in order to respond to local challenges. Here are their two basic roles as
defined by legislative documents and assigned to municipalities.
1. As a facilitator: According to the TPR, the authority to »ensure the establish-
ment [and] management of the referral centers and provision of services in these
centers« (TPR 2014: art. 36) lies within the governorates. As such, municipalities
are allowed to establish receiving centers or referral centers upon approval by the
governorates. Most of the demands collected in these centers are about healthcare,
education, and employment issues. Municipalities respond to these demands as facili-
tators in healthcare and education, and in most of the municipalities a referral system
has been established for hospitals, schools, and relevant offices of public agencies
(TGNA 2018: 263).
Within this context, Ba˘
gcılar and Sultanbeyli (AKP) have employed Syrian per-
sonnel for their municipality contact points and translation services. ¸Si¸sli (CHP) has
employed one Syrian refugee, who works for the Center for Solidarity and Support
with Refugees (2018), established in cooperation with civil society organizations, to
facilitate communication between refugees and local governments. The municipality
of Kadıköy (CHP) has not yet employed any Syrian personnel, but was searching for
people willing to work under a project-based contract to translate municipal reports
and documents at the time of our research.
118 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
2. As a social assistance and social services provider: According to the TPR, the
agency authorized to set procedures and principles concerning social assistance and
services is the Ministry of Family and Social Policies. However, this does not prohibit
Syrians from contacting municipalities for social assistance and services as the first
and closest unit of governmental offices.
Municipalities are authorized to provide »social assistance and services« by Law
No. 5393 on Municipalities (art. 14). This same article indicates that »municipal
services are offered at the closest level to citizens and with the most appropriate
methods« (ibid.). Thus, the use of the word »citizens« generally seems to be a barrier
to providing social assistance and services to refugees. Interviewees often refer to
art. 13 of the Law to legitimize their service provision to refugees, stating that »ev-
eryone is a fellow-townsman (hem¸sehri) of his own neighborhood. Fellow-townsmen
are entitled to participate in municipal decisions and services, to be informed about
municipal activities, and to benefit from the help of municipal authorities« (GNAT
2018: 263).13
Additionally, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) also recognized that
»many municipalities provide food, clothing, blankets, and other necessary goods for
troubled Syrians, and aid collection campaigns are organized« (GNAT 2018: 263).
Syrians in need are included in existing social assistance and protection services
(ibid.). As for the content of social assistance, we observed that none of the mu-
nicipalities provided social assistance in the form of cash. However, they all tried to
provide some level of social support in the form of clothing, educational materials for
children, etc., and encouraged refugees to take advantage of social facilities free of
charge.
To sum up, citizenship seems to be a precondition of utilizing municipal services,
and the authority to provide social assistance to refugees is regulated by the Min-
istry of Family and Social Policies. However, there is an urgent need to establish a
standardized and systematic provision of services in Istanbul’s municipalities. As a
response to this need, the GNAT’s Committee on Human Rights Inquiries (CHRI)
has recently offered to add a provision to art. 14 of Law No. 5393 to »do or carry
out integration services for immigrants« and add a provision to art. 15 to »carry out
services in regular and unregulated migration areas if needed« (ibid.: 264). This
13 | Babao˘
glu and Kocao˘
glu have noted that referring to a »fellow-townsman« to provide ser-
vices to Syrian refugees does not necessarily provide a safe cover for municipalities, since
various questions arose during audits by the Court of Accounts (2017: 505). But the authors
did not give any details about these questions.
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 119
regulation may provide the legislative infrastructure necessary for the municipalities
when engaging in services with a local element.
Another part of the problem is that there is no communication system between
central and local governments in terms of budgeting, which means that there is no
financial incentive for municipalities to respond to refugees’ needs. According to Law
No. 5393, there are two kinds of revenue for municipalities: their own budgets and
allocations from the central administration. In terms of their own budgets, refugees
do not contribute to the municipalities’ budgets, because they do not pay local taxes
since they are not citizens. On the other hand, allocations from the national-level
budget is calculated solely on the basis of the local population of citizens. The Syrian
population is not included in the calculation of these budget shares. Therefore, the
presence of more refugees does not lead to an increase in allocations from the central
budget to municipalities. The CHRI has also offered an amendment, suggesting that
»the number of migrants and asylum seekers residing in these municipal territories
should also be taken into account for a share of the central administration [budget]«
(ibid.).
