TY - JOUR
AU - Pelek,, Deniz
AB - Abstract This article examines the case of Syrian refugees as seasonal migrant workers in Turkey and critically discusses the working and living conditions fostering their relative vulnerability compared to other workers. Syrian refugees are subject to discriminatory practices in terms of lower wages, longer working hours and improper sheltering conditions. This article explores how unequal power relations between ethnically different groups of workers in the agricultural sector are (re)constructed and the consequences of the emergence of Syrian refugees as a novel class. The essential aim of this study is to unravel the process and practice of ethnically hierarchized agricultural labour market after the entrance of refugees. To that effect, the empirical data was gathered through the ethnographic fieldwork (based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation) carried out in Manisa in August of 2013 and 2014 and in Adana-Mersin in September 2013 and February 2015. This study looks into the ways in which actors on farms (workers, labour intermediaries, land owners, village dwellers and state representatives) have responded to the current situation with regard to three controversial subjects: migrant employment, legal framework and the politics on Syrian refugees. It is argued that externalization of labour force realizes through creating new layers, which necessitates the construction of new ethnic categories such as Syrian refugees. Introduction Syrian civil war has led to an influx of asylum seekers to Turkey. This has reshaped economic, social and political relations on global, regional and national scales and produced new antagonisms between different actors in the labour market as well as within the society. The forced migration of Syrians began around 2011 in parallel with the worsening conditions due to the rising the civil war. Until now, 3,562,523 Syrian refugees have arrived in Turkey and the number keeps increasing (UNCHR 2018). Turkish political authorities did not foresee such large numbers of refugee inflow at the outset of the war and implemented ‘open border policy’ from the beginning. The scholarly works on refugee studies and related policymaking has mostly intensified on the legal issues and citizenship of Syrian refugees who especially reside in urban centres and refugee camps (e.g. AFAD 2014; Kirişçi 2014; Uluslararası Ortadoğu Barış Araştırmaları Merkezi 2014; UNCHR 2014; İçduygu 2015; Koca 2015; Erensu and Kaşlı 2016). However, this migratory movement simultaneously meant a ‘labour migration’ for Turkey, which keeps being a crucial yet understudied aspect of the phenomenon. Although it is clear that the refugees do not migrate in order to work in better conditions and/or have more job opportunities—that are basically the essential motivations of the labour migration—they end up becoming actively involved in both urban and agricultural labour markets. This article aims to help fill this lacuna in the literature by analysing the case of Syrian agricultural workers and problematizing their vulnerable position in the labour market. In particular, I argue how refugee migration differs from routine labour migration. In doing so, I pay particular attention how the category of Syrian refugees is embedded in broader socio-economic and political developments in the Turkish agricultural landscape. In this sense, ethnic differences and Turkish politico-economic context are taken as two pivotal points to shed light on how the changing composition of the market shapes and informs emerging dynamics of power relations. The relation between ethnicity and migration has been studied widely in both urban and rural studies (e.g. Martin 2002; Suarez-Navaz 2007; Smets and ten Kate 2008; Askins 2009; Stefanovic et al. 2014). On the one hand, the ethnicity factor is determined by established economic, social and political structures in rural regions. On the other hand, the ethnicity itself is a generative category, shaping the existing mode of relations. Hence, I take ethnicity as a transitive and relational phenomenon throughout this article. Understanding how Syrian refugees get integrated and shuffled within the Turkish labour market necessitates analysing both work relations and everyday life, and tracking how the category of refugee has emerged and become embedded in discourses and negotiations between different agents. Thus, I consider such evolving relations between refugees and their native counterparts as factors that perpetuate the vulnerability of Syrians. Moreover, I illustrate how this condition is embedded in national particularities in the Turkish context by underlining the needs of the cheap labour force as an ethnically marginalized group, which is necessary for agrarian transition on a macro level. Ultimately, this article suggests that the arrival of Syrian war victims occupies specific niches in the Turkish seasonal agrarian labour market and it reconstructs power relations through ethnic lines; therefore, the emerging phenomena should be argued within a coherent frame that brings ‘refugee’ and ‘temporary migrant labour’ themes together. In the following sections, I first provide background information on the idiosyncratic characteristics of the Turkish agrarian structure with specific focus on seasonal migrant workers and the legal framework for Syrian refugees. The article outlines reasons for Syrians’ vulnerability stemming from the ongoing agrarian transformation process, such as fragile legal status, informal job relations and the need for a cheap and docile temporary labour force. Then, following a revisit and refinement of literature on migrant and rural studies and methodological details of this study, I analyse the results of my ethnographic fieldwork in three provinces: Manisa, Adana and Mersin. In particular, I