Children at the Margins of Labour Migration in Füruzan's Works After Germany (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
In this research transcultural studies and literary studies are combined to create a view of the situation of Turkish migrants in Germany through a new lens. The essential assumption is that literature delivers a different perspective compared to the usual approaches of empirical social research. On a theoretical level the general definitions and the state of research in this field are reviewed and discussed to serve as a starting point for the present qualitative study which analyses Migration Literature of Turkish-German authors, based on Narrative Theory. The selected elements for this research have been compiled with the assistance of critical racism theories, analysis of discrimination and selected narratives. After forming criteria deductively based on the theoretical discussion, chosen paragraphs are analysed taking cognizance of Holzkamp’s Subjective Spaces of Possibility in categories: family, school, public contacts and communal networks. The results reflect current academ...
The hard search for modernity: the Turkish female worker migration in Germany
The paper analyses the migration experience of Turkish women in West-Germany during the period of German-Turkish recruitment agreement 1961-1973. The Turkish female participation at worker migration has been for a long time disregarded, as part of a wider socio-economical phenomenon – the worker migration in Post-war Europe – generally considered as concerning only men. Thousands of Turkish women left their own country, and often their husbands and children too, to go to work in German industries. The German system of guest-worker recruitment through special gendered procedures encouraged their departures. They were often educated women, coming from big cities, in search for an effective opportunity to experience European modernity on their own. An image strongly contrasting the stereotype of Turkish women living in Germany, assumed only as Muslim, with peasant origins, tradition-bound and submissive to their own husband or father. Their migration experience reveals indeed a complicated in-between position, where those women should face simultaneously on one side the hard conditions of industry work and guest-worker life, and on the other the severity of Turkish moral codes and the attempts to defend of Turkish national honour. Nevertheless, their experience, narrated through different sources (life-stories, Turkish press, archival sources) offers a deeper insight in the social history of the Turkish migration in Europe presenting new perspectives to look differently also at the current situation of migrants.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF TURKISH MIGRATORY EPISODE IN GERMANY: FROM GUEST WORKER TO THE MARGINAL
People continue to migrate from their motherlands where their identities are built up based on cultural codes to cultural environments where diverse historical practices have created diverse identities. The movement of migration experienced in our era has emerged as an action triggered by the pursuit for prosperity directed towards societies which are said to be “industrialized”. That being said, while the movement of migration is based on prosperity, what is actually practiced is solution seeking. The potential of this practice with regard to the structural and cultural transformation of societies is a reality that movies can’t be indifferent to, as it also takes place on the agenda of politicians. While migration is one of the resources cinema is nourished with, cinema is one of the ways immigrants get familiarized with the society they have migrated into. Through the medium of movies, the house of the immigrant is intruded. Life practices are monitored at first hand and “privacy” disappears. The way pursuit for a new life is presented in movies plays a critical role in comprehending the immigrants’ departure from the motherland in search for a new place to hold on. In this context, the stereotypes used in movies which have the power to form our lives directly are inevitably effective in certain ways. Immigrant representations which are nourished with the vagrant status of the immigrants are widely being used in cinema. The vagrant status is among the most difficult dilemmas for a person as a social being to overcome. The characters in movies about immigrants likewise are portrayed as actors of difficult conditions and unhappy lives. Turkish cinema haven’t been indifferent to what immigrants experience in the countries they have migrated to and how their experiences are comprehended in Turkey. Although the Turkish immigrants have settled in some other European countries as foreign workers, the consequences of this encounter have been turned into movies on the basis of the experiences of Turkish immigrants especially in Germany. Some movies about the Turkish immigrants in Germany stand out with certain characteristics. To realize that “the newcomers were human beings while workers were expected” as outlined in a newspaper headline is among the reflexes this interest has focused on. Based on the assumption that cinema is a social means of expression, this study basically queries the transformation of the way the actors of this episode that is ventured in pursuit of welfare are reflected on the silver screen. In this context, some of the many movies about the Turkish immigrants who migrated to Germany as workers in 1960s have been selected as examples. Based on the selected sample movies, the current form of this journey which is made in search of a better life will be analyzed.
Migrant Spaces and Childhood: Growing up in Kreuzberg
URBANA: Urban Affairs & Public Policy, 2017
The relationship between place and people is a dialogical matter. There is a certain reciprocity between those two and they transform each other in the process of their interactive relationship. Migration, as a phenomenon, which effectively and endlessly changes the place with people’s touch, and the people with the place’s dynamics in turn, is an important variable in terms of place – people relationship. This study focuses on the relationships of the 2nd Generation of Turkish immigrants with the neighborhood called Kreuzberg in Berlin where their parents have settled as guest workers in 1960’s. In this sense we examine immigrant children’s growth and acculturation processes in the context of place, culture and identity. The analysis has been made around four main axes: 1. Homeland Image; 2. Households; 3. Games, and 4. School. This study is part of a broader ethnographic research on 2nd Generation of Turkish immigrants in Berlin that is in process since 2013.
Studies in Documentary Film, 2023
This article examines two documentaries that go beyond the audio-visual canon representing the guest worker from Turkey to Germany. Look, Listen Carefully (Özlem Sarıyıldız, 2021) and Gurbet is a Home Now (Pınar Öğrenci, 2021) provide a platform for migrant women to reveal their stories, expanding the sphere of representation of guest workers. Indeed, men's labor is always at the forefront of the historical guest worker migration narrative, while women's labor in the factory and domestic sphere has largely ignored. Moreover, the documentaries hold a mirror to the ongoing migration from Turkey to Germany. Both filmmakers are women and new wave migrants from Turkey to Germany, referencing a migration resulting from the growing authoritarian context in Turkey over the last ten years. The filmmakers examine the history of migration to understand their own position in Germany, engaging with the subjects of their documentaries to forge intergenerational links between migrant women. I argue that these documentaries are decolonial feminist works; they expand the sphere of representation of female guest workers, working against their historical invisibility, centralizing their voices, and contextualizing the power dynamics that have shaped their experiences.
4. The Era of "Guest Work"—a German Sonderweg of Immigration History
2016
Abstract: Hülya, a young woman who came to Germany from Turkey at the age of 17 in pursuit of a better life looks back at the age of 31. In her biographical query she relates her experiences to a social commentary on the hard and inhuman conditions of contract labor. At the same time she is critical of the common sense notions that suffering and social problems are the main consequences of labor migration. In our analytical query of "doing biographical analysis " we discuss how we interpreted Hülya's narrative and commentary in socio-historical context and also in relation to the discourse on migration from Turkey. We looked for terms to analyze agency and suffering within biographical accounts without giving priority to either of them. Referring to the analysis of another case and to the concept of "twofold perspectivity " we describe how both suffering and also pursuing