Abstract
This chapter analyses the transformation of the map of two pro-refugee social movement organisations in Istanbul in that period, namely, the Migrant Solidarity Network and Mülteciyim Hemşerim! through an analysis of their frames, repertoires of action, organisational structures, and their composition. The research is based upon a dozen of in-depth interviews conducted with pro-refugee activists and ethnographically inspired participant observation. The chapter employs ‘refugeehood’ as a useful category to understand how the precarious political space in Turkey defined the outlook of the pro-refugee social movement map of the city, by transforming empathy towards refugees into identification with them.
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Notes
- 1.
Amnesty International 2016. The index was prepared with a mixed methodology and an unequal selection of samples. While interviewees were selected from educated classes with access at least to higher education in most cases, the sample from Turkey was chosen among groups of less-educated individuals over 15 years of age.
- 2.
Observatory for Human Rights and Forced Migrants in Turkey, www.ohrfmt.org
- 3.
- 4.
Members of the Migrant Solidarity Network openly stated their ‘allergy’ towards academics on various occasions.
- 5.
The name Mülteciyim Hemşerim! is almost untranslatable. The movement’s website translates it as the ‘Refugees, We Are, Neighbours’ Solidarity Network. The choice of such a vernacular name is not coincidental, as the movement’s emphasis on the ‘local’ plays a significant role.
- 6.
TU1 has been involved in activism since high school. He explains that before he joined the yalın yürüyenler and later became more active in refugee support, he was involved with environmental civic movements against the building of dams in various parts of the country. TU2 was an active member of Amnesty International’s branch in Van (a city near the border between Turkey and Armenia). Although his professional work there was to a certain extent related to migrant Kurds and Afghan refugees, his transition to full-time refugee activist was due to the developments in late 2015. TU3 and TU4 were involved with anti-urban transformation movements in Istanbul before becoming actively involved in pro-refugee action.
- 7.
The code of the state of emergency of 1983 and the statutory decrees issued during the state of emergency give the government and the mayors of each city the authority to prevent entry to or exit from any city. Although no example of prevention of pro-refugee activism exists, activists in other examples were prevented from entering cities and gathering in certain locations. For the example of Northern Forests’ Defence, see http://www.kuzeyormanlari.org/2016/08/07/kuzey-ormanlari-savunmasi-ohal-engeline-ragmen-safaalan-koyu-sakinleriyle-bulustu/
- 8.
See http://mavikalem.org/wp-content/uploads/Suriyeli-Mülteciler-Alanında-STÖler-Çalıştayı-Raporu_28.05.2014.pdf/, last accessed 31 July 2017.
- 9.
‘About the Kumkapı Migrant Riot’, http://gocmendayanisma.org/2016/11/20/kumkapi-gocmen-isyanina-dair/, last accessed 31 July 2017. Similar political action took place throughout 2016 and in the first months of 2017. For the statement signed not only by pro-refugee groups but also by a range of social movements from animal rights movements to children’s rights groups and LGBTI groups in May 2016, see ‘Do not Touch my Neighbour Press Statement’, http://gocmendayanisma.org/2016/05/23/komsuma-dokunma-basin-aciklamasi-do-not-touch-my-neighbour-press-statement/, last accessed 31 July 2017. Another statement in March 2017 sharing the same political discourse over freedom of movement was issued and signed by MSN and Mülteciyim Hemşerim!. See ‘Basına ve Kamuoyuna: #KOŞULSUZ HAREKET ÖZGÜRLÜĞÜ!’, https://multeciyimhemserim.org/2017/03/07/basina-ve-kamuoyuna-kosulsuz-hareket-ozgurlugu/, last accessed 31 July 2017.
- 10.
The report was part of the 2016 issue of the annual report of Adalet Arayana Destek Grubu [Support Group for Justice-Seekers], published since 2012. İş Cinayetleri Almanağı 2016, Istanbul, 2017.
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Çelik, S. (2018). ‘We Have Become Refugees in Our Own Country’: Mobilising for Refugees in Istanbul. In: della Porta, D. (eds) Solidarity Mobilizations in the ‘Refugee Crisis’. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71752-4_2
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