They Are Our Fellow Citizens – Migration and Beyond
Veli Cetintürk (Volume editor)
Summary
Arguing that migration is no longer a temporary phenomenon but a lasting reality requiring permanent institutional adaptation, the book proposes the fellow citizenship paradigm as an inclusive urban social contract. The cases of Antalya and Karaman illustrate how language barriers and spatial concentration shape integration processes, while the discussions of skilled migration and climate migration highlight emerging challenges and potential policy responses. They Are Our Fellow Citizens presents migrants not as passive recipients of assistance but as active co-bearers of rights and responsibilities within the urban commons.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Foreword
- Introduction: International Migration and Beyond (Veli Ercan Çetintürk and Erol Esen)
- Informal Forms of Discrimination Against Migrants, Prejudice, and the Rise of Urban Tension (Esra Kaya-Erdoğan)
- International Regulations in Combating Discrimination and Their Reflections on Türkiye (Damla Mursül)
- Migrants and Intercultural Communication (Serpil Bardakçı Tosun)
- International Migration Management in Türkiye (Gülseren Ergün and Çiğdem Akman)
- Antalya’s Migration Profile and Migrants’ Living Experiences in the City (Erol Esen and Ebrar Sines Maratok)
- Refugees and Urban Cohesion: A Research in Karaman Province (Gülseren Ergün and Sefa Usta)
- The Dynamics of Highly Skilled Emigration From Türkiye After Year 2000 (Evrim Anıl Evirgen and Ali Çağlar)
- Climate Crisis and Climate Refugees as a Result of Climate Change (Fatma Övüç Çatal)
- Notes on Cotributors
Figures
Antalya’s Migration Profile and Migrants’ Living Experiences in the City
- Graph 6.1. Provinces with the highest number of immigrants with residence permits in 2025.
- Graph 6.2. Top four nationalities in Türkiye with residence permits in 2025.
- Graph 6.3. Distribution of residence permit numbers in Antalya province by nationality in 2025.
- Graph 6.4. Districts with the highest concentration of migrants in Antalya in 2025.
- Graph 6.5. Neighborhoods closed to migrants in Antalya in 2025.
The Dynamics of Highly Skilled Emigration From Türkiye After Year 2000
- Figure 8.1. Demographic window of opportunity of Türkiye compared with Japan and Brazil (Can & Avcı 2019: 213).
- Figure 8.2. An overview of the International Migration Transition of Türkiye (İçduygu 2014: 10).
- Figure 8.3. The three phases of Turkish migration policy in the NDPs and the weight given to highly skilled labor policies (Kilic & Biffl 2022: 2051).
- Figure 8.4. Various stages of the Migration Transition in Türkiye, 1923–2013 (İçduygu 2014: 10).
- 8Figure 8.5. Immigration and Emigration of Türkiye (2016–2023) (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1484002/Turkiye-net-migration/ Accessed: 13.08.2024).
- Figure 8.6. Age distribution of Turkish Emigrants for 2022 (https://data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=International-Migration-Statistics-2022-49457&dil=2, accessed 13 August 2024).
- Figure 8.7. Migration destination choice drivers (Dudu & Rojo 2022: 142).
Climate Crisis and Climate Refugees as a Result of Climate Change
Tables
International Migration Management in Türkiye
Antalya’s Migration Profile and Migrants’ Living Experiences in the City
Refugees and Urban Cohesion: A Research in Karaman Province
- Table 7.1. Factor analysis and reliability test.
- Table 7.2. Reasons that lead refugees to migrate.
- Table 7.3. Reasons for refugees to choose Türkiye.
- Table 7.4. Reasons why refugees choose Karaman.
- Table 7.5. Perception of adaptation to the country and city of refugees according to their Nationality.
- Table 7.6. Perception of adaptation to the country and city of refugees according to their education levels.
- Table 7.7. Perception of adaptation to the country and the city of refugees according to the duration of residence in Karaman.
- Table 7.8. Perception of adaptation to the country and city of refugees according to their status in the country.
- Table 7.9. Perceptions of refugees’ adaptation to the country and the city: regression analysis.
