As Turkey has become one of the leading receiving countries for asylum seekers and refugees, not only new legislative initiatives regarding the legal status of Syrians, but also immigration policies have moved to the forefront of Turkey's agenda. In parallel with recent developments, the new Regulation on Work Permits for People under Temporary Protection was enacted in 2016. Among the 3,5 million, almost half of Syrian refugees residing in Turkey are of working age population, yet the majority have been engaged in the informal labour market. We know little about how this permit to work takes effect at the local level. Drawing on structured interviews with local actors in Adana, this article shows that the absence of an integration policy drives local actors to engage in the formulation of their own integration approach, what I call "integration work", which results in varying degrees of collaboration within the same province.

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Elaborating on salient contextual factors, such as historical conditions, national history, militarised masculinity, and language, this study looks at how repertoires of everyday nationhood are deployed in relation to boundary‐drawing in the context of the recent refugee influx in Turkey. Drawing on ethnographic observations, semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with ordinary Turkish citizens in Adana, this paper sheds light on the complexities of everyday understandings of citizenship and nationhood with regards to the emergence of ‘insider versus outsiders’ notions. Results suggest that ordinary citizens evoke various notions of nationhood in everyday life in drawing boundaries against ‘outsiders’ (i.e., refugees) by deploying historically rooted national identity constructions (militaristic, unitary) and symbols (language, flag). This article, therefore, reveals a national identity boundary‐drawing mechanism involving widespread adherence to a militarised sense of nationhood, related more to other ideas of belonging than ethnicity. It further indicates that ordinary citizens, in their narratives, link such constructions and symbols with historical and current political contexts (e.g., the conflict between Turks and Arabs during WW1, or; current military operations in Syria).

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This study focuses on the role of justification astrategies in the production and mobilization of multiple deservingness framings towards refugees in everyday work life. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Turkish employers in labour-intensive sectors in İzmir, the article presents a city-centred, evidence supported case which answers on the basis of which criteria Syrian refugee workers are deemed deserving and undeserving. It argues that the production of deservingness frames is not uniform and mutable across time and space, thereby actors can engage in different justification strategies in similar situations since the constitution and mobilization of deservingness frames are context-dependent. This study further argues that Turkish employers’ narratives towards Syrian refugee workers are shaped by not only economic interests but also unique features of historical and socio-cultural dynamics at the local level, resulting in three distinct deservingness frames: established deservingness, fragile deservingness, and established undeservingness.