Konuşma: “Why does social cohesion matter in forced migration milieu? When practices inspire concepts in the EU and Turkey,” Doç. Dr. Saime Özçürümez, Kütüphane Sanat Galerisi, 12:40 18 Aralık (EN)

You are kindly invited to follow TALKS ON MIGRATION SERIES: Fall 2019-2020 organized by Jean Monnet Module on European and International Migration Law.

Speaker: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Saime Özçürümez (Department of Political Science and Public Administration)

Title: ” Why does social cohesion matter in forced migration milieu? When practices inspire Concepts in the EU and Turkey ”

Date & Place: December 18, 2019, Wednesday, Bilkent University Library Art Gallery, 12.40-13.30.

Light refreshments shall be served.

GE 250/251: 10 points.

Organized with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

Abstract: This study seeks answers to the questions: How does the concept of social cohesion manifest itself in forced migration contexts, and why does it matter? While scholarly debates seek to restore conceptual clarity for social cohesion and social integration separately, referring to them interchangeably whilst explaining a variety of policies and programs seems to go unnoticed across different migration contexts. This research reviews the state-of-the art on social cohesion-forced migration nexus to identify, classify and explain the recurring themes. Based on an in-depth textual analysis of a collection of 327 scholarly articles and policy reports on the theme of forcibly displaced in Turkey published between 2011 and 2018, this study presents a classification of approaches to social cohesion in forced migration contexts: security-threat based, humanitarian-emergency driven, policy-regime oriented and socio-interactional approaches. The study concludes with a discussion on why thinking through different practices labelled as facilitating social cohesion may advance the conceptual understanding of social cohesion and help improve the design of actionable policies while governing forced migration in both the EU and Turkey.

Biography: Saime Özçürümez (PhD, McGill) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration and Director of the HMPI (Human Mobility Processes and Interactions) Research Lab at Bilkent University. She conducts research and publishes on migration governance in the European Union, Turkey, and Canada; health and diversity; gender and forced migration; irregular immigration; forced migration and social cohesion. She is the co-editor of Of States Rights and Social Closure (Palgrave) and Social Trauma and Forced Migration (Routledge). Her research appeared in journals such as International Migration, Journal of Common Market Studies, Turkish Studies, Comparative European Politics. She is the lead researcher and/or partner in international and national collaborative research consortia addressing questions around challenges to EU’s foreign policies (EU-LISTCO), SGBV in forced migration contexts (SEREDA), constructing an interactive social cohesion model in Turkey’s forced migration experience (InsCol) and inclusion of refugee schoolgirls in the education ecosystem in Turkey (RedSis).