Stress Factors of Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Pre-Migration, Post-Migration, and Coping with Nostalgia

Yıl 2021, Sayı: 63, 181 - 197, 30.06.2021

İnci Aksu Kargın Frances Trıx

https://doi.org/10.26650/JECS2020-0094

Öz

The clashes that began in Syria in March 2011 between regime forces and their opponents transformed into a protracted civil war. While the host governments have focused on ways to solve the problems of the refugees, one area that they, as well as researchers, have neglected is the longing or nostalgia that refugees feel for their homeland. The long-term goal of most refugees is to return to their homelands, while in the short term they attempt to cope with their memories, both good and bad, of what they left behind. By conducting semi-structured interviews with Syrian refugees who live in Gaziantep in Turkey, this study attempts to explore what type of stress factors the Syrian refugees deal with in the pre-migration, migration and post-migration processes. Although they are pleased with the safety that Turkey provides to them, they are unable to shake feelings of longing for what they left behind. How do Syrian refugees living in Turkey cope with the nostalgia, and what types of coping mechanisms do they utilize to cope with their new lives? This study also discusses how migration causes changes in refugees’ identity, their perceptions of home and their expectations for the future.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Syrian refugees, Turkey, nostalgia, stress factors, coping mechanisms

Kaynakça

• Abdelhady, D. (2008). Representing the Homeland: Lebanese Diasporic Notions of Home and Return in a Global Context. Cultural Dynamics, 20(1), 53-72. google scholar
• Abdelhady, D. (2011). The Lebanese Diaspora: The Arab Immigrant Experience in Montreal, New York, and Paris. New York, NY: New York University Press. google scholar
• Ahmed, S. (1999). Home and away: Narratives of migration and estrangement. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3), 329-347. google scholar
• Ainslie, R., Tummala-Narra, P., Harlem, A., Barbanel, L. and Ruth, R. (2013). Contemporary psychoanalytic views on the experience of immigration. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 30(4), 663-679. google scholar
• Akhtar, S. (1999). The immigrant, the exile, and the experience of nostalgia. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1(2), 123-130. google scholar
• Aksu Kargın, İ. (2016). The Syrian refugees in Turkey: Their living conditions and the ways in which their presence has affected Turkish society. PhD. Indiana University. google scholar
• Aksu Kargın, İ. (2018). An Assessment of the Refugees’ Access to Labor and Housing Markets and Healthcare Services in Turkey from Syrian Refugees’ Perspective. Border Crossing, 8(1), pp.220-236. google scholar
• Al-Smadi, A., Tawalbeh, L., Gammoh, O., Ashour, A., Alzoubi, F. and Slater, P. (2016). Predictors of Coping Strategies Employed by Iraqi Refugees in Jordan. Clinical Nursing Research, 26(5), 592-607. google scholar
• Alpak, G., Unal, A., Bulbul, F., Sagaltici, E., Bez, Y., Altindag, A., Dalkilic, A. and Savas, H. (2014). Post-traumatic stress disorder among Syrian refugees in Turkey: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 19(1), 45-50. google scholar
• Cohen, R. (2008). Global diasporas: An introduction. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Darwish, M. and Bennani, B. (1980). A Letter from Exile. boundary 2, 8(3), 203-206. google scholar
• Dorai, M.K. (2002). The meaning of homeland for the Palestinian diaspora: Revival and transformation. In: N. Al-Ali and K. Koser, ed., New approaches to migration? Transnational communities and the transformation of home. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Dudley, S.H. (2019). Displaced imaginations, bodies and things: materiality and subjectivity of forced migration. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Dufoix, S. (2008). Diasporas. Berkeley: University of California Press. google scholar
• Eliassi, B. (2019). Homelessness and statelessness: Possibilities and perils. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Erdoğan, M.M. (2015). Türkiye’deki Suriyeliler: Toplumsal kabul ve uyum. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. google scholar
• Ferris, E. and Kirişci, K. (2016). The consequences of chaos: Syria’s humanitarian crisis and the failure to protect. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. google scholar
• Fischer, C. and Dahinden, J. (2019). Using pragmatism to approach ‘diaspora’, its meanings and political implications. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Freud, S. and Strachey, J. (1957). On the history of the psycho-analytic movement: Papers on metapsychology and other writings. London, UK: Hogarth Press. google scholar
• Garza-Guerrero, A. C. (1974). Culture shock: Its mourning and the vicissitudes of identity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 22(2), 408-429. google scholar
• Goodman, J. (2004). Coping With Trauma and Hardship Among Unaccompanied Refugee Youths From Sudan. Qualitative Health Research, 14(9), 1177-1196. google scholar
• Graham, M. and Khosravi, S. (1997). Home is Where You Make It: Repatriation and Diaspora Culture among Iranians in Sweden. Journal of Refugee Studies, 10(2), 115-133. google scholar
• Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp.222-237). London: Lawrence & Wishart. google scholar
• Hua, Z. and Wei, L. (2019). Translanguaging and diasporic imagination. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Keyes, E. and Kane, C. (2004). Belonging and adapting: Mental health of Bosnian refugees living in the United States. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 25(8), 809-831. google scholar
• Khawaja, N., White, K., Schweitzer, R. and Greenslade, J. (2008). Difficulties and Coping Strategies of Sudanese Refugees: A Qualitative Approach. Transcultural Psychiatry, 45(3), 489-512. google scholar
