Ordinary Care: Affective Politics of Migration and the Everyday Lives of Syrian Refugees in Istanbul

Author

Yasemin Ozer, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Anthropology

Advisor

Karen Strassler

Committee Members

Jeff Maskovsky

Jonathan H. Shannon

Subject Categories

Inequality and Stratification | Migration Studies | Near Eastern Languages and Societies | Race and Ethnicity | Social and Cultural Anthropology

Keywords

urban refugees, politics of care, Turkey, Syrian war, forced migration

Abstract

This dissertation makes two significant interventions into the literature on Syrian refugees in Turkey and the anthropology of migration and refugee studies more broadly. First, it focuses on the everyday lives of working-class urban refugees and argues that “ordinary care” is a crucial means by which they build sustainable and dignified lives while living in precarity in an often hostile environment in the aftermath of war and displacement. Ordinary care, as I theorize in this ethnography, includes sharing of resources, information, and advice as well as the formation of mutual relationships between kin, neighbors, and friends. Compared to the more visible collective solidarity movements launched by refugees that often make the news, ordinary care is subtle and easily overlooked because it unfolds in the intimacy of the family home, on the street, and in neighborhood shops, cafes, and local organizations. It is informal, improvised, and tacit in contrast to top-down forms of humanitarian aid provided to refugee populations through biopolitical regimes of care. It is manifested in routines of daily life through interpersonal relationships and is oriented to the humble goal of creating some semblance of a “good/normal” and dignified life for one’s family, friends, and community. The concept has emerged from my ethnographic data collected during immersive fieldwork conducted in 2019 in three districts of Istanbul hosting the highest numbers of Syrian residents in the city, as well as cumulative research of more than a decade on refugee issues in Turkey. Second, my dissertation examines the affective politics surrounding the presence of Syrian refugees in Istanbul and documents the growing discontent and collective anxieties expressed by Turkish locals around the transformation and perceived “Arabization” of the city. It links these fraught affects to “dilemmas of care” that Turkish citizens face as they grapple with whether and how to care about (and for) their refugee neighbors displaced by a brutal war. My ethnography shows that these mounting affects of resentment, anxiety, and discontent across Turkish society are being increasingly harnessed and channeled by political actors to advocate for far-right, anti-refugee policies.

Recommended Citation

Ozer, Yasemin, "Ordinary Care: Affective Politics of Migration and the Everyday Lives of Syrian Refugees in Istanbul" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6043