discuss inequalities in the working conditions experienced by Syrian agricultural workers as well as their unique, vulnerable and in-limbo position in Turkish society. This is followed by a conclusion in which I explain the contributions of this study and policy recommendations for Syrian refugees who are temporary workers in Turkish agriculture. I will conclude the article with suggestions for further research. Idiosyncrasies of Seasonal Agricultural Migration in Turkey The current economic and political agenda related to the agrarian labour market makes the Turkish context rather idiosyncratic and is key to understanding the case of Syrian refugees. First and foremost, in economic terms, Turkey has undergone a dramatic agrarian dissolution since the 1980s as part of the broader neoliberalization, which led a gradual withdrawal of the ‘protective’ state policies towards small producers. Increased prices of inputs as a result of reduced subsidies have meant loss of entitlement to food as more and more small farmers are forced out of agriculture (Aydın 2002: 191). This has triggered a demographical mobility (see Figure 1). The rate of agricultural population has decreased from 56.1 per cent to 23.7 per cent during the 1980–2010 period according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) numbers. Most unpaid family workers and small-scale producers unable to compete under new conditions have migrated to cities (alongside other reasons such as access to more job opportunities, better education and health services). Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Turkish Statistical Institute, 1980–2010 Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Turkish Statistical Institute, 1980–2010 On the other side of the coin, small and medium farmers who accomplished staying under neo-liberal conditions have developed their own ways (Keyder and Yenal 2013: 70–98). One of the most common strategies is the change in crop composition. Farmers convert their lands to the cultivation of profitable high-value crops. For instance, while wheat fields—that is a traditional crop and mechanized cultivation is possible for it—have been decreasing (TZOB 2010: 132), fresh fruit and vegetable production has been on the rise that mostly requires manual labour for many steps in the production; the total cultivated areas of vegetables have increased by 35 per cent just in the period from 1990 to 2010 (ibid.: 235). Such transformation certainly marks extensive changes in economic, social and cultural realms, which far exceed the limits of this study. For our interests, it will be enough to point out the significant results regarding the agrarian labour market. As populations have disengaged from agrarian activities, traditional collective labour practices such as imece1 and icar2 have dissolved. Other survival strategies of farmers under harsh market conditions based on unpaid family labour have also been weakened. Both the disappearance of conventional production relations and the increase in cultivated areas of high-value crops, which mostly need manual labour for hoeing and harvesting, inevitably boosted the demand for seasonal migrant workers. Second, a political factor underpins the uniqueness of the Turkish example—that is, the forced internal migration during the 1990s. Due to skirmishes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in south-eastern provinces, the state announced the State of Emergency Rule in 1987, following which a forced migration was put into effect. The goal was to eradicate any form of ‘complicity’, such as providing money, shelter or food to the PKK (Kartal 2008: 39). Thus, many Kurdish villages were evacuated, resulting in an immense wave of migration from eastern and south-eastern provinces to western Turkey. However, the exact number of people subjected to forced migration is still unknown. Claims are controversial; while government institutions initially declared about 300,000 displaced persons, Kurdish non-governmental organizations (NGOs) cite up to 3 million (Stefanovic et al. 2014: 281). Most of the displaced population migrated to metropolitan peripheries, notably Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Mersin and Adana. On the other hand, those who lacked kinship networks in these urban centres settled in eastern and south-eastern cities such as Batman, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Şırnak and Mardin (Yıldırım 2014: 202). Due to high unemployment rates in the latter, they quickly became seasonal migrant workers (Keyder and Yenal 2013: 145). They work seasonally in northern, southern and western regions of Turkey for six to eight months every year and spend the winter unemployed in their hometowns (Özbek 2007: 34–38; Pelek 2010: 61–63). Both neo-liberal agrarian policies and the forced migration turned Kurdish farmers into the most important source of agrarian labour supply since the 1990s. Many studies indicate that Kurdish workers earned the lowest wages and had the worst shelter and working conditions (Özbek 2007; Çınar 2012; Yıldırım 2014). However, this picture has changed after the introduction of Syrian refugees who have replaced Turkish Kurds’ place at the bottom. The co-existence of urbanization, agrarian transformation, internal violence in the east and south-east of Turkey and extra-territorial war in Syria has provided a substantial background against which to analyse the dynamics within the labour market and also within the social relations in rural spaces after the entrance of a new ethnic group who are civilian war victims, shaped by socio-political developments on a macro level, which in turn also shapes them. Thus, studying the Turkish agrarian space allows us to pose new questions that have not been asked before in the literature on refugee studies, agrarian transformation and temporary migrant work