Deniz Yükseker

A Belated Awakening: National and International Responses to the Internal Displacement of Kurds in Turkey

Internal displacement has replaced the flows of border-crossing refugees as the major form of forced migration across the world in the past two decades. International organizations seek to have a central role in providing assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) although this phenomenon comes under the traditional realm of state sovereignty, in contrast to the refugee regime, which is part of international law. The evolving international IDP regime has triggered policy and scholarly debates about various aspects of state responsibility and international assistance. On one hand, when states fail to provide protection to the displaced, the decision to take international action is often selective and depends to a large extent on the balance of geopolitical interests of powerful donor states. On the other hand, extant international humanitarian assistance practices also face criticism for having created new modes of power over displaced groups. The displacement of several hundred thousand people in the Kurdishpopulated southeastern region of Turkey during the 1990s and recent deliberations about how to protect and assist them constitute a very important case which demonstrates the nexus between the workings of the interstate system, state sovereignty and the regulation and control of target populations. After years of neglecting the plight of people evicted from their homes in the course of the armed conflict with Kurdish guerillas,

Astray and stranded at the gates of the European Union: African transit migrants in Istanbul

This paper discusses the consequences of EU migration control policies on irregular and transit migration in Turkey by focusing on African migrants. Our argument is that the EUs concern with transit migration through the Mediterranean and hence its externalization and securitization of migration control have contributed to Turkeys becoming a waiting room for irregular and transit migrants. Based on the findings of a survey with African migrants in Istanbul and analysis of secondary sources, we show that many African migrants get stranded in Turkey. In the absence of an institutional setup for migration management and the prevalence of a security approach, migrants are faced with humanitarian problems and human rights violations.

Die türkische Migration nach Westeuropa und die Migrationsstudien in der Türkei

Uber die Turkei bestehen, auch in der Turkei selbst, zahlreiche Gemeinplatze. Tiefe Kenntnisse sind damit leider nicht verbunden. Einer dieser Gemeinplatze besagt, die Turkei sei ein „Auswanderungsland und die Wiege der Zivilisation“. Obwohl die Turkei in historischer Hinsicht tatsachlich ein Auswanderungsland ist, gehoren die turkischen Migrationsstudien als Folge einer politisch bedingten Retardierung zu den spat entwickelten Sparten der Sozialwissenschaften.