10The Dynamics of Highly Skilled Emigration From Türkiye After Year 2000
Foreword
Migration is one of the most significant phenomena of our time, and it affects Türkiye in many ways. Beginning in the 1960s, the migration of Turkish laborers—initially to Germany and later to various European countries—has resulted in nearly 5 million people of Turkish origin living abroad today. In the post-war period, Türkiye first emerged on the international stage as a country of emigration. However, with the onset of the civil war in Syria, it also played the role of a “bridge of life” for millions of Syrian refugees crossing into Europe and other countries. Around 2015, Türkiye began to host approximately 4 million forced migrants. In the following years, the number of all migrants living in Türkiye reached nearly 6 million at one point. This marked Türkiye’s transition from being merely a country of origin or transit to also becoming a destination country.
Of course, with the rising number of migrants, migration has come to be seen as a contributing factor to the economic and social challenges Türkiye has faced particularly following the pandemic, the Russian–Ukrainian war, and the devastating earthquake that affected 11 provinces. These events exposed shortcomings in both policy-making and administrative practices concerning migration. Problems in implementing earlier policies and legal frameworks, along with the inadequate living conditions provided, have shown that Türkiye still lags behind countries with longer histories of receiving migrants. When combined with low public awareness and a lack of information on the topic, migration while lifesaving for some can also give rise to communities that are vulnerable to or associated with violence.
12“They Are Our Fellow Citizens” was chosen as the main title of the awareness training organized in the spring semester of the 2023–2024 academic year, reflecting the inclusive approach advocated by migration policies and laws in Türkiye. Nearly 100 participants took part in the training program, which was organized by the Akdeniz University Center for Social Policy and Migration Studies (ASPAG) and held weekly in Antalya and Alanya. The 10-week training program targeted active members of migrant associations, staff from central and local government institutions serving migrants, and other NGOs. Titled the “Institutional Awareness Training Program” and subtitled “International Migration and Intercultural Communication,” the program featured experienced researchers and experts from Antalya, Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. It was conducted with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Association.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the various departments of Akdeniz University, represented by its Rector, Prof. Dr. Özlenen ÖZKAN, as well as to the Antalya Provincial Migration Administration and the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality for their contributions to the preparation and organization of the training program titled “They Are Our Fellow Citizens – International Migration and Intercultural Communication.” We also thank the students who worked with ASPAG during the program, as well as our project assistant, Natali UYAR.
We hope this book will inspire academics, practitioners, and policymakers engaged in the field of migration studies.
Editors
Introduction: International Migration and Beyond
Introduction
Increasing conflicts, economic fluctuations, climate-based risks, and labor mobility accelerated by digitalization on a global scale have placed migration at the center of local governments’ agendas (Castles et al. 2020). Türkiye, embodying the characteristics of a transit, destination, and source country simultaneously (İçduygu 2020), faces governance needs at the urban scale due to the majority of migrants living in cities. This situation transforms local governments into significant actors in migration issues, as highlighted by the literature on the “local turn” in migration (Caponio & Borkert 2010; Scholten 2013; Zapata-Barrero et al. 2017). This book was created within the framework of a seminar series organized as part of the project “They Are Our Fellow Citizens: International Migration and Intercultural Communication Antalya In-House Awareness Training Program,” jointly conducted by the Akdeniz University Center for Social Policy and Migration Studies (ASPAG) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Association Istanbul. The primary aim of the project is to ensure that the migration received by Antalya can be addressed rationally at the local level. Additionally, it seeks to contribute to the development of relations between the city’s new residents migrants and the local population and local administrative institutions within a framework of “fellow citizenship law” that recognizes migrants’ human rights and their rights to access urban services.
Details
- Pages
- 232
- Publication Year
- 2026
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631949788
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631950067
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631948620
- DOI
- 10.3726/b23624
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2026 (September)
- Keywords
- Local governments migration integration migration policies
- Published
- Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2026. 232 pp., 13 fig. b/w, 12 tables.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
Biographical notes
Erol Esen (Volume editor)
Veli Cetintürk (Volume editor)
Erol Esen, Ph.D., is a professor at Akdeniz University and Director of the Center for Applied Research on Social Policies and Migration Studies. Veli Ercan Çetintürk, Ph.D., specialises in local governance and migration studies. He is currently a lecturer at Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University.