thanks to the uniqueness of the case in terms of the economic, social and political agenda. Turkey is an intriguing research site, with its tangled agricultural labour market that is constituted by four main different worker groups, including migrants, non-migrants, emigrants and refugees. First, the Turkish Kurds, the Turkish Arabs and the Turkish Romanies have comprised an internal migrant worker group who travel across regions and cities and go back to their home when the job is over (Mura 2016: 118). Second, non-migrant workers—generally called local workers, whose ethnic origin is mostly Turkish—are employed in places close to their homes and they are mostly small landowners who do extra work after their own harvest (Pelek 2010). The third group comprises emigrants from Georgia and Azerbaijan. They started to migrate to Turkey after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They come to Turkey with tourist visas and work temporarily in agrarian jobs without working permits (Dedeoğlu 2016). The final group is Syrian refugees, since 2011. The differentials between migrant, non-migrant, emigrant and refugee statuses already generate remarkable inequalities in terms of working conditions, shelter and travelling. This encompasses a further distinction on an ethnic basis. The presence of such ethnic diversity has provided an opportunity to employers to lower labour costs by organizing the work along these lines. A number of studies based on fieldwork illustrate that wage differentials depend on the criteria of the ethnicity. A research report on the foreign seasonal workers in Turkish agriculture informs that Syrian refugee workers receive two-thirds of the other workers’ daily wage for the same job (Dedeoğlu 2016: 168). Georgians are placed one move ahead of Turkish Kurds in the ethnic hierarchy among seasonal migrant workers, while local Turkish workers are at the top (Duruiz 2015: 294). Accommodation for different groups of workers is also similar; local non-migrant workers usually stay in their home or in an empty house or in a room at the back of the coffee houses arranged by the employer if their home is far away for daily travel, while other migrant workers mostly stay in tents close to the fields (Duruiz 2015: 291). In other words, if there is an empty house, it is reserved for local workers instead of migrants. Due to the lack of proper legal regulation3 and the absence of labour inspection, this job is organized on a totally informal basis in Turkey. In this job network, the key figure is a labour intermediary who serves as a kind of middleman between employers and workers—a person called a dayıbaşı4 or elçi5 locally. A dayıbaşı is usually a relative of some workers or a fellow townsman from their places of origin (Pelek 2010: 73). He makes a verbal contract with the employer, then gathers a group of workers and arrives at the field at the right time with the correct number of workers. Generally, his responsibilities consist of ensuring that the workers arrive on time and work properly each labour day, accommodating workers by helping them to set up their tents or by arranging a tentative place and solving any disagreement between workers and employers. After the job is accomplished, the employer pays the total sum of wages to the labour intermediary. Then, the latter distributes the money to workers after cutting his share, including his extra expenses such as loans or travel payments lent to the workers. He receives a commission of around 10 per cent from each worker’s daily wage; in other words, labour intermediaries earn no salary from the employer (Hayata Destek 2014: 63). The rest of their practices, including the labour process, types of remuneration—daily pay or piecework—working duration in each field or in each region, as well as conditions of travel and accommodation differ immensely according to the product, region and field. Within this framework, one of the essential targets of this study is to complicate the implications of the concept ‘inequality’ through investigating it as embedded across different axes of hierarchies and asymmetries—namely employers–workers, labour intermediaries–workers and workers from different groups. Consisting of multiple crossings of class, ethnicity and nationality, the Turkish agricultural space enables observing and analysing such complexities in power relations. Legal Framework for Syrian Refugees An ‘open border policy’ has been implemented since the first entrance of Syrians into Turkey. The policy enabled Syrians to cross the border through certain checkpoints. They do not hold refugee status, but are classified under the ‘temporary protection’ category, which means that (i) they can seek asylum, (ii) they cannot be subjected to forced refoulement, (iii) there are no limitations on their duration of stay in Turkey during the war, (iv) they will not have citizenship status and (v) they are beneficiaries of humanitarian aid as long as they reside inside the camps. This politico-legal condition creates a public perception of Syrians as ‘guests’ who will return to their places of origin someday. Two legal documents have informed the main policy framework governing the flows of immigrants and asylum seekers in Turkey. First is the 1934 Settlement Law, which explicitly favoured the immigration of people of Turkish descent and culture. Although the 1934 Settlement Law has since been replaced by newer legislation, the preference for immigrants of ‘Turkish descent’ remained a key element of Turkey’s legal framework for decades (İçduygu 2015: 4). Second is the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Additional Protocol on the status of refugees. Turkey is signatory to both but has maintained a geographical limitation that grants asylum rights only to Europeans. In 2013, the new arrangement was put into effect; the new