Research Information System
The Migration Conference 2017, Atina, Greece, 23 - 26 August 2017
As a Local Policy Problematic; Integration-Disintegration Process of Urban Refugees in Turkey
Erhan Kurtarır (Yıldız Technical University), Elif Balı Kurtarır (Yıldız Technical University)
(882) ?The majority of migrants and displaced populations move to urban areas. According to UNHCR data and The World Migration Report 2015 of IOM; 60% of refugees and 80% of IDPs are thought to live in urban areas as a result of conflict and other drivers. This massively urbanized problematic, needs local politics, local plan and local responses in order to reach a successful integration process. As becoming a local problem, social integration process of urban refugees is one of the key issues in host countries. Nevertheless, security oriented measures, international/large-scale policy measures and temporary measures for the existing problems of refugees delay the successful integration steps. For example, the key actors of the integration process, municipalities have been disabled in the face of the urban refugee crisis by the central authority of Turkey until now. This paper will compare Turkey’s and other host country’s urban policy perspectives. In order to clarify the problematic condition of refugees in Istanbul, different local experiences will be evaluated in prominent refugee destinations of Istanbul. Local responses of municipalities to these groups and identity construction process of these refugee groups on public space will be evaluated from international politics, local politics and urban planning perspectives. Finally, the paper aims to address a social debate, which has been very popular in Turkey in recent years; “Are urban refugees nurturing the cultural diversity and productivity or increasing the social and economic problems in the host society?”.