Greek Migrants in Istanbul: “Home-Leaving” or “Homecoming”?
Greek Migrants in Istanbul: “Home-Leaving” or “Homecoming”?

Author(s): Georgia Mavrodi
Subject(s): Geography, Regional studies, Present Times (2010 - today), Migration Studies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Turkey; Greece; migration; immigrants; Istanbul; POLIIS online survey;
Summary/Abstract: Most migration scholars treat Turkey as a country of emigration, a transit route, and a country of immigration for migrants and refugees from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Erzan & Kirişci 2008; Içduygu & Kirişci 2009) or a country of settlement of co-ethnic, second generation immigrants from western European countries. By contrast, the movement and settlement of EU nationals of non-Turkish descent has attracted attention only recently (Içduygu et al 2013: 3; OECD 2014), although the phenomenon lies at the intersection of key political, economic and institutional developments both in the EU and in Turkey itself (Tolay 2012; Linden et al 2012). Obviously, one of the crucial dimensions is the processes of political and institutional reforms in Turkey upon its preparation for EU membership and the impact of such changes on the rights, preferences and migration strategies of foreign nationals in general and EU citizens in particular (Içduygu et al 2013: 6-16). Furthermore, the migration of EU citizens to Turkey offers an alternative and yet undiscovered angle to view the recent rise of identity and ethnicity politics in the EU member-states (Hsu 2010), the fluid and variable geometry of European borders and identities (Del Sarto 2010), and the resulting formation of conceptions of “the other”, both in the EU and in Turkey.

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