Law on Foreigners and International Protection was declared. It clarifies the conditions for submitting an asylum claim in Turkey, but still maintains the geographic limitation of the 1951 Geneva Convention (Kirişçi 2001). Thus, most of the non-European asylum seekers are still not entitled to stay in Turkey, even if they gain refugee status through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) procedures (İçduygu 2015: 5). Recognition of such a status makes them eligible only for resettling out of Turkey. During the status-determination process, applicants are granted limited rights of access to health, education, other social services and the labour market (İçduygu 2015: 5). The integration into the labour market of those under temporary protection has become a growing concern as unemployment has surged up among refugees. Regulation on the Working Permit of Foreigners under Temporary Protection that was published in the official gazette on 15 January 2016 allowed them to apply to the Ministry of Labour for work permits six months after their registration for the temporary protection status. According to the legislation, refugees cannot be paid less than the minimum wage; the ratio of refugee workers cannot exceed 10 per cent of the total Turkish employees in the same workplace. However, those who work in agriculture and husbandry as seasonal workers are exempt from the work-permit requirements (Implementation Guide Regarding the Work Permits of Foreigners Provided with Temporary Protection 2016). Agriculture is the only exception, making it possible to estimate a rise in the number of Syrian agricultural workers in the foreseeable future. Theory in Perspective: Why Do Syrians Wittingly Become Cheap Labourers? Generally speaking, refugees are in a situation derived from their political status. They are subject to exploitation in the labour market, face social exclusion and are open to hazards of stigmatizing and marginalizing due to their characteristic features unfamiliar to the locals, such as language, cultural habits or clothing, but what makes the case for Syrian migrant agricultural workers unique in terms of vulnerability? What differentiates Syrian refugees from Mexican seasonal agricultural workers in the United States, from Moroccan workers in French agriculture or from Karen refugees as seasonal workers in the Australian agricultural labour market? The Turkish rural landscape has its own chaotic structure dominated by local actors and with specific power configurations between ethnicity and poverty. Hence, understanding the case of Syrian refugees in this context necessitates bringing together analytical tools from both migration and rural studies. One of the most commonly referred to approaches in migration studies searching a comprehensive answer to the question ‘why do people migrate?’ is the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors model. Briefly put, pull factors refer to the migrants’ desire to improve their working and living conditions, and access to education and health services. This approach considers the migrant as a person making purposeful ‘rational choices’ to have a better life. Push factors, on the other hand, signify the conditions that urge migrants to leave their hometowns due to economic problems such as extensive unemployment rates, high cost of living, inflation and poverty; political reasons such as war and persecution of minorities; or natural disasters. However, the ‘push–pull effect’ approach is criticized by many scholars for its overlooking the diversity of the historical background of the countries and the underlying causes of migration in relation with more complex social and political dimensions. Morice (2013: 15) argues that migration in precarious conditions is rising, resulting either in permanent wandering or in settlement initially believed to temporary but which becomes lasting, in particular in so-called ‘transit countries’, such as Morocco, Turkey and Ukraine, where nothing is done to provide shelter to migrants who find themselves trapped. In line with the criticism of Morice, especially pull factors do not explain Syrian refugees’ working as seasonal workers in Turkey, since, especially in rural sectors, the former do not offer any favourable conditions except for survival, as Syrians are placed at the bottom in terms of working and sheltering conditions. In order to discuss the particular case of Syrian refugees as seasonal workers, this study employs four concepts to further the push–pull factors with regard to the puzzling dialectic of poverty and ethnicity in the agricultural labour market. First, the ‘bargaining power’, suggested by Ben Rogaly (1996: 155), determines working conditions and wages of workers. Differentiation in terms of work arrangements for the same job between different groups of workers depends on the level of poverty. The poorest section of workers make the worst job arrangements, for their bargaining power is weaker compared to others. In other words, the ‘relatively lesser poor’ make better deals. While this perspective is useful to explain the inequalities that depend on poverty, it fails to explain the diverse vulnerabilities between different groups of workers who have shared similar poverty levels. The analysis based solely on economic explanations disregards socio-political causes that are especially significant for the case of refugees separating them from other emigrants. Second, the ‘fear of deportation’ explains workers’ weaknesses stemming from political factors. Basok et al.’s study problematizes deportability as a strategy that hangs over workers like the sword of Damocles. As such, it serves discriminating migrant workers, leaving them with no option but to agree to work in dangerous, dirty and demeaning jobs (3D jobs) for low pay. Deportability operates to sustain workers’ subjection to discipline either by external power or by self-discipline under the persistent threat of deportation (Basok et al. 2013: 1394). Even if deportation is merely a possibility, the fear itself is the main factor driving its effects. Furthermore, the fear of deportation reaches beyond economic anxieties and conducts migrants’ desires and public ‘visibility’ with some sort of panopticon effect (ibid.: 1407). Third, the ‘status of paradox’ (Nieswand 2006: 2) defines the devaluation of human capital and lowering of the status of immigrants in hosting countries by employing them in low-skilled jobs. Nieswand asserts that this is a purposeful strategy designed by the state to isolate migrants from society. Similarly, Jackson and Bauder (2013: 367) describe this phenomenon by the concept of ‘occupational downward mobility’, which leads to the feeling of powerless regarding the refugees’ ability to improve their situation. At this point, it is worth asking: why do people migrate in a seemingly witting manner to accept working under-priced compared to their local counterparts, living with the continuous threat of deportation, taking the risk of devaluation? The last concept, ‘frame of reference’, is useful to explain such contradictory migration choices. According to this, an immigrant makes a purposeful and logical decision by comparing the conditions of the hosting country and his/her home country. Thus, even tough migrants’ wages are lower; they compare their earnings with the standards of their homeland rather than with the wages of their local colleagues or those from other backgrounds. They therefore tend not to demand equal work rights or wages (Rye and Andrzejewska 2010: 48). Although analytical tools from push–pull factors and the four theoretical concepts are illuminating to unclose the vulnerable case of Syrian refugees as seasonal migrant workers, there is still a need to further these explanations to analyse how the entrance of a refugee group feeds an already ethnically hierarchized agricultural labour market, constituting a structural component of the reconstruction of power relations. This study asserts that the concept of ‘fear of death and violence’ provides a comprehensive understanding of how a category of refugee can be incorporated into an analysis that the contemporary forms of informalized work and employment in all diversity under the influence of neo-liberal policies always necessitate a flexible workforce. Differently from the ‘fear of persecution’ (Frelick and Kohnen 1995: 339)—which is a key term to define and acquire the refugee status in the Geneva Convention—that refers to refugees’ fearing of human rights abuses in leaving places, I employ ‘fear of death and violence’ in a broader sense in terms of the consequences of this feeling in the hosted places. Beyond the solely economy-based analysis in relation to the poverty levels of the workers, deportation fear for refugees and high unemployment rates in the places of origin, rather the reference point relying on an emotion for the comparison between their own country and hosting places is having a memory of violence and war that determines refugees’ specific position in the labour market and in society, which also serves immediate solutions for the crises of capitalism by creating opportunities to some groups over hyper-exploitation of labour. Methodology This study is guided by ethnographic methods including semi-structured and in-depth interviews and participant observation. A qualitative, ethnographic research design provided me with significant time to collect various forms of data to comprehend the issue in a broader scope. For instance, verbal interview data was combined with observations during the time spent in participants’ tents, shared meals, working together in the fields and chatter in the dwelling areas. I conducted fieldwork in Manisa, a western province of Turkey, in August 2013 and 2014 during the harvest season of the picking and solar drying of tomatoes and grapes. The other two sites of my fieldwork were Adana and Mersin in southern Turkey, both of which I visited during September 2013 and February 2015. The wide range of crop diversification in the latter two sites gave me the chance to observe the harvesting of different crops. I chose these provinces as research sites due to several criteria related with to the research questions of this study. First, my two sites in southern Turkey, Adana and Mersin, are located very close to the Syrian border, where Syrian refugees as seasonal migrant workers are abundant, enabling me to reach my informants without extra effort. Second, the high fertility of the land in all three sites leads to the cultivation of diverse crops, which enables year-round occupation, raising the demand for additional labour forces from outside over a long period. There is an ethnically heterogeneous labour supply mixed with Turkish Kurd workers from eastern and south-eastern provinces, Romanies from Afyon, Aydın and Balıkesir in mid-western Turkey, locals of Turkish origin and Syrian refugees. These research plots provide a good basis for observing solidarities, frictions and conflicts between different ethnic groups as well as analysing changing dynamics following the entrance of Syrians into the already hierarchically structured labour market. Lastly, a high density of Turkish Kurds and Turkish Arabs live in Adana province. I also aim to observe whether there emerged any transnational solidarity between these communities with Syrians of the same ethnic descent. I pay particular attention to relations of solidarity across different groups as the lack of care and aid catalyses the vulnerability of refugees. I have encountered certain difficulties during my fieldwork related to my methodology. First of all, little is known about the exact number of Syrians in these