A More Effective Refugee Policy: Reinvestigating the Socio-Economic Composition of Syrian Refugees in Turkey.

• Author: Chang, Ching-An
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

After the eruption of the Syrian uprising in 2011, millions of Syrians were forced to flee to neighboring countries. Turkey hosts almost four million Syrian refugees -the highest number of any country (1)- yet the hospitality of the Turkish government and its people have created many internal issues. Various studies and reports have identified the challenges the country has encountered as a result of the arrival of the Syrians; these include economic deterioration, environmental damage, and cultural confrontations. (2) Because all hope has been lost for seeing a mass return of Syrians to their home country in the near future, many studies have suggested that the Turkish government should focus on developing a long-term strategy for integrating the refugees into Turkish society. (3)

Refugees, by definition, are people who flee their countries due to domestic disaster to seek refuge in another place. They are widely considered to be in an inferior socio-economic position relative to citizens and are typically depicted as people who lack resources and must accordingly seek assistance from host countries or other organizations. Nevertheless, we should not forget that before becoming refugees, most were professionals in different fields. This is certainly true for many of the Syrians now living in Turkey. While they are portrayed by the mainstream media and studies homogenously as unfortunate people, onefourth of these individuals (more than 800,000) are working in the labor market; others include businesspeople, doctors, teachers, and university students with various types of capital. (4) More than 10,000 Syrian-owned companies have been established in Turkey since 2011; 23,000 Syrian teachers, 27,000 Syrian students registered at Turkish universities, and another thousand Syrian doctors have arrived in Turkey as part of the refugee wave. (5) Furthermore, Syrian professionals have established various organizations or websites, for example, the Syrian International Business Association (SIBA) for Syrian businesspeople, Association of Syrian Engineers in Turkey for Syrian engineers, and Doctors Directory for Syrian doctors. (6) These organizations can facilitate the local authority's communication with their members.

The total number of these groups constitutes only an estimated 2-3 percent of the Syrian refugee population, and they can be considered socio-economic elites. Members of this relatively small but significant segment of the Syrian refugee society have rarely been studied by scholars, nor have they been considered by local governments planning integration policies. One exception is the recent, limited literature on the emergence and challenges of Syrian refugee entrepreneurs. (7) Therefore, to gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities the Turkish government has encountered, this paper examines how these refugees -in particular businesspeople, teachers, students, and doctors- could potentially make a positive contribution to their host country. The paper does not judge whether refugees have a positive or negative impact on host countries; instead, it argues that acquiring a deeper understanding of the diverse socio-economic composition of the refugee population can help to counter the view that refugees are simply a burden. It may also facilitate the planning of an effective refugee policy.

Methodology

The data in this article are based on two sessions of fieldwork conducted in Turkey; these consisted of 129 semi-structured, open-ended interviews with Syrian refugee businesspeople in Istanbul, Mersin, and Gaziantep in 2014 and 2015. Later, in January-February 2020, I revisited Istanbul to interview 21 Istanbul-based Syrian refugee businesspeople. During both fieldwork sessions, I had the opportunity to interact with another dozen Syrian non-businesspeople and to engage in deep conversations with them. Approvals were gained from the universities' ethics committee and the names of the interviewees were anonymized as per their requests. (8) Despite the six-year time span between the two sessions of fieldwork, since we did not witness a massive re-emigration of Syrians from Turkey to other countries in that period, the continuation of Syrians living in Turkey and their further settlement indicate that the data still reflect the general situation of Syrians in Tukey. Each interview took between one and two hours, and some interviewees were interviewed more than three times. Among all the interviewees, only two were Syrian businesswomen. As a male researcher, it was not easy for me to arrange interviews with businesswomen. The lower representation of businesswomen among the interviewees may also be attributed to the greater difficulties they encounter in Arab countries compared to their male counterparts, resulting in the fact that there are far fewer of them. (9)

The criteria for the Syrian sample of refugee businesspersons in this research were as follows: those who formerly worked in business and had been registered in the Syrian chambers of commerce prior to relocating to Turkey, and who are currently registered in the relevant local Turkish organizations. A snowball recruitment approach was applied to achieve an expanded data set. In addition, I visited the local chambers of commerce and industry in both Istanbul and Gaziantep. Through introductions from the chambers' staff members; I reached other Syrian businesspeople outside of the snowball recruitment. Additionally,

I attended a social event with SIBA in Turkey in 2020, as a result of which I interviewed an additional two businesspeople. I conducted the interviews with Syrian businesspeople mostly in standard or Levantine Arabic. The interview questions related to the interviewees' relocation and settlement, the scale of their businesses and business practices, their challenges, and their strategies for living in Turkey. Because the situation in Syria is still unstable, all the interviews were anonymous for the safety of the interviewees. During the interviews, I immediately wrote down the responses and then transcribed them onto a laptop using Evernote software. Again for reasons of confidentiality, when quoting or referencing the businesspeople's words, I identify the respondents only by their cities of origin, the business sectors in which they work, and their current cities of residence. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the raw data. After coding the data, four key themes emerged: their decision-making in undertaking a relocation, the establishment of their businesses, the challenges they are encountering in Turkey, and the strategies they have applied to address these challenges.

The Context of Syrian Refugees in Turkey: A Rapid and Unselective Flight

An unprecedented revolution took place in Syria at the beginning of 2011. Toward the start of the revolution, people took to the streets in peaceful protest, demanding the basic rights enjoyed by citizens elsewhere in the world. However, the brutal suppression of these unarmed civilians by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ignited their long-term dissatisfaction with an authoritarian regime. The peaceful demonstrations escalated into armed conflict between the government forces and opposition fighters, which quickly increased in intensity. In mid-2012, the Assad regime's top officials were bombed in a government building in the capital of Damascus in the South, and the opposition took control of an industrial area in the second biggest city, Aleppo, in the North. (10) The situation worsened and, after the intervention of foreign governments both in the region and beyond, the revolution became a civil war. The lack of safety gave many Syrian citizens no choice but to leave their country.

The question of where to flee from their war-torn homeland was the most crucial consideration in the minds of these innocent civilians. At first, most Syrians thought the conflict might end soon, and some decided to move to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon to remain nearby.

Others chose to flee to Egypt, an Arabic country with an acceptable cost of living. It is not difficult to understand that geographic proximity dictates higher numbers of refugees; most Syrians followed a natural route. Turkey drew a higher number of Syrians from the northern provinces, and Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt received more from the southern provinces. As of January 2022, the officially registered number of Syrian refugees was 5,684,672, with Turkey hosting more than 3,700,000, Lebanon almost one million, Jordan almost 700,000, Iraq more than 250,000, and Egypt around 150,000. (11)

Although the neighboring countries seem to be a safe haven, regulations there shook the faith of the young in being able to remain. At the same time, there were reports of Syrians being smuggled into Europe since many of them no longer had any hope of going back to their homeland in the immediate future. Yet, while the European countries promised to provide asylum to refugees, only a very few refugees have been successful in this aim -those who can afford to pay the smuggling fees and who are in good enough health to survive the arduous journey to Europe. Even worse, in 2016 the EU reached an agreement with the Turkish government to prevent the arrival of refugees in Europe, which has led to international criticism of the EU's unwillingness to take responsibility for Syrian refugees. (12) The European countries combined have accepted only around one million Syrians in total, the same figure as Lebanon. (13) As a result, many Syrians began to consider their relocation to neighboring countries to be permanent, or at least greatly prolonged. For those who have remained there, pursuing a stable livelihood has become their main goal.

The phenomenon of emigration from Syria to Turkey was characterized by the rapid relocation of an enormous population; the relocation itself...