Two worlds meeting in one neighborhood: receiving society members-Afghan workers relations in Yenimahalle, İstanbul

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2290268_ (Table of Contents)

This study aims to contribute to the issue of undocumented Afghan labor immigration in Turkey by looking at the intergroup relations between immigrants and receiving society members with a sociological perspective. A squatter neighborhood in Istanbul, Yenimahalle, is selected as the research field because of the increasing number of undocumented Afghan labor immigrants in this neighborhood. The perceptions, attitudes, and interactions of the groups are analyzed to understand the intergroup relations. Data of the study is obtained from a total of 24 semi-structured and face-to-face interviews conducted in Yenimahalle neighborhood; 12 with the receiving society members and 12 with the Afghan immigrants. The findings of the study suggest that the receiving society members and Afghan immigrants perceive each other as two distinct groups, which are positioned in social hierarchy asymmetrically. While receiving society members feel pity towards immigrants and commonly commit violence against them, immigrants feel gratitude towards receiving society members and generally stay silent as a survival strategy. As a shared feeling, it is observed that these groups feel fear and anxiety toward each other. Other findings of the study suggest that there is limited social interaction between groups, and the social distance between groups has emerged as the consequence of the temporality of the immigrants, perceived cultural differences between groups, and singlehood and gender of the immigrants.