provinces, their socio-demographic characteristics and their economic behaviours, though they constitute a significant proportion among foreigner seasonal migrant workers. The only statistical information we do have is provided by the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and the UNCHR, yet the data is rather rudimentary, providing merely some general knowledge about Syrians all over Turkey without any specifics regarding the urban–rural distribution. The lack of detailed information led me to use snowball sampling for choosing my informants. Snowball sampling also helped me in studying a vulnerable group to sustain mutual trust, to overcome doubtfulness of the informants and to facilitate entry into groups. At the outset, I made the effort to find out suitable contact enabling me to penetrate into Syrian refugees’ livelihoods. These key contacts varied across different research sites; sometimes a labour intermediary, sometimes a worker of Turkish nationality and sometimes a villager took the first step into the refugee groups for me. After establishing the first contact, I conducted semi-structured and in-depth face-to-face interviews with a total of 111 workers consisting of Syrians, Kurds, Romanies and Turks, posing close-ended questions to learn their socio-demographic background and open-ended questions to investigate their personal experiences of being a seasonal migrant worker and their opinions about the job, employers, labour intermediaries and working spaces. These interviews were made in the Syrians’ native language, Kurdish and Arabic, getting the help of a worker or labour intermediary who spoke the relevant language as a simultaneous interpreter. As for Turkish Kurds and Turkish Arabs, I conducted interviews mostly in Turkish, with few exceptions. I also conducted semi-structured and in-depth interviews with other actors in the labour market; 28 employers, 16 labour intermediaries and 13 representatives from state agencies and NGOs were interviewed within this scope to better comprehend the dynamics of the employment process by taking all aspects into account. Apart from the interviews, I also had a chance to spend time with workers in the agricultural fields and tent zones during my fieldwork; I picked tomatoes with the workers, cooked meals with women in tents and played with child workers. On the other hand, as secondary data, I examined recent laws and regulations on seasonal agricultural workers and Syrian refugees. Apart from the everyday interactions of actors involved within the agricultural labour market, macro-level transitions also matter within the scope of this research, since the agents’ actions and perceptions are always interrelated with broader structural processes. Thus, I aim to bring the micro- and macro-level analysis together by considering the controversial elements in the labour market as a case to realize my fieldwork in which both structure and agency play a crucial role in reproducing, challenging and reconstructing the power relations in the labour market. A Note on Terminology I need to clarify some key terminological elements to be used throughout this article. First, two key categories—‘asylum seeker’ and ‘refugee’—need to be clarified. According to the UNCHR definitions, refugees are defined as people fleeing conflict or persecution. They are protected by international law, which forbids their expelling in order to prevent their return to conditions where their life and freedom are at risk. An asylum seeker, on the other hand, refers to someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed. Although both of the terms are adaptable to the case of Syrians in Turkey, in line with the legislative frame that I have explained above, I prefer using ‘refugee’, given that the temporary protection status is closer to this category than the asylum seeker. Furthermore, in order to analyse the nationality factor, I adopt the terms ‘Syrians’, ‘Syrian Kurds’, ‘Syrian Arabs’, ‘Turkish Kurds’ and ‘Turkish Arabs’. Lastly, I utilize the term ‘migrant workers’ to address internal migration and ‘emigrant workers’ to refer to non-native workers from abroad. Syrian Refugees in Agricultural Fields There are various factors responsible for Syrian refugees’ weakest negotiating position vis-à-vis their employers and labour intermediaries, as there are diverse processes leading to vulnerability of refugees in the labour relation. Especially, I will draw attention to (i) poverty and dispossession, (ii) fear of deportation, (iii) dependency on labour intermediaries, (iv) language problems, (v) conflicts between different worker groups and the marginalization of Syrian refugees and finally (vi) fear of death and violence. First, I basically want to understand the underlining reasons for the inequalities regarding Syrian refugees. Turning back to Rogaly’s assumption on bargaining power, I ask, do the poorest workers actually make the worst job contracts? In order to test the poverty level as a factor determining the bargaining power of various groups of workers, dispossession (which provides a foregrounded cause of poverty) can be distinguished in addition to economic and political motives that contribute together to the increase in vulnerability. In the case of Syrian refugees, dispossession plays a significant role for choosing migration. A young man interviewee from Haleb told his story on passing the border: We set off in the night; we didn’t take any clothes, food or pots and pans. Then, we passed a hole which had about 2–2.5 meter depth. We cut each other from the hole barely. When we passed the border, Turkish soldiers saw us but they didn’t restrain us from getting to Turkey (in Arabic).6 Like his case, most of the Syrian refugees are totally dispossessed, which accentuates their vulnerability in comparison to other workers who suffer from poverty. At