Changing Borders and Women as the Narrator: The Case of Syrian Circassians

Abstract

Since 2011, with the Syrian conflict, a sizeable portion of the Syrian Circassian diaspora have fled to Turkey. The experience of deportation due to the Syrian civil war exposed the community to the same trauma for the third time. However, as the refugees were forced to leave their country, they experienced different conditions than their Arab and Kurdish counterparts. Utilizing solidarity networks through their kinship relations, the Circassian diaspora appears to have avoided the hardships encountered by other refugee groups at least to some an extent. In the meantime, the diaspora developed new survival strategies in the face of general negative attitudes towards refugees and Syrians. The recent diasporic experience has been generally discussed with regards to issues of social class, ethnic affiliation, and distinction. Yet, the gendered dimension of the recent forced migration has been underestimated or neglected. This study aims to understand whether the women within the Circassian community who migrated from Syria to Turkey generated new forms of roles to meet the social demands of the new diasporic experience. The evidence discussed here is based on fieldwork that was conducted in 2019. One of the significant findings to be assessed in this study is the reinforcement of the patriarchy within the diaspora and the factors that facilitated this process.