Being a Syrian in Mardin: On Feeling at Home versus Exclusion from the City
Journal Title: ViraVerita: Peer-reviewed E-Journal of Interdisciplinary Encounters - Year 2018, Vol 8, Issue 0
Abstract
In this paper, the impact of migration has been examined on a city scale. For this purpose, we have chosen Mardin, a city challenged by migration flows in the past and the present, as a case example. The similarity of Mardin to Syrian cities and the native languages of refugees, also spoken by locals, constitute features for refugees’ feeling at home. Feeling at home can only be possible when refugees appropriate the city as do locals. When appropriating the city is examined by looking at the frequency of using the city center and its places, it can be seen that refugees spend more time in their neighborhoods than locals. Moreover, the traditional gender-based division of labor among refugees are pursued more strongly after migration. Female refugees’ lives are limited to domestic sphere whereas male refugees work in short-term jobs under precarious conditions. Refugees minimize household expenses while they maximize the household income by adopting a “survival strategy”. Refugees are perceived culturally different by locals even if they belong to the same ethnic group. The border can be argued to be one of the reasons for this. It can be claimed that nation-states have been able to create different citizen profiles by establishing a border, which divides ethnicities and even families. It is, for instance, striking to witness the discourse of local Kurds referring to themselves as Turks when they make comparisons between themselves and refugees whom they see as backward people. It is also observed that gender and class play important roles at the perception of competition and threat felt from refugees. Female refugees are not welcomed, because they are accused of taking the local men away, and male refugees are not wanted, because they are accused of taking the jobs away by working for lower wages. Employers, on the other hand, are generally satisfied with the presence of refugees. As a result, the content and severity of the perceived competition and threat changes depending on what matters to the locals. It can be argued that restricting refugees’ right to the city by “pushing” them to the certain neighborhoods mitigates the locals’ perceived threat from refugees to a certain degree.
Authors and Affiliations
Meral GEZİCİ YALÇIN, Serhat Yalçın
Keywords
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