Rethinking transit migration in Turkey: reality and re-presentation in the creation of a migratory phenomenon

Abstract

Discussions of transit migration in Europe and its peripheries are not simply descriptions of an existing reality, but to some extent also a part of the process of constructing that reality in such a way that discursive practices enable policy statements to conceptualise and talk about this phenomenon. The main goal of this paper is to explore this process through the politicisation of transit migration in Europe, with a particular focus on Turkey. The essay first documents the irregular and transit migration experience of Turkey in the last thirty years with the help of several data sets. It particularly emphasises that there is a reality of transit migration in Turkey, but that there also exists other forms of irregular labour migration. The paper focuses on transit migration in Europe in the next section. It draws attention to the rather ironic fact that, while most European countries have adopted a range of restrictive control systems against incoming migrant flows, especially in the wake of September 11, their economies have been able to absorb thousands of irregular migrants. An important consequence of the economisation and securitisation of the European international migratory regime has been the politicisation of transit migration, precipitating an obsession with transit migration on the peripheries of the continent. Drawing on the insights from this discussion on politicisation of transit migration, in the following section, the paper examines the way in which transit migration in Turkey has been approached in Europe in the context of the country's accession negotiation process with the European Union