TURİZMDE GÖÇMEN EMEĞİNİN ÇERÇEVELENMESİ: PROBLEM SAHİPLİĞİ

Abstract

Arka plan: Turizm sektörü; mevsimsellik, düzensiz çalışma saatleri, yüksek işgücü devri ve sürekli personel bulma güçlükleri nedeniyle göçmen emeğine yoğun biçimde başvuran alanlardan biridir. Buna karşın turizmde göçmen emeğine ilişkin akademik literatür farklı disiplinler arasında dağılmış ve birbirinden ayrışan sorun tanımları etrafında şekillenmiştir. Turizm çalışmaları göçmen emeğini çoğunlukla işgücü açığı ve esnek işgücü ihtiyacı üzerinden ele alırken, göç ve emek literatürü yasal statü, geçicilik ve haklara erişim sorunlarını öne çıkarmaktadır. Son yıllarda yapay zekâ ve dijitalleşmeye ilişkin tartışmalar göç yönetimi ve kamu politikaları literatüründe görünürlük kazanmış olsa da bu tartışmaların turizmde göçmen emeğiyle nasıl ilişkilendiği yeterince açık değildir. Amaç: Bu çalışmanın amacı, turizm sektöründe göçmen emeğine ilişkin literatürde kullanılan başlıca sorun çerçevelerini sistematik biçimde haritalamaktır. Çalışma, göçmen emeğinin turizm ve konaklama çalışmaları, göç ve emek yönetişimi literatürü ile yapay zekâ ve dijitalleşme odaklı seçili çalışmalar içinde nasıl kavramsallaştırıldığını incelemektedir. Ayrıca çalışma, farklı çerçevelerin analitik sorumluluğu işletmeler, devletler, işçiler veya dijital sistemler arasında nasıl dağıttığını açıklamak amacıyla “problem sahipliği” kavramını kullanmaktadır. Yöntem: Araştırma, PRISMA ilkeleri doğrultusunda yürütülen nitel bir sistematik literatür derlemesine dayanmaktadır. Turizm ve konaklama çalışmaları, göç ve emek literatürü ile dijitalleşme ve yapay zekâ odaklı seçili çalışmalar problem tanımı ve çerçeveleme yaklaşımı temelinde incelenmiştir. Bulgular: Bulgular, turizmde göçmen emeğine ilişkin literatürün üç temel sorun çerçevesi etrafında yoğunlaştığını göstermektedir: işgücü açığı ve personel sürekliliği, güvencesiz çalışma koşulları ve insana yakışır iş eksikliği, geçicilik ve statü temelli kırılganlık. Yapay zekâ ve dijitalleşme ise yükselen fakat ikincil bir çerçeve olarak görünmektedir. Bu tartışmalar literatüre ağırlıklı olarak iki ayrı kanaldan girmektedir: turizmde operasyonel işgücü yönetimi ve kamu politikasında idari göç kontrolü. Sonuç: Çalışma, aynı işgücünün farklı disiplinlerde farklı türde bir soruna dönüştürüldüğünü göstermektedir. Göçmen turizm işçileri turizm literatüründe esnek işgücü girdisi, emek odaklı çalışmalarda kırılgan çalışan, göç literatüründe yasal statü öznesi ve dijital yönetişim tartışmalarında veri kaydı olarak temsil edilmektedir. Makalenin temel katkısı, bu problem sahipliği dağılımını görünür kılması ve böylece disiplinlerarası diyalog, bütünleştirici gelecek araştırmalar ve politika eşgüdümü için sistematik bir başlangıç noktası sunmasıdır.

Keywords

• Turizm
• Göçmen emeği
• Göç yönetimi
• Problem çerçeveleme
• Problem sahipliği

FRAMING MIGRANT LABOUR IN TOURISM: PROBLEM OWNERSHIP

Abstract

Background: The tourism sector relies extensively on migrant labour because of seasonality, irregular working hours, high labour turnover, and persistent recruitment difficulties. However, the academic literature addressing migrant labour in tourism is distributed across several disciplines and organised around markedly different problem framings. While tourism studies often approach migrant workers through labour shortages and workforce flexibility, migration and labour research foreground legal status, temporariness, and rights-based vulnerabilities. At the same time, recent debates on artificial intelligence and digitalisation have entered migration and public policy studies, yet their relationship to migrant labour in tourism remains insufficiently clarified. Objective: This study aims to systematically map the dominant problem framings used in the literature on migrant labour in the tourism sector. More specifically, it examines how migrant labour is conceptualised across tourism and hospitality studies, migration and labour governance research, and selected artificial intelligence and digitalisation literatures. The study also introduces the notion of problem ownership to clarify how different framings allocate analytical responsibility to firms, states, workers, or digital systems. Method: The study employs a qualitative systematic literature review guided by PRISMA principles. Publications from tourism and hospitality studies, migration and labour research, and selected AI- and digitalisation-focused policy literatures were analysed using a problem-framing approach. Results: The findings indicate that the literature predominantly frames migrant labour in tourism through three major lenses: labour shortages and staffing continuity, precarious working conditions and decent work deficits, and temporariness and status-based vulnerability. Artificial intelligence and digitalisation appear as an emerging but secondary frame. They enter the literature mainly through two separate channels: operational workforce management in tourism and administrative migration control in public policy. Conclusion: By mapping these framings, the study shows that the same workforce is constituted as a different kind of problem across disciplines. Migrant tourism workers appear as flexible labour inputs in tourism studies, vulnerable workers in labour-oriented research, legal-status subjects in migration studies, and data records in digital governance debates. The article’s main contribution is to make this distribution of problem ownership explicit, thereby providing a structured basis for interdisciplinary dialogue, future integrative research, and policy coordination.

Keywords

• Tourism
• Migrant labour
• Migration governance
• Problem framing
• Problem ownership.

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