What is a community? What does it mean to be a part of a community, especially when that community is not in its homeland? These are the main questions that I have been investigating during my research of the Meskhetian Turks and their experiences in Central Asia. In my first post I provided a short […]
Turkey
Educational Outcomes for Migrants in Germany: Part III
This Part 3 of my exploration into educational outcomes for migrants. You can find Part I and Part II here. In this post, I will be looking specifically at outcomes for migrants in Germany – how do migrants fare educationally in comparison with German natives? Education is seen as a way in which migrant families […]
Identity in Exile: The Expansion of the Circassian Nation?
Identity in Exile: The Expansion of the Circassian Nation Prior to the expulsion of the Circassians, or Adyge, from their homeland in the North Caucasus in 1864, the 1 to 1.7 million Circassians lived as 12 distinct tribes along the northeastern shore of the Black Sea (Richmond 2). They did not have a strong or […]
Diaspora Diplomats: Harnessing Indian and Turkish Youth Activism
With the US elections coming to a close, revolutions propping up in various international regions, and other election cycles running their courses around the globe, it’s safe to say that the youth of the world has never been more politically active. From social media trends to on the ground activism, young people are actively shaping, […]
Great Retreat: Muslim Migration from the Russian Empire to Turkey
When people think about ethnic minority groups in Turkey, they usually think about the obvious cases—Kurds and Syrians today, Armenians and Greeks in the past. However, the country’s population of 83.4 million encompasses many other smaller groups, including significant groups that came from the Russian Empire during its expansion (World Bank). If one wanted to […]
Migration : More “Push” than “Pull”
Imagine packing everything you own into one little suitcase and never having a home. Well this is the experience for Rozina. She was born in Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979. Almost all aspects of life were changed, especially for women. Rozina is a Persian name and the Iranian government disapproved of any name […]
Importing Nationalism: An Introduction to Diaspora Politics in India and Turkey
I was a high school freshman when Narendra Modi won the election as India’s prime minister in 2014. I had little to no knowledge of Indian politics, having never lived there nor understood the intricacies of the policies each political party pursued. However, my parents, grandparents, and community around me were ecstatic with the election […]
Assimilation and Belonging: Identity in Migrant Accounts
In our very first class, we discussed why migration tends to elicit such big emotions. Why is the topic of migration, for example, such an emotive political issue in the United States? De Haas says that migration is contentious and emotive because it conjures up themes of belonging and identity, both of which are very […]
The Turkish-Georgian Migration Exchange
One area of migration that I kept coming back to in our discussions of migration theory was the bidirectional labor migration I encountered while living near the Georgian-Turkish border. So many of the theories of migration (like the push-pull model, neoclassical migration theory, human capital theory, etc.) seemed to easily explain migration between high-developed, wealthy […]
The question: to migrate or to not migrate? Both exude agency, both are controlled by structures.
Gender is an important dimension of migration. Female migration workers in the past have been dismissed and defined through the patriarchal structures of society as wife, mother, and dependent on the male breadwinner. Through different aspects of international migration, however, these structures and prescribed gender roles have been slowly challenged through traditional family models, and […]