Influx of syrian refugees into Turkey and its influence on the Turkish identity
Influx of syrian refugees into Turkey and its influence on the Turkish identity

Summary/Abstract: According to the last updated UNHCR data (as of November 2021), approximately 4 million refugees fled to Turkey, out of which 3.7 million are from Syria. Such a huge influx of people ethnically, culturally and linguistically different from the Turkish citizens can be considered either as a threat or as a challenge to national identity. Although the former view is more popular nowadays, I will focus on the second one in order to present beneficial influence of immigration on building a multicultural society. In this article will I discuss the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey and try to answer the question how the influx of Syrian refugees has influenced the Turkish national identity. Article consists of three parts. The first one presents the Turkish identity in traditional and theoretical understanding. The second one depicts influx of Syrian refugees as a factor that causes changes in social and state relations in Turkey. The third part discusses the already seen impact of Syrian immigration on Turkey’s identity and its possible developments. For the aim of outlining the possible developments the identity change category (Todd 1995; Friedman 1994) was used. In order to analyze the possibility of turning Turkey into a multicultural state, as the Ottoman Empire was considered in the past, the concept of multiculturalism (Kymlicka 1995; Taylor 1992) together with the comparative method were applied. The existing secondary data were analyzed for the purpose of presenting the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey.

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