ABSTRACT

This paper has two goals. Firstly, it aims to understand the Syrian refugee workers’ positioning within the labour process, following their forced migration to Turkey. Secondly, it compares the perception of both workers of Syrian and Turkish citizenship in labour processes and future expectations in and about Turkey. To this end, it takes the textile sector in Istanbul as a case study. The data set is comprised of six hundred and three interviews in total, three hundred and three of were conducted with workers holding Turkish citizenship, three hundred were conducted with Syrian refugees. The fieldwork, which was conducted between November 2015-January 2016, reveals that Syrian workers have a significant impact on textile industry where the informality and flexibility in labour market is substantial. In that sense, this work aims to provide a data set on the demographic structure and the differentiation of the Syrian workers from other workers in the Istanbul textile sector in terms of salaries, working conditions and job finding and working experiences.