• Kinzie, J., Sack, W., Angell, R., Monson, S. and Rath, B. (1986). The Psychiatric Effects of Massive Trauma on Cambodian Children: I. The Children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 25(3), 370-376. google scholar
• Kirişçi, K. and Ferris, E. (2015). Not Likely to Go Home: Syrian Refugees and the Challenges to Turkey— and the International Community. Center on the United States and Europe, Report no. 7. New York, NY: Brookings. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Turkey-Policy-Paper-web.pdf [Accessed 29 Dec. 2019]. google scholar
• Kroll, J., Habenicht, M., Mackenzie, T., Yang, M., Chan, S., Vang, T., Nguyen, T., Ly, M., Phommasouvanh, B., Nguyen, H., Vang, Y., Souvannasoth, L. and Cabugao, R. (1989). Depression and posttraumatic stress disorder in Southeast Asian refugees. American Journal of Psychiatry, 146(12), 1592-1597. google scholar
• Lee, E. and Lu, F. (1989). Assessment and treatment of Asian-American survivors of mass violence. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2(1), 93-120. google scholar
• Lin, K., Tazuma, L. and Masuda, M. (1979). Adaptational Problems of Vietnamese Refugees. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36(9), p.955. google scholar
• Lipson, J. (1993). Afghan Refugees in California: Mental Health Issues. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 14(4), 411-423. google scholar
• Mezey, A. (1960). Psychiatric Illness in Hungarian Refugees. Journal of ‘Mental Science, 106(443), 628-637. google scholar
• Miller, K., Worthington, G., Muzurovic, J., Tipping, S. and Goldman, A. (2002). Bosnian refugees and the stressors of exile: A narrative study. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 72(3), 341-354. google scholar
• Mollica, R., Cardozo, B., Osofsky, H., Raphael, B., Ager, A. and Salama, P. (2004). Mental health in complex emergencies. The Lancet, 364(9450), 2058-2067. google scholar
• Niederland, W. G. (1981). The survivor syndrome: Further observations and dimensions. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 29(2), 413-425. doi: 10.1177/000306518102900207. google scholar
• Pasura, D. (2019). Multi-religious diasporas: Rethinking the relationship between religion and diaspora. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Porter, M. and Haslam, N. (2001). Forced displacement in Yugoslavia: A meta-analysis of psychological consequences and their moderators. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14(4), 817-834. google scholar
• Pumariega, A., Rothe, E. and Pumariega, J. (2005). Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees. Community Mental Health Journal, 41(5), 581-597. google scholar
• Safran, W. (1991). Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1(1), 83-99. google scholar
• Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on exile and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. google scholar
• Salih, R. (2003). Shifting Meanings of Islam and Multiple Representations of Modernity: The case of Migrant Women of Muslim Origin in Italy. In J. Andall (Ed.), Gender and Ethnicity in Contemporary Europe. Oxford: Berg. google scholar
• Scully, M. (2019). Making and ‘faking’ a diasporic heritage. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer, ed., Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Tolia-Kelly, D. (2019). Diasporas and home: Interrogating embodied precarity in an era of forced displacement. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Tölölyan, K. (1996). Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 5(1), 3-36. google scholar Trix, F. (2018). Europe and the Refugee Crisis: Local Responses to Migrants. London: I.B. Tauris google scholar
• Um, K. (2019). Diasporas and the politics of memory and commemoration. In R. Cohen and C. Fischer (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies, 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2014). Assessment of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Needs of Displaced Syrians in Jordan. [online] Available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/ download/41640 [Accessed 21 Dec. 2019]. google scholar
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2019). Situation Syria Regional Refugee Response. [online] Data2.unhcr.org. Available at: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria [Accessed 29 Dec. 2019]. google scholar
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2019). Fact Sheet: Germany [online] unhcr.org. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/dach/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2019/02/2019_02_Factsheet_GermanyQ12.pdf [Accessed 29 Dec. 2019]. google scholar
• Volkan, V. (1999). Nostalgia as a linking phenomenon. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1, 169-179. google scholar
• Volkan, V. (2017). Immigrants and Refugees: Trauma, Perennial Mourning, Prejudice, and Border Psychology. 1st ed. London: Karnac Books. google scholar
• Volkan, V. (2019). Mourning, Large-Group Identity, and the Refugee Experience. In T. Wenzel and B. Drozdek (Eds.), An uncertain safety: Integrative health care for the 21st century refugees, 1st ed. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. google scholar
• Wahlbeck, Ö. (1999). Kurdish diasporas: A comparative study of Kurdish refugee communities. Basingstoke: Macmillan. google scholar
• Wahlbeck, Ö. (2002). The concept of diaspora as an analytical tool in the study of refugee communities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28(2), 221-238. google scholar
• Yako, R. and Biswas, B. (2014). “We came to this country for the future of our children. We have no future”: Acculturative stress among Iraqi refugees in the United States. International Journal ofIntercultural Relations, 38, 133-141. google scholar
• Yazgan, P., Eroğlu Utku, D., & Sirkeci, İ. (2015). Syrian crisis and migration. Migration Letters, 12(3), 181-192. google scholar