Our interviewees from Ba˘
gcılar and Sultanbeyli Municipalities (AKP) emphasized
that not including the Syrian population in the calculation of the local budget consti-
tuted a profound challenge. Our interviewee from Sultanbeyli explained the problem
in these words: »The budget allocated to municipalities depends also on the num-
ber of citizens living there. It is necessary to provide additional funding according
to [the number of] refugees living in this municipality. In this way, municipalities
can offer public services more easily Additionally, the interviewee from Ba˘
gcılar
pointed out that there has been an increase in demand for infrastructure services such
as garbage and wastewater, and that they had to supply these services without any
financial compensation.
In sum, as the interviews demonstrate, local governments have been pushed into
carrying out the provision of social assistance and social support services, even
though they are not granted any legal responsibility or any financial authority. In this
sense, none of the municipalities has been allowed to commit themselves to support
sanctuary policies and practices, nor have any of them rejected national migration and
refugee laws, but they have often tended to circumvent or reinterpret existing rules
and regulations to expand their role with the help of informal or formal governance
networks.
120 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
Formal and Informal Governance Networks
We conclude from the interviews that the lack of formal legal authorization has led
municipalities to engage with the issue in an informal manner, by cooperating with
civil society and market actors to mobilize local human and financial resources in
responding to the problems of refugees.
This informal governance on the local scale can be found in different forms in each
neighborhood, since each municipality cooperates with different NGOs and civil so-
ciety organizations. During the interview, the representative from Sultanbeyli (AKP)
explained that they needed to find a way to organize services and to finance them
after the settlement of the first Syrians in 2014. They quickly decided to establish
an association, Association for Assistance Solidarity and Support with Refugees and
Asylum Seekers (Mülteciler ve ˇ
gınmacılarla Yardımla¸sma Dayanı¸sma ve Destek-
leme Derneˇ
gi) which could raise donations and make applications to national and
international funding. The interviewee also noted that they had very close relations
with the Association: he and some other officials from the municipal government
were members of the board of directors. Therefore, assuming that this Association
has been acting under the control of the municipal government would not be a major
stretch of the imagination. It has offered refugees various services, including health-
care, psychological support, and education. The association itself is located in a
building with eight floors, where each floor is reserved for different services provided
for refugees. To illustrate the capacity and efficiency of this association, the health
service department can be an informative case in point. The first floor is reserved for
clinics. When we asked about health services offered to refugees, our interviewee
explained:
»Thirteen Syrian doctors work in this Center. If the problem cannot be
solved within our clinic, we send patients to the hospital, accompanied
by a translator. There is nothing that comes from the central budget.
It does not come from the municipality’s budget. We create different
methods of financing. We have more than 170 patients every day. We
examine also patients coming from other districts.«
The interviewees (there were two people) from the municipality of ¸Si¸sli (CHP)
also referred to their cooperation with the Migrant Solidarity Association (Göçmen
Dayanı¸sma Derne˘gi). The Center for Solidarity and Support with Refugees (2018)
was established in October 2016 in their neighborhood in cooperation with the Mi-
grant Solidarity Association, Expertise France and the municipal government of ¸Si¸sli.
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 121
Similar forms of governance networks, formal and informal, between municipali-
ties and civil society organizations can be observed throughout all the municipalities
of Istanbul (Eliçin 2018: 85–88). In brief, the governance network in each neighbor-
hood signals the potential of institutionalizing the provision of social support and as-
sistance services through civil society organizations by circumventing national rules
and regulations.14
Personal Ties and Political Affiliations
There is one significant point to consider which we also noticed during the inter-
views the data about refugees (how many refugees were living in the neighbor-
hood, where they were living, what they were doing to earn their living, etc.) within
municipal jurisdiction was not clear for all municipalities.
