İbrahim Sirkeci's article caught my attention right off the bet because ethnicity is a serious conflict reason in Turkey and no-one takes it lightly. I knew that economic factors were the driving force at first for Turks migrating to Germany but I am very curious about ethnic reasons and how ethnicity affects migrant Turks in Germany. Are there different and distinct ethnic groups among Turkish migrant in Germany? Do they interact with each other different than we interact with each other back in Turkey?
The name "environment of insecurity" I think is very well chosen. It's one of the few terms that are used in research articles that can also convey -to me at least- some emotion in it. The reasons for "deprivation" which contributed to migration are no surprise for a Turkish reader of this article. (Keeping in mind that regional populations are no way 100% homogeneous Socio-economic underdevelopment in the east: very obvious. Demographic trends: Fertility rates, that is an easy guess as well. Political deprivation: We already know. At this point in the article the part about names being from Turkish language is a bit irrelevant. So many countries have similar laws, and there are people with Kurdish names. For foreign names, if you write them with Turkish characters it is okay. Look at all the Oskars, Ceymis and Cesis around. Come on... My uncle was forced to change to an American name after immigration, when he received his citizenship.
After this, the article gets more interesting. Among nine variables, gender has the highest score with region. Financial situation is forth! Religion, ethnicity, education come as last ones. This is very intriguing data and goes against my previous guesses. I thought ethnicity would score among highest ones.
People who are somewhat financially adequate tend to migrate more than inadequate segment. People with education can migrate more than people with no education. This shows that migration requires resources and its not always a happy exit for suffering people, which is sad. I was not looking to find this in the article but I guess this moved me so much more than other findings.
"Significantly for my argument, other variables being equal Turks are less likely to migrate than Kurds-a findingg perhaps indicative of the role of the overall environment of insecurity, while the motivation could also be economic."
Since the relative data to do research about migration is very hard to obtain as Sirkeci admits and the motivations can be hard to be surfaced, I think this is definitely an answer to the first questions in my mind which was which ethnic group tends to migrate more.
Because the data is hard to find and migration is a topic that is a different journey for different people the personal interview section is the most exciting part to read. Data sure can show many common characteristics among people but interviews show so much more. From this part, I could get some answers to my other questions. Remarkable portion of migrants in Cologne wanted to go to another country because of ethnic reasons. But for some the situation is more because of economic reasons.
While the study couldn't really answer my deeper questions, it was a good place to start.
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