first glance, this could have explained their position as the weakest in the labour market. However, during my fieldwork, I observed similar poverty levels regarding dispossession among Turkish Kurds, and especially among the internally displaced population. A woman from Şırnak-Cizre who became a seasonal migrant worker after the evacuation of her village in 1994 told me: We moved to Cizre in 1994 due to the evacuation of our village. Before, we had a land in our village, it was big and we hadn’t go to another city as seasonal migrant workers. We had produced bean, lentil, wheat, barley, rice and tomatoes. We had done subsistence farming and we hadn’t bought anything from Cizre except for oil. We had also produced walnut and sold a part of it in the market. Now, we just only have a house in Cizre. If we don’t go to another city as seasonal migrant workers for 6 months, we will die due to the hunger (in Turkish). She is 40 years old; her experience on the transition from subsistent farming to migrant employment due to the political reasons clearly shows that her survival depends on seasonal agrarian jobs, perhaps in a slightly different manner from Syrians, as the former have houses but no job opportunity in their hometowns, while sharing the threat of hunger with the Syrians. Although they have similar poverty levels, Syrians hold a ‘weaker’ position in the bargaining process. This is clearly observed in the distribution of work conditions in terms of wages, working hours and shelter. Syrians earn less and work longer hours for the same job and, compared to the other workers, they live in tents with much worse conditions where basic infrastructure is completely lacking. In this context, bargaining power seems to be the main factor, as local workers with their relatively confident economic situation do not accept staying in tents with insufficient infrastructure. If they reject working and/or sheltering conditions, they have an option to go back to their homes where they can be employed in agricultural production. In fact, local workers usually have a small plot of land and they work in nearby villages for additional income. Thus, the difference between local workers and others confirms Rogaly’s assumption that ‘lesser poor make better job agreement’. However, it does not explain the difference between Syrians and Kurdish workers who are exposed to exploitation on different levels. In fact, creating ethnic antagonism (Bonacich 1972) by splitting the agricultural labour market is not new to Turkey. For instance, in 2009, Turkish Kurds used to earn less per day than local workers for the same job (Pelek 2010: 26). With the entrance of Syrians to the agrarian labour market, a different frame emerged within which socio-economic exploitative relations are recast. Syrians have substituted Kurdish workers at the bottom of the hierarchical order. The question to be asked here is: what is it that places Syrians at the bottom of the class hierarchy? ‘Fear of deportation’ is explanatory. Interviewed during my fieldwork in Manisa, a labour intermediary said that gendarmes came and asked whether there were Syrian workers. Although he said ‘no’, Syrian workers were actually employed in the field he oversaw. In his opinion, the inspectors know about the presence of Syrians but exercise their power only by enquiring, without any further enforcement. As a matter of fact, it is common knowledge that about 3.5 million Syrians live in Turkey and a considerable majority of them work in agriculture. If the government decided to deport them, their life and work experience in Turkey would end. Although no such decision has been made, the sheer fear of deportability is imposed on Syrians to leave them in a more fragile position and to reduce their bargaining power. Fearing the state about illegalities in Syrian employment is not confined to Syrian workers; agrarian producers and labour intermediaries also beware gendarmerie patrols. During a visit to a labour camp in Akhisar district of Manisa, I conducted several interviews with Syrian workers. As I finished my work, the employer came and I offered to interview him as well. When I asked about Syrians, he replied: ‘There are no Syrians here! They are from Turkey. Don’t get me into trouble. There are no Syrians’ (in Turkish). He wanted to hide the presence of Syrians even in their presence. On rare occurrences, gendarmes ask for the removal of Syrians from the tents or fields. In Adana, I interviewed a labour intermediary contracting Syrian workers, who stated: Syrians were here from the seventh to the eighth month. I felt difficulties due to the gendarme controls. Following, I said, ‘We cannot struggle with the state. Go away for a few weeks.’ to them. After, they left and returned to Syria through the border in Urfa. They stayed in Syria for 10 days. Later, they went to İzmir and worked for 20–25 days but couldn’t take their earnings there. They called me and told, ‘we will come to your place,’ and I replied, ‘okay’ (in Turkish). As seen above, Syrians do not always work for lower wages; sometimes they even work free of charge. A young male Syrian worker told me that, before coming to Manisa, they were hoeing without payment in exchange for their meals in the sugar beet fields in Konya, and that they accepted the job because they had no other options to survive. During my fieldwork, they were working in tomato-picking for 30 TL while it was 40 TL for the other worker groups. He stated: I worked in Urfa and Adana. The farm labour intermediary escaped without paying our earnings, which was about 5.000 TL. He is from Urfa. In Turkey, farm labour intermediaries are always the same. Syrians come and work here but they don’t give money. Only the labour intermediary that we are working with now gives the money. We couldn’t get paid in Urfa and Antep as well. I went