According to art. 52 of the TRP, the DGMM is responsible for registering asylum
seekers and storing their information; the Directorate may also deliver information
to other public agencies (Kurtba¸s/Andiç 2016). Nevertheless, rules and regulations
fall short of establishing a clear-cut information flow between governmental agencies
and also between the DGMM and municipalities. Due to this, there is an information
asymmetry about the statistics on refugees between different municipalities. This
asymmetry leads municipalities to establish their own databases and conduct their
own surveys with their existing capacities.
In order to collect demographic information on refugees, the Sultanbeyli Munic-
ipality (AKP) has developed a database system. The municipality has gathered the
data by visiting each house in the district, whereas the Ba˘
gcılar Municipality (AKP)
does not have an established database. However, the interviewee said that they can ob-
tain the data when needed. Their personal and political connections with the DGMM
help them to get information in this process.
The case is different in the CHP-governed municipalities. The ¸Si¸sli Municipal-
ity (CHP) does not have a database or even formal data on refugees, and they state
that they cannot communicate with the government agencies in order to obtain the
required data. Their personnel is eager to collaborate with academia, but rapid bu-
reaucratic appointments and displacements that took place in the related department
of the ¸Si¸sli Municipality have served as barriers that prevented establishing any long
term collaboration. On the other hand, the municipality of Kadıköy (CHP) had al-
14 | We have also been informed about an extraordinary case such as building and managing
schools for Syrians with the cooperation of the private sector, civil society organizations, and
the municipalities themselves.
122 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
ready engaged in some field studies in the previous years and disseminated the find-
ings within the Municipality. There is also an ongoing field study in collaboration
with a university to collect data on refugees.
In sum, there is an information asymmetry resulting from the lack of a formal
communication flow between governmental agencies and local governments. This
gap is filled by informal networks of municipalities. In this manner, AKP-governed
municipalities are able to mobilize their political affiliations to get information easily,
whereas CHP-governed municipalities are not able to do so. The municipality of
Kadıköy (CHP) uses its already established networks in academia to fill this gap, as
it is indicated above.
In order to maintain a well-coordinated administration of asylum seekers and/or
migrants, a well-organized communication flow integrating all municipalities without
engaging in latent discrimination between them seems vital. In fact, data is important
for municipalities to engage in policy formulation and implementation. This reveals
another hole that legislation must fill.
CONCLUSION
Local governments are the first points of contact for refugees who need assistance
for the basic and immediate problems they are faced with. However, in Turkey, rules
and regulations concerning refugees only grant authority to the central government.
Nonetheless, the national government has seemed reluctant to delegate any legal or
financial-administrative authority to local governments. The lack of a legal autho-
rization in Turkey was expected to result in the reluctance of local governments to
engage in policymaking and implementation regarding refugees. However, drawing
on the findings of our field research, we can show that this is not the case; in fact,
municipalities are highly engaged in the Syrian refugee issue.
Since local governments have no legal, financial, or political-administrative re-
sponsibility and authority, they have not been asked to engage in the formulation and
implementation of policies to tackle the migration/refugee issue. In fact, there are
legal and financial barriers that even prevent them from providing social and other
services for refugees, such as citizenship and residence issues framed by municipal
law. Though local governments seem keen to contribute to the amelioration of the
problems in refugees’ lives, their contribution and involvement are still ad hoc rather
than demanded by law.
In light of this, the approaches of municipalities to Syrian refugees have var-
ied. We have determined two dominant approaches that municipalities utilize: a
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement | 123
humanitarian-moral approach, and a rights-based approach. AKP-governed munic-
ipalities prefer to use labels such as ›guests‹ in line with the general discourse of
the government, while CHP-governed municipalities have developed a more refugee-
friendly discourse and have emphasized a rights-based approach to refugees, contra-
dicting the central government’s narrative. Among the CHP-governed municipalities,
the municipality of Kadıköy is the one that applies policies and practices most similar
to those of sanctuary cities. They consciously use the label of »refugees« for Syrians,
but this is not considered a form of official commitment, or »scaling« in Bauder’s
terminology. At this point of the debate, it should be noted that the case of Turkey is
distinct from those of the USA, Canada, and the UK, since its unitary state structure,
meaning a highly centralized administrative structure and a correspondingly limited
area of legislative and executive jurisdiction given to municipalities constitutes an en-
tirely different context. Within this limited area of jurisdiction, the municipality of
Kadıköy has attempted to »challenge the exclusionary narratives« (Bauder/Gonzalez
2018: 125f.) and has tried to form an identity among all disadvantaged groups.
