The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Migration, Citizenship, and Temporary Protection in Turkey

Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees, more than 3.6 million, living in vulnerable and insecure conditions. The book "The Precarious Lives of Syrians" explores the three dimensions of precarity: legal status, spaces, and movements, and the difficulties they face include restricted access to education and healthcare, employment struggles, language barriers, identity-based discrimination, and unlawful deportations. The authors show how Syrians engage in cultural production and community-building activities to claim spaces and citizenship while asserting their rights to belong, stay, and escape.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 15 September 2021
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press

Turkey now hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, with more than 3.6 million of the 12.7 million displaced by the Syrian Civil War. Many of these refugees are subject to unpredictable temporary protection, forcing them to live in vulnerable and insecure conditions.

The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Examining the Architecture of Precarity explores the three dimensions of precarity faced by Syrian migrants in Turkey: their legal status, the spaces they inhabit, and their movements within and outside the country. The difficulties they encounter include restricted access to education and healthcare, struggles to secure employment, language barriers, identity-based discrimination, and unlawful deportations.

Feyzi Baban, Suzan Ilcan, and Kim Rygiel, the authors of the book, demonstrate that Syrians cope with their precarious circumstances by engaging in cultural production and community-building activities, as well as undertaking perilous journeys to Europe, in order to claim spaces and citizenship while asserting their rights to belong, to stay, and to escape.

The authors draw on a range of migration policies, legal and scholarly materials, and five years of extensive field research with local, national, and international humanitarian organizations, as well as with Syrians from diverse backgrounds.

The Precarious Lives of Syrians provides a thoughtful and compelling analysis of migration precarity in our contemporary context. It sheds light on the experiences of Syrian migrants and highlights the urgent need for comprehensive solutions to address their challenges and protect their rights.

Weight: 434g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780228008040