This study investigated the negative effects of the 1960-2007 settlement process, with its legal infrastructure, in Amik Plain and its surroundings (Hatay), its implementation by authorized institutions, and the deficiencies in record keeping procedures on the cultural adaptation and spatial belonging of communities.
Migration management is more of a concept based on public administration with legal, administrative and political dimensions, but it is also related to human geography in terms of cultural, social, economic, symbolic, political and informatics effects in space. Considering its effects on cultural adaptation and spatial belonging in particular, its role in solving or reducing migration problems cannot be overlooked.
The concept was first developed by Bimal Ghosh at the request of the Swedish government and the UN global governance commission. The concept used for both domestic migration and international migration covers all human mobility, including refugees. Migration is defined as an attempt to make it orderly, predictable and manageable that will benefit all stakeholders. The concept is defined in the IOM Glossary on Migration as “managing the entry and presence of foreigners within the borders of the State and the protection of refugees and others in need of protection. It refers to “a planned approach to the development of policy, legislative and administrative responses to key migration issues.”
Cultural adaptation is a dynamic process involving reactionary elements such as integration into the new space or culture that individuals and communities encounter due to relocation, as well as integration into social, economic and political developments that individuals and communities experience depending on the internal dynamics of their existing spaces. In this respect, cultural adaptation is a concept that refers not only to the adaptation of the community or individuals to other cultures, but also to the adaptation of the individual to the space thanks to the cultural acquisitions of the individual. It is possible to say that multiple indicators are taken into account in the literature when determining cultural adaptation. The first of these is monumental spaces, which, in the literature, correspond to collective social phenomena, rather than individualism, which indicate the belonging of individuals and reflect more accurately their reality with their own rituals.
Other indicators of cultural adaptation have been defined as whether individuals should maintain their pre-migration eating and drinking habits, the rituals that are valued, intergenerational transfer and the language they speak, who they spend time with and whether they follow their places of origin through mass media, and the attitudes towards marital choices.
Spatial belonging refers to an emotional connection established as a result of life experiences. It is the individuals’ development of belonging related to the sense of identification with the space through spatial experiences that plays a role in the spatial belonging, rather than connectivity or being connected.
When approached geographically in a holistic sense, spatial belonging and cultural adaptations of migrants are shaped by a number of variables such as migration patterns, socio-demographic characteristics, whether or not they are a community, and the socio-cultural structures of the spaces they come out from and head for. While these variables play a role as effective factors on their own, they can turn into positive or negative factors related to migration management. Migration management plays a key role here. As a matter of fact, the present study has significance at this point that it attempts to raise awareness about the negative effects of deficiencies in migration management on cultural adaptation and spatial belonging through the mentioned variables.
The research area consisted of the neighborhoods of Akçaova (Antakya), Aydınlı, 408 Evler, Özyörük (Kırıkhan), Buhara (Hassa) and Tayfur Sökmen (Reyhanlı), which correspond to the Amik Plain and its surroundings in Hatay, and are administratively located within the boundaries of Antakya, Hassa, Kırıkhan and Reyhanlı district, formed during the 1960-2007 settlement process. The study was conducted based on the population who were resettled here and had a network of numbers, consciousness and relationships to form a community.
Most of the data was primarily derived from two-year in-depth interviews conducted with communities by means of participant observation and ethnographic method. In this context, a sample of 93 people from the communities mentioned above was determined by using purposeful, stratified, and snowball sampling methods.
In addition, due to the resettlement situation, data records from the institutions such as the Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urban Planning, Provincial Directorate for Natural Disasters, Prime Ministry State Archives (BCA) and Hatay Provincial Directorate of Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) were also used to monitor the migration process. The records that make up the secondary data in the study were analyzed through document analysis and used in comparison with the primary data obtained from the field.
Initially, the settlement process was based on the settlement Law No. 2510. The general framework of the settlement was determined by this law until 2006, although amendments were introduced to the law No. 2510 in various periods and revised again.
Although it was attempted to carry out and manage the settlement process in accordance with the law, it is worth noting that there were many problems. First of all, the settlement was not planned by taking into account the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the space and the population settled. It is possible to notice the deficiencies such as inadequate planning and inadequate guidance in the migration management, inadequacy in the follow-up and control of the process, lack of migration records.
While it is possible to talk about multiple factors affecting the cultural adaptation and spatial belonging of the communities settled, the planning and management of migration plays a key role here. Indeed, numerous problems were identified in the field due to the lack of immigration management. These include adaptation problems for agricultural products and culture, insufficiency of agricultural areas compared to household size, incompatibility of residential areas and economic activities, long distances between residential and agricultural areas, inadequacy and incompatibility of houses with respect to household size, problems of adaptation to the local climate and the issue of othering arising from socio-cultural integration problems. As a cumulative result of the problems, it is noteworthy that there is an increase in trends in migrations with no specific route in migrants suffering from spatial belonging.
Although the results of the study appear to be limited to Hatay, they can be seen in many settlements in Turkey. In this sense, in a country, like Turkey, where there are various problems concerning domestic migration, it would not be acceptable to limit the concept of migration management only by addressing it at international level. We believe that the in Turkey concept and practices of migration management should be expanded to include domestic migrations so that it can be more functional.
Keywords- Migration Management, Settlement, Cultural Adaptation, Spatial Belonging, Hatay