In terms of practical responses, it is common for all municipalities to interpret the
laws in a way that differs from traditional interpretations, such as the case of art. 13 of
Law No. 5393, where municipalities have made use of the »fellow-townsman« con-
cept to provide services to refugees. They have also tended to circumvent the legal
framework, creating alternative methods of financing service provisions for Syrian
refugees by participating in formal and informal governance networks. Therefore,
each municipality has cooperated with one of the associations, or other civil society
organizations, on refugees, bearing similar approaches to refugees, within their for-
mal or informal governance networks. Lastly, municipalities have tended to use their
existing networks (personal, political, institutional, etc.) to get the necessary data on
Syrian refugees, since national rules and regulations fall short of regulating the com-
munication flow between central and local governments. AKP-governed municipal-
ities have mobilized their personal ties and political affiliations to get data on Syrian
refugees (the overall number of refugees, demographic features, their addresses, etc.)
regarding their neighborhoods from the central agencies, whereas CHP-governed mu-
nicipalities have been more eager to cooperate with academia to collect this data from
the field directly.
In sum, considering the substantial differences in financial and administrative ca-
pacities between municipalities, we argue that resolving the lacunae in the legislation
is an urgent matter to facilitate the engagement of municipalities in Syrian refugee
policies and practices.
124 | Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar
Funding: The data used in this article was collected in the framework of Project
No. PB2017–BAHAR–˙
I˙
ISBF–2, coordinated by Aslı Yılmaz Uçar, which has been
financially supported by Altınba¸s University.
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the representatives of municipalities
for their valuable insights. We are also immensely grateful to anonymous reviewers
for their comments that greatly improved the manuscript.
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Inhalt
Der NSU-Komplex und das Prozess-Ende
im Kontext aktueller Migrationspolitiken. Editorial
Juliane Karakayali, Bernd Kasparek 9
Leros: Island of Exile
Beth Hughes, Platon Issaias, Yannis Drakoulidis 21
Aufsätze
Arbeit, Migration und Logistik.
Vermittlungsinfrastrukturen nach dem Sommer der Migration
Moritz Altenried, Manuela Bojadžijev, Leif Höfler,
Sandro Mezzadra, Mira Wallis 35
Grenzkontrollen als ›dauerhaftes Provisorium‹?
Renationalisierungsprozesse im Schengenraum
am Beispiel der Brennerroute
Matthias Schmidt-Sembdner 57
Die Entmenschlichung der Grenze. Zur Bedeutung von Technisierung
im EUropäischen Migrations- und Grenzregime
Maria Schwertl 77
Local Responses to the Syrian Refugee Movement.
The Case of District Municipalities of Istanbul, Turkey
Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun, Aslı Yılmaz Uçar 103
movements | Vol. 4, Issue 2/2018 | www.movements-journal.org
Essay
Die Urbanität des Jungle.
Calais und die Möglichkeit einer migrantischen Stadt
Thomas Müller, Sascha Zinflou 129
Forschungswerkstatt
Better Migration Management.
Die GIZ im Euro-Afrikanischen Grenzregime
Naemi Gerloff 163
In Gewahrsam von Dokumenten.
Eine ethnographische Untersuchung der Abschiebungshaft
Therese Lerchl 185
Urban Informality and the Boundaries of Belonging.
Notes on Ethnicity, Nationality and Class in Nouakchott, Mauritania
Hassan Ould Moctar 201
Interventionen
Life, Journey, Migration. Enforced mobilization of an academic
Mine Gencel Bek 225
Über das Recht, komplex zu sein
Ria Prilutski 233
Autor
_
innen 243
Autor
_
innen
Moritz Altenried is a post-doctoral researcher at Leuphana University Lüneburg and
an associate member of the Berlin Institute of Integration and Migration Research at
Humboldt University Berlin. His research interests include labour, migration, digiti-
zation as well as logistics, infrastructure and global political economy.
