THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS AND NETWORKS IN THE SYRIAN INTEGRATION PROCESSES IN TURKEY

Th is study examines the potential impact of religious organisations and networks on refugee integration processes. It focuses on the experiences of Muslim Syrian refugees in Turkey to address the questions of how pre-war religious networks and institutions evolve during forced migration and what types of functions they carry out in the refugees’ integration in Turkey. Th e study adopts the integration theory of Alastair Ager and Alison Strang (2008) as an analytical framework. Drawing from ethnographic research -combining in-depth interviews with document analysis-the study proposes three fi ndings. First, Syrian religious communities seek to institutionalise and maintain their networks during their international migration process. Second, religious institutions and networks serve as a sanctuary for refugees. By participating in religious organisations and networks, refugees have accumulated their socio-cultural capital and gained advantages in accessing aid and public services. Th e feeling of belonging provides them partial psychological comfort and coping opportunity against the trauma of war and migration and a means for attributing meaning to the hardships they experience. Th ird, while religious education is the primary function of these institutions and networks, they also serve as social bridges and linkage points between the host community and refugees. Finally, the study provides some fi ndings of the limitations of networks, including the risk of emergence of parallel lives, social closure, and marginalisation. Th e fi ndings contribute to the growing scholarship on refugee integration in the immediate host countries as well as migration and religion nexus.