to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Algeria and Tunisia. All of them were good, but Turkey is dirty. I don’t want to live in Turkey (in Kurdish). Another related instance described by a Syrian worker from Idlib points out a similar problem: A farm labour intermediary brought 400 workers to the field and after the harvest he calculated the workers’ total amount of money deceitfully. He embezzled 17,000 TL belonging to the workers into his own pocket. I always fear that a farm labour intermediary will swindle our wages (in Kurdish). The worker had his visitor card and showed it to me but he was desperate: he did not know his legal rights, he feared refoulement and he was worried about how to verify his labour. Having fear of deportability was a salient obstacle to seeking rights and demanding equal conditions with other workers. Dependency on Labour Intermediaries Sustaining vulnerability at different levels is realized through the informal character of the labour market. All the above interviews indicate the prominent role of farm labour intermediaries in constructing these networks. Relations between Kurdish labour intermediaries and Syrian Kurd refugees are particularly interesting for the absence of solidarity. They contact Syrian refugees from near the border where they first locate (the most common are Suruç, Hatay and Adana in the southern Turkey) or they get in touch with potential new workers by phone with the help of existing workers. Normally, one could expect the development of solidarity and empathetic relations between Syrian refugees of Kurdish origin and Kurdish labour intermediaries who themselves had once faced ethnic discrimination in the labour market. Instead, self-interest is a more common attitude among labour intermediaries, which ensures transferring poverty from one underclass group to the other newcomer in a circle of ‘poverty in turn’ (Işık and Pınarcıoğlu 2015).7 The dependency of Syrian refugees on labour intermediaries does not only derive from job search, but also Kurdish and Arab labour intermediaries solve the language problem of the workers. On the one hand, they are among the few people who can communicate with these refugees, thus making the latter’s life much easier in Turkey. On the other hand, their dependency on labour intermediaries is catalysed in this process. A labour intermediary whom I interviewed in Adana complained about his indispensable role due to his language ability: I am working here as a labour intermediary. I speak Arabic. The landowners don’t speak Arabic. Actually there is nobody here who speaks Arabic. If, I am not here, Syrians cannot work because the landowners and workers couldn’t understand each other. Therefore, I stay here for a year uninterruptedly. Believe me, I couldn’t go back to my hometown, Urfa, for 2 years because of Syrians (in Turkish). The isolation of sheltering spaces from urban centres and villages makes Syrian refugees more dependent on labour intermediaries with regard to the language problem, which blocks the possibility of communication with city dwellers. In Adana, there is a considerable Kurdish and Arab population living in the city centre. Although it could be an opportunity for dialogue between Syrians and locals in their native tongue, this is not the case due to the isolated location of tent areas. Thus the labour intermediary is the only person available for communication. Language Problem Apart from the increasing dependency on labour intermediaries, the language problem has also another dramatic impact on the lives of refugees: child labour. In fact, Syrian refugees mostly migrate to Turkey with all family members. All members of these families, including children, work in crop fields. Child labour is extremely common among Syrians and, other factors aside, the language problem is one of the main reasons fostering the condition. I have observed many child workers between the ages of seven and 18 who are employed in tomato-picking, grape harvest and other vegetable and fruit work in the field. A Syrian mother explained her case as follows: My children work because the school is very far away from here and the courses are in Turkish. All children work here except for the youngest who cannot afford, they are staying in tents and an elder child take after them when we are working in the field (in Arabic). She stresses her compelled situation to force her children to work because she does not see any other solution. The daily wage for children is usually equal to those of older workers. As for the piece-rate basis, there is no separated salary for each worker. A labour intermediary gives the total earnings to the head of the family, who is generally the father. In this case, the initiative belongs totally to the father and whether or how he distributes the money among family members is unclear. Another instance related to the language problem is the devaluation of the professions of refugees in Turkey. During my fieldwork, I encountered Syrians who had had qualified jobs in Syria performing agricultural jobs: their language problem prevented them from applying for a work permit to do their own professions. A former English teacher told her case as follows: I was an English teacher at high school. I had a house in Syria. I had a good life there. After the war started and arrived to our province, I decided to go and I left everything behind. Now, I am picking tomatoes (in Arabic). I also interviewed a philosophy student, a civil servant and a taxi driver from Syria, all of whom had become agricultural workers. The gap between their jobs in the two countries creates a status of paradox, as there is not an effectual system enacted by the state to develop the grounds for them to practise their own professions in Turkey. Actually, occupational downward mobility is very common among refugees