Manuela Bojadžijev is professor for Globalised Cultures at Leuphana University Lü-
neburg and vice-director of the Berlin Institute of Integration and Migration Research
at Humboldt University Berlin. She specializes on migration and racism in Europe,
and on cultural analyses and theory. Her research focuses currently on issues of the
changing conjunctures of racism in Europe as well as on mobile labor and logistics
in a digitized economy.
Gülçin Balamir Co¸skun received an MA degree from the University Paris 1 Panth-
éon-Sorbonne and her PhD degree from International Relations Program at Istanbul
University. Her research focuses on authoritarianism, political violence and refugees.
She currently works as a guest researcher at the Institut für Sozialwissenschaften,
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her ongoing project focuses on the role of media
control as a symptom of democratic backsliding in the AKP era.
Yannis Drakoulidis is a photographer based in Athens, Greece. His work has been
extensively published and he works in the fields of architecture, music, design and
book publishing.
Mine Gencel Bek is currently a DFG-funded Mercator fellow at Locating Media,
in the University of Siegen. Her research, teaching and civic engagements focused
on journalism, peace and trauma, media and gender equality, media and children
rights, communication policies in Europe, and changing media forms, technological
innovations and the use of participatory tools in civic advocacy. Her current research
is entitled »Mobilization of Digital Diaspora: Networking Migrants via Mobile«.
244 | movements Vol. 4, Issue 2/2018
Naemi Gerloff studied Social Anthropology and holds a Master degree in Peace- and
Conflict Studies from the University of Marburg. Her research interest lies on politics
of migration management and the shifting constellations of transnational border regi-
mes, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa. She currently works in a women’s counseling
center in Hamburg and is freelancing in the field of political education.
Leif Höfler is a former student assistant at the Berlin Institute of Integration and
Migration Research at Humboldt University Berlin. His research interests include
migration, refugee-studies and mobile labor.
Beth Hughes is the Head of Architecture at the Royal College of Art. She has worked
on projects of all scales, public and private, around the world. Former associate at
OMA, she now has her own practice based in London.
Platon Issaias is an architect, researcher and educator currently co-director of MPhil
Projective Cities in Architecture and Urban Design at Architectural Association and
a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art.
Juliane Karakayali ist Professorin für Soziologie an der evangelischen Hochschule
Berlin und arbeitet zu Migration, Rassismus und Geschlechterverhältnissen. Sie in-
teressiert sich aktuell insbesondere dafür, wie natio-ethno-kulturelle Zugehörigkeits-
ordnungen in der Institution Schule relevant werden.
Bernd Kasparek ist Diplom-Mathematiker und Kulturanthropologe, Gründungs-
mitglied des Netzwerks kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung, im Vor-
stand der Forschungsassoziation bordermonitoring.eu und im Bereich der politischen
Flüchtlingssolidarität aktiv. In seiner Beschäftigung mit dem europäischen Grenzre-
gime stehen vor allem Fragen politischer Paradigmen, die europäische Grenzschutz-
agentur Frontex sowie die Auswirkungen des so genannten Dublin-Systems im Vor-
dergrund.
Therese Lerchl hat Geographien der Globalisierung an der Goethe-Universität Frank-
furt studiert. Sie interessiert sich für die Verschränkung von Geographie und Recht
unter dem Blickwinkel der Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (ANT) und Performativität. Ih-
re Themen sind Migration, Aufenthalts- und Asylrecht, bürokratische Praktiken und
Dokumente.
Sandro Mezzadra teaches political theory at the University of Bologna and is ad-
junct research fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society of Western Sydney Uni-
versity. He has been visiting professor and research fellow in several places, inclu-
ding the New School for Social Research (New York), Humboldt University (Berlin),
Autor
_
innen | 245
Duke University, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (Paris), University of
Ljubljana, FLACSO Ecuador, and UNSAM (Buenos Aires). In the last decade his
work has particularly centered on the relations between globalization, migration and
political processes, on contemporary capitalism as well as on postcolonial theory and
criticism. He is an active participant in the ›post-workerist‹ debates and one of the
founders of the website Euronomade (http://www.euronomade.info).
