WHOSEMISAFIRS?NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCE ALONG THE TURKISH–SYRIAN BORDER

Abstract

This article examines the figure of the misafir (guest) as it personifies the combined domains of everyday and institutional hospitality in Hatay, a contested border province annexed to Turkey from French Mandate Syria in 1939, and home today to over 400,000 displaced Syrians. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2012 in Hatay's administrative capital, Antakya, I focus on the perspectives of the region's bilingual (Turkish-Arabic) Jewish and Christian populations about the official misafir status of the first Syrian arrivals. I argue that the sudden transformation of Syrians from familial misafirs to governmental misafirs in the early days of the Syrian conflict ruptured the hierarchical domains of reciprocity that have historically shaped the cross-border relations between these communities. In this process, Antakya's religious minorities recognized and negotiated the limits of their own residence, difference, and citizenship in Turkey, and invoked the lived practices of hospitality that exist beside but also transcend ethnoreligious and national identities. By examining how historical articulations of religious and national difference along the Turkish–Syrian border are entwined with the figure of the misafir at the interpersonal level, this article contributes to debates on hospitality in scholarship on the Middle East and in migration literature.

Mülteci Temsillerinde Kültürel Farklılık İnşası ve Toplumsal Kabule Etkileri

“…Suriyeliler'in savaştan kaçarak Türkiye'ye sığındıkları ilk yıllarda nasıl adlandırılmaları gerektiği konusu siyasi aktörler, medya ve akademisyenler için genel bir soru olmuştur. Türk yasalarında mülteci kelimesinin sadece Avrupa ülkelerinden gelen sığınmacıları kapsıyor olması nedeniyle Türk hükümeti, özellikle ilk yıllarda, Suriyeliler'in toplum içindeki kabullerini de kolaylaştırmak amacıyla onlar için siyasal statülerini belirten kimlikler değil de "komşularımız" ve "misafirlerimiz" gibi ortak kültürel değerleri vurgulayan tanımlamalar kullanmayı tercih etmiştir (Dağtaş, 2017). Bu durum, Suriyelilerin ne şekilde adlandırılması gerektiği konusunda bir belirsizliğe sebep olmuş ve çeşitli mecralarda Suriyeliler için sığınmacı, mülteci ve göçmen adlandırmaları dönüşümlü olarak kullanılmıştır.…”

Inhabiting Difference across Religion and Gender: Displaced Women’s Experiences at Turkey’s Border with Syria

“…31 My contacts among the region's Arabophone Alawi and Christian populations, for instance, often expressed suspicions about pious Sunni Syrian refugees who fled the Assad regime and who have been "welcomed" by the governing Justice and Development Party. 32 Such suspicions have both historical and contemporary referents in the context of the Turkish state's role in the marginalization of these populations. People associate these recent demographic movements with different instances of governmental resettlements of Sunnis into the region throughout the history of modern Turkey.…”

Islam, the State and Turkey’s Syrian Refugees: The Vaiz of Bursa

“…The specific rights of those within this category were subsequently spelt out in the government's Regulation on Temporary Protection issued later the following year. It legally enshrined Syrians' access to the labour market, healthcare and education based on biometric foreigner ID cards, but did so firmly within the narrative of hosting guests (Dağtaş 2017). With only 2,500 work permits being issued to Syrians by 2014, further measures were introduced in January 2016 which attempted to strengthen the formal employment sector by extending minimum wage stipulations, exempting employers from Syrians' health insurance costs and clarifying recruitment procedures (Erder, 2016: 125;Baban, Ilcan and Rygiel, 2017: 51).…”