“Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to Turkey and Mediterranean Basin” is a research project on international mobility from tropical African countries to Turkey.

Thematically, it privileges the life circumstances, objectives, desires and subjective experiences of international migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, interpreted with consideration of the legal constraints that international policies and regulations impose on transborder movements and the economic and social conditions in the countries of origin, transit, or lengthy residence. Motivations for mobility, the means and permanent features of international movement, the adjustment to different countries, the resources the migrants mobilize for their undertaking, and finally the social and religious life in migrant communities are topics that are explored.

African migrants, like all international migrants, are diverse in terms of cultural background, social class, education level, and income either before or after the migration experience; the project is informed by this observation and contributes to a finer understanding of its ramifications. Methodologically, the project relies most centrally on anthropological fieldwork, direct contact with members of migrant groups, participation in social events, and conversation. When the opportunity is presents, other kinds of information are incorporated.

Punctual surveys on specific topics, questionnaires administered on-line, by cell phone or using paper forms, and potentially data available from administrative offices, public and commercial firms or utility companies provided or may provide useful contributions. The project has a comparative horizon in growing African migration to non-conventional, non-West European or North American international destinations. Terms such as South-South migration, migration infrastructure, higher education migration, point to conceptual developments that inform our research. The project is funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Program of International Fellowship for Outstanding Researchers (2232)

Claudia Bülbül

PhD Candidate, Researcher

Ms. Bülbül made her own first connection with Sub-Saharan Africa at the early age of 12, when she lived in Zimbabwe. Claudia Bülbül received her BA in European Studies at Maastricht University (NL)

More

her MA in Political Philosophy at Bilgi University in Istanbul (TR) and is currently writing her PHD under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Stephan Conermann at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (DE). Her PHD research is on “the emergence and transformation of an African cultural space in Istanbul” where “Afro” and “Africa – inspired forms of Life and Art are influencing the cosmopolitan urban culture and social spaces of the mega city”.

Mustafa Ammar Kılıç

Sociologist, Researcher

He is a research assistant at Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University, Department of Sociology. He is doing his PhD in Sociology at Koç University. His areas of interest and work are environmental and migration sociology.

Mahir Şaul

Professor

Mahir Şaul spans in his research two world areas, Africa and the Middle East; thematically he carried out work on household organization, economic and political history, the transnational movement of people and ideas, and language and visual arts in their social context.

More

His current project concerns south-south migration, based on a year of fieldwork among West and Central African immigrants in Istanbul. The second world area where Şaul conducts research is Turkey in its Middle Eastern and European settings. He wrote on Judeo-Spanish sociolinguistics, has an abiding interest in Turkish oral literature and folklore, and gave lectures on Turkish nationalism and modernization process. He held teaching and research positions in various European institutions. On the heels of an African film festival in Urbana, Illinois, he curated in 2012 a high profile African film series for the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in Turkey.
He teaches on anthropological social theory and Marxism, economic anthropology, transnational migrations, Islam, African cinema, African ethnography, and Sephardic culture.