Thomas Müller ist Politikwissenschaftler und Historiker. 2008 promovierte er an
der RWTH Aachen über völkisch-nationalistische Konzepte der deutschen Westgren-
ze. Neben antirassistischer Arbeit in regionalen Kontexten forschte und veröffent-
lichte er u.a. über Grenrzegime, Raumkonzepte der europäischen Integration und
NS-Westforschung. Aus Recherchen in Calais resultierte der Band Dynamiken der
Jungles. Calais und das europäisch-britische Grenzregime. Er arbeitet im Stadtarchiv
Aachen.
Hassan Ould Moctar is a PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the
Department of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London. He holds an MSc
in Migration and Ethnic Studies which he obtained from the University of Amster-
dam. His doctoral research focuses upon the social and political effects of EU border
externalisation policies in Mauritania. It is funded by a National University of Ireland
travelling studentship.
Ria Prilutski, Soziologin, promoviert zur sozialen (Im)Mobilität in der deutschen
Migrationsgesellschaft und war bis Oktober 2018 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am
Institut für Soziologie der Universität Jena. Ihre Lehr- und Forschungsschwerpunk-
te sind kritische Migrationsforschung, Rassismus, Klassismus und Intersektionalität.
Als Mitglied von Medinetz Jena e.V. beschäftigt sie sich mit rassismuskritischer po-
litischer Bildungsarbeit und kämpft für den gleichen Zugang zur Gesundheitsversor-
gung.
Matthias Schmidt-Sembdner ist Ethnologe, promoviert an der Georg-August-Uni-
versität Göttingen. Mit seinem Forschungsschwerpunkt auf das Europäische Grenz-
regime beschäftigt er sich mit Europäisierungs- und Renationalisierungsprozessen in
den europäischen Migrationspolitiken, der innereuropäischen Transitmigration von
Geflüchteten und den Konflikten um die Verteilung von Asylsuchenden in der Euro-
päischen Union. Seit 2015 arbeitet er ethnographisch entlang der Brenner-Route.
Maria Schwertl is an anthropologist who has worked and studied at the Univer-
sity of Munich and the University of Göttingen. She has done research on migrati-
on&development, material transnationalism and NGOs as well as border technologies
246 | movements Vol. 4, Issue 2/2018
and has quit science in 2018 to get out of structures she no longer wanted to support
as well as bear.
Mira Wallis is a research associate and PhD candidate in the project Digitization of
Labour and Migration at the Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC) at Leuphana Univer-
sity Lüneburg. She is also an associate member of the Berlin Institute of Integration
and Migration Research at Humboldt University Berlin. Her current research interests
include digital labour, mobility and migration, logistics, and social reproduction.
Aslı Yılmaz Uçar received her BS from the Political Science and Public Adminis-
tration Department at Middle East Technical University and earned her PhD from
Ankara University. She has been working as a faculty member in Altınba¸s University
since 2013. In her research as a postdoc, she focuses on the local government history
especially in the Early Republican period in Turkey.
Sascha Zinflou ist in Benin und in Deutschland aufgewachsen und seit mehr als 20
Jahren Aktivist in migrantischen und antifaschistischen Initiativen. Er hat unter ande-
rem zur Geschichte von Bewegungen Schwarzer Menschen in Deutschland, Schwar-
zen Menschen im Nationalsozialismus und Rassismustheorie veröffentlicht. Sascha
Zinflou ist Diplom-Mathematiker und arbeitet als Unternehmensberater.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
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The President Celebrated Syrian Guests' Bayram inİslahiye
AFAD (2014a): The President Celebrated Syrian Guests' Bayram inİslahiye. URL: afad.gov.tr [01.04.2017].
No Safe Refuge. Asylum-Seekers and Refugees Denied Effective Protection in Turkey
Amnesty International (2016): No Safe Refuge. Asylum-Seekers and Refugees Denied Effective Protection in Turkey. URL: amnesty.org [01.06.2016].
Erdogan'dan Türkiye'deki Suriyelilere vatandaşlık açıklaması. BBC of 3
BBC (2016): Erdogan'dan Türkiye'deki Suriyelilere vatandaşlık açıklaması. BBC of 3 July 2016. URL: bbc.com [26.04.2017].
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