FROM SUITCASE CHILDREN TO EURO-ORPHANS: CINEMATIC PORTRAYALS

Year 2023, Volume: 13 Issue: 2, 472 - 482, 01.04.2023

R.özgün Kehya

https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1230535

Abstract

This study analyses three European films about children left behind by their parents in their home countries due to labour migration. Developed in the German language in the second half of the twentieth century as Kofferkinder (suitcase children), this concept has been called Euro-orphans since the twenty-first century. Although neological concepts and time-space differ, the experiences and traumas of the children and parents concerned are similar. From the 1950s onwards, such family disintegrations affected a noteworthy part of the population immigrating to Germany and other European countries from Greece and Italy and the 1960s onwards, from Turkey. Later, migrant parents from Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Poland left their children with relatives, neighbours or in childcare facilities, which has become an essential sociological fact regarding the migration phenomenon that prevents family reunification and causes lifelong trauma, especially for children. With changing social, political and economic conditions, migration causes children left behind not to receive parental care in the long term. This study reveals the glocality of the issue through a sociological analysis of three films about migration from Turkey, Romania and Poland, selected according to judgemental sampling. According to the findings, Sandstern (2018) depicts the reunification of a Turkish suitcase boy with his parents in Germany and the challenges of his otherness and alienation from a distant history of the 1980s. Calea Dunării (2013) and I am Kuba (2015) tell more contemporary dramas of Euro-Orphans. In conclusion, while the selected films depict children left behind, migration here has an involuntary character as a way of escaping poverty in different times and geographies.

Keywords

Migration, Euro-Orphans, Children Left Behind, Suitcase Children, Kofferkinder

BAVUL ÇOCUKLARDAN AVRUPA'NIN YETİMLERİNE: SİNEMA TASVİRLERİ

Abstract

Bu çalışma, emek göçü nedeniyle ebeveynleri tarafından kendi ülkelerinde geride bırakılan çocukları konu alan üç Avrupa filmini incelemektedir. Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci yarısında Alman dilinde Kofferkinder (bavul çocukları) olarak geliştirilen bu kavram, yirmi birinci yüzyıldan itibaren Euro-yetimler olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Neolojik kavramlar ve zaman-mekân farklılık gösterse de, söz konusu çocukların ve ebeveynlerin deneyimleri ve travmaları benzerdir. Bu tür aile parçalanmaları 1950'lerden itibaren Yunanistan ve İtalya'dan, 1960'lardan itibaren de Türkiye'den Almanya'ya ve diğer Avrupa ülkelerine göç eden nüfusun kayda değer bir bölümünü etkilemiştir. Daha sonra Romanya, Bulgaristan, Moldova ve Polonya'dan gelen göçmen ebeveynlerin çocuklarını akrabalarına, komşularına veya çocuk bakım kurumlarına bırakmaları, aile birleşimini engelleyen ve özellikle çocuklar için yaşam boyu travmaya neden olan göç olgusuna ilişkin önemli bir sosyolojik gerçek haline gelmiştir. Değişen sosyal, siyasi ve ekonomik koşullarla birlikte göç, geride kalan çocukların uzun vadede ebeveyn bakımı alamamasına neden olmaktadır. Bu çalışma, yargısal örnekleme göre seçilen Türkiye, Romanya ve Polonya'dan göç konulu üç filmin sosyolojik analizi yoluyla konunun küyerelliğini ortaya koymaktadır. Elde edilen bulgulara göre Sandstern (2018), bir Türk bavul çocuğun Almanya'daki ailesiyle yeniden bir araya gelişini ve 1980'lerin uzak geçmişinden gelen ötekilik ve yabancılaşma sorunlarını tasvir etmektedir. Calea Dunării (2013) ve I am Kuba (2015) ise daha güncel Avrupalı yetim dramlarını anlatmaktadır. Sonuç olarak, seçilen filmlerde geride kalan çocukların tasviri yapılırken buradaki göç, farklı zaman ve coğrafyalarda yoksulluktan kaçmanın bir yolu olarak gönülsüz bir niteliğe sahiptir.

Keywords

Göç, Euro-Yetimler, Geride Kalan Çocuklar, Kofferkinder, Bavul Çocuklar

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