Sociology Seminar Series of Fall 2019 will continue with Ayşen Üstübici’s presentation on ‘Refugee Receiving Districts of Istanbul and Street Level Justifications: the Role of Service Providers ‘. The presentation and discussion will take place on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019, at 12:00, in SOS143.

SOCIOLOGY TALKS by Ayşen Üstübici (Koç University)

23 October (Wednesday), 12:00-13:30

Room: SOS 143

Refugee Receiving Districts of Istanbul and Street Level Justifications: the Role of Service Providers  

Abstract: This paper discusses the mediating and boundary making role of service providers between citizens and refugee reception policies and practices.  Based on the analysis of interviews with local government officials and NGO workers and observations in two districts of Istanbul, this paper reveals the “street-level justifications” that service providers use to counter anti-refugee attitudes by the citizens. The article suggests that as street-level bureaucrats endeavour to justify their own work, they tend to re-draw ethnic boundaries. The article offers a meso-level analysis of refugee reception policies in the Turkish context and highlights the limits of initial hospitality.  The findings have wider implications for other contexts where the settlement of displaced or migrant populations is rather nascent, policies are top down and where bureaucratic structures mediate among displaced population, citizens and the resources available to them.

Bio: Ayşen Üstübici works as Assistant Professor at Koç University Department of Sociology and the Department of Political Science. She is the author of The Governance of International Migration: Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco (University of Amsterdam Press). Her areas of interest are international migration, irregular migration, externalisation of border management, social cohesion.