Economies of House-ing and Labor Migration in a Global City (Istanbul)
Abstract
Istanbul has been a central hub for labor migration, production, business and trade since the 1950s. Today, the city hosts millions of migrant workers across different generations. Housing in shantytowns marked the period between the 1950s and ‘90s for the migrants. Owning such houses served as the basic means of social and economic mobility among early migrant workers. The change of the populist policies of the Turkish state during the 1990s and the economic restructuring of the country generated a different market for housing and land in the big cities. These political and economic transformations were complicated by the consequences of the war between the Turkish army and the PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan) and the forced migration of millions of rural Kurds to the cities. Istanbul has been a destination for many of them due to its economic potential, earlier networks of migrants and spatial distance from the warzone.
In stark contrast to the earlier migrants, over the last two decades, migrant workers in Istanbul face an “immoral economy of housing” and a scarcity of housing facilities. In a country where the construction sector has experienced a massive boom with significant state support, housing has nevertheless become more expensive and scarce. In this paper, I aim to analyze the relation of house-ing to labor migration among three generations of Kurdish migrant workers in Istanbul. The words house (mal) and family (malbat) come from the same root in Kurdish. House-ing occupies a central importance in the economic and affective well being of the migrants as well as the patterns of social mobility and employment opportunities. Building a house means building a new life and future. Drawing on my ethnographic research in the inner city Istanbul among the Kurdish migrant workers from different generations, I aim to explore house-ing and migration as key nodes of political-economic and affective realities in contemporary Turkey.
Bio
Onur Günay - I am a fourth year anthropology graduate student specializing in political and economic anthropology with a focus on the Middle East, Islam, Turkey and Kurds. As a documentary filmmaker trained in visual anthropology, I am also engaged in the politics and practices of migration, identity and cultural memory. In my anthropological dissertation project, I investigate the labor and identity-making practices of Kurdish migrant workers in the service and construction sectors of Istanbul. I am interested in how ethnic identities and political collectivities are being reshaped through migration and urban labor practices, in the context of Turkey’s rapid political and economic reforms. Using ethnographic research methods, I focus on rural Kurds who have settled or are settling in an urban neighborhood of Istanbul, chronicling their daily routines as they adjust to a regime of urban wage-labor. Through ethnographic engagement, archival research, and interviews with public officials, my project examines the political economy of labor migration, and asks how ethnic difference is being re-made through the processes of migration and urban labor practices.
[email protected]
Istanbul has been a central hub for labor migration, production, business and trade since the 1950s. Today, the city hosts millions of migrant workers across different generations. Housing in shantytowns marked the period between the 1950s and ‘90s for the migrants. Owning such houses served as the basic means of social and economic mobility among early migrant workers. The change of the populist policies of the Turkish state during the 1990s and the economic restructuring of the country generated a different market for housing and land in the big cities. These political and economic transformations were complicated by the consequences of the war between the Turkish army and the PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan) and the forced migration of millions of rural Kurds to the cities. Istanbul has been a destination for many of them due to its economic potential, earlier networks of migrants and spatial distance from the warzone.
In stark contrast to the earlier migrants, over the last two decades, migrant workers in Istanbul face an “immoral economy of housing” and a scarcity of housing facilities. In a country where the construction sector has experienced a massive boom with significant state support, housing has nevertheless become more expensive and scarce. In this paper, I aim to analyze the relation of house-ing to labor migration among three generations of Kurdish migrant workers in Istanbul. The words house (mal) and family (malbat) come from the same root in Kurdish. House-ing occupies a central importance in the economic and affective well being of the migrants as well as the patterns of social mobility and employment opportunities. Building a house means building a new life and future. Drawing on my ethnographic research in the inner city Istanbul among the Kurdish migrant workers from different generations, I aim to explore house-ing and migration as key nodes of political-economic and affective realities in contemporary Turkey.
Bio
Onur Günay - I am a fourth year anthropology graduate student specializing in political and economic anthropology with a focus on the Middle East, Islam, Turkey and Kurds. As a documentary filmmaker trained in visual anthropology, I am also engaged in the politics and practices of migration, identity and cultural memory. In my anthropological dissertation project, I investigate the labor and identity-making practices of Kurdish migrant workers in the service and construction sectors of Istanbul. I am interested in how ethnic identities and political collectivities are being reshaped through migration and urban labor practices, in the context of Turkey’s rapid political and economic reforms. Using ethnographic research methods, I focus on rural Kurds who have settled or are settling in an urban neighborhood of Istanbul, chronicling their daily routines as they adjust to a regime of urban wage-labor. Through ethnographic engagement, archival research, and interviews with public officials, my project examines the political economy of labor migration, and asks how ethnic difference is being re-made through the processes of migration and urban labor practices.
[email protected]