Ayse Caglar

Towards a Comparative Theory of Locality in Migration Studies: Migrant Incorporation and City Scale

Building on the scholarship that theorises the restructuring of cities within neoliberal globalisation, this article calls for a comparative scalar approach to migrant settlement and transnational connection. Deploying a concept of city scale, the article posits a relationship between the differing outcomes of the restructuring of post-industrial cities and varying pathways of migrant incorporation. Committed to the use of nation-states and ethnic groups as primary units of analysis, migration scholars have lacked a comparative theory of locality; scholars of urban restructuring have not engaged in migration studies. Yet migrant pathways are both shaped by and contribute to the differential repositioning of cities. Migrants are viewed as urban scale-makers with roles that vary in relationship to the different positioning of cities within global fields of power.

Locating migrant pathways of economic emplacement: Thinking beyond the ethnic lens

This article reinforces the calls, including those articulated by the editors of this special issue, for scholarship that does not rely on an ethnic lens to study migrant practices, socialities and identities. We offer a concept of migrant emplacement that focuses analytical attention on the relationship between the economic, political and cultural positioning of cities within broader networks of power and the ability of migrants to forge a place for themselves within a specific locality. Using the example of Halle/Saale in eastern Germany but calling for comparative research, the article notes the synergies between urban regeneration and rebranding efforts and the emplacement of migrants in that city through local situated and transnationally connected small businesses. Time is also shown to be a factor: a welcoming ambience and opportunity structure in urban regeneration at one point can be replaced by a reduction in possibilities at a later period.

German Turks in Berlin: Social exclusion and strategies for social mobility

Abstract The literature on Turkish migrants in Germany predominantly focuses on German Turks’ cultural manifestations and on their encounters with the majority society. It does so within a framework of reified ethnicity and/or a mystified ‘Turkish culture’. The present article concentrates on the anomalies of the social space occupied by German Turks in German society and will discuss life‐styles, practices and emergent cultural forms in the context of hindered social mobility rather than in ethnic and cultural terms. The emphasis is on their social exclusion in terms of social mobility. This emphasis introduces a new dimension into discussions on the presence of Turkey in German Turks’ lives and on their relationship with Turkey.

Rescaling cities, cultural diversity and transnationalism: migrants of Mardin and Essen

Abstract On the basis of return migration of Christians to Mardin (Turkey) and the location of migrants in Essens (Germany) nomination for the European Capital of Culture, this article focuses on the interface between urban restructuration, cultural diversity and migrant incorporation in the context of neo-liberal globalization. Despite the growing literature on the new role of culture in urban economics, scant attention has been given to the place of immigrants/returnees in urban dynamics and in the repositioning struggle between cities within and across border. This article aims to bring together the field of (transnational) migration and studies on culture in scalar politics. It argues that the structural changes taking place in the cities of migrants’ departure and settlement shape the nature of migrant incorporation and transnationalism, the narratives about migrants’ place in urban development, and the venues of translating cultural diversity into a competitive advantage in scalar politics. On the basis of the role migrants/returnees play in the involvement of supranational actors like the EU in Mardin and Essen in the prospects of urban development, this article draws attention to the impact of supranational actors in shaping territorial inequalities, as well as the local trajectories of urban politics. Finally, it raises questions about special European dynamics in changing imaginaries and topographies of cultural diversity in Europe, which go beyond conventional schemes of multiculturalism.

Displacement, emplacement and migrant newcomers: rethinking urban sociabilities within multiscalar power

This article contributes to the discussion of the everyday sociabilities that arise between migrant newcomers and local urban residents. We highlight the proximal, workplace and institutionally based social relations that newcomers and locals construct through finding domains of commonality, noting that in such instances differences are not constituting factors for the development of urban sociabilities. The urban sociabilities we describe emerge within the contingencies of a disempowered city in which all residents face limited institutional support and social or economic opportunities. Concepts of multiscalar displacements and emplacements are highlighted as useful for setting aside a communitarian bias in urban and migration studies and analysing urban sociabilities in ways that situate migrants within discussions of urban social movements.

Still ‘migrants’ after all those years: foundational mobilities, temporal frames and emplacement of migrants

ABSTRACT This article concentrates on the ‘post migrant’ perspective formulated by migration scholars and cultural producers in to analyse migrant subjectivities, and practices beyond the culturalising and ethnicising logics of migration scholarship and public debates. I put the spatial and temporal frameworks informing this approach to migrant dynamics under scrutiny and argue that this concept remains of limited analytical value as it denies migrants coevalness with ‘non-migrants’. I suggest an alternative perspective deploying concepts of displacement, disposession and emplacement, which might allow us to avoid the spatial and temporal impediments of the post migrant perspective and would instead facilitate us to approach migrants and non-migrants from within a common analytical lens. In the last part of the article, I situate the strategic success of the post migrant intervention in Vienna, despite its analytical fault lines, within the scalar dynamics of city making at a particular conjuncture in time.

Locating Migrant Hometown Ties in Time and Space

Although, at a very basic level, migration is a phenomenon of spatial mobility, the concept of spatiality in migration scholarship is under-theorized. As a result, theorizing locality beyond the national scale becomes very difficult. this is particularly apparent in comparative studies about varying migrant dynamics and agency. Questions about locality relate very closely to the units of analysis used in migration scholarship. Historically, when a comparative perspective has been applied to migrant settlement and transnational networks, the analytical parameters for comparative research have been based predominantly on the national scale. Variations in migrant settlement have been approached very often through the lens of nation-states (expressed in the idioms of “host” or “receiving” countries/states or countries of “origin”/“sending” countries/states), and the different opportunity structures these states and societies provide to migrants. on the other hand, there are approaches that do not necessarily confine their analysis of migrant incorporation and translocal ties to a national scale. in these, the city is taken to be the “context” that shapes migrant dynamics and agencies. in general, the emphasis is on the historical context and the institutional structure and discursive legacies that provide the particular opportunities available to the migrants. Very often the analysis of migrant settlement is grounded within a framework that

Turkey and Europe: Locating Homeland Ties and Re-scaling Migration Scholarship

This article aims to open a theoretical space to address the variation of migrant settlement and transnationalism in time and space beyond the national scale and ethnic lens. On the basis of the emergent homeland ties and Hometown Associations of Syriac migrants from Mardin (Turkey) in Europe it approaches migrant dynamics through the lens of the repositioning struggles Mardin has undergone within the context of neo-liberal development agendas.

Introduction: Turkish Migration to Germany-Forty Years After

2001 was the 40th Anniversary of Turkish Migration to Germany, marking four decades after the first Turkish workers began joining the ranks of Italian, Spaniard, and other migrant laborers coming north in search of employment from countries around the Mediterranean. The anniversary was celebrated with meetings, panel discussions, concerts, radio shows, and almost endless articles and editorials in newspapers. The highlight of the year, one might say, was “Turkish Day,” bringing Turkish immigrants from all over Germany to Berlin for a parade.

Chronotopes of Migration Scholarship: Challenges of Contemporaneity and Historical Conjuncture

This chapter argues that temporal regimes of migration and migrants are rather neglected in migration scholarship, and even if they are scrutinized, the focus is usually on the different ways migrants experience time and/or the disjunctive temporalities shaping their agency. The temporality of value regimes that shape the location and the value of migration and migrants in a particular space and time are hardly addressed. This chapter focuses first on the temporal frameworks of migration scholarship (particularly of integration and post-migrant approaches) as chronotopes to scrutinize their culturalizing and ethnicizing logics in analyzing, migrant practices and emplacement in areas of settlement. It argues that these perspectives are of limited analytical value as they deny migrants and non-migrants contemporaneity. The chapter suggests an alternative perspective that brings migrants and non-migrants into a common analytical lens, and it approaches the study of migrancy and migrants’ cultural production in relation to the revaluation processes of capital accumulation and urban restructuring taking place at a particular conjuncture in time. Relatedly, the chapter situates the strategic success of the post-migrant intervention and of cultural producers within the broader dynamics of city-making and wealth generation in Vienna at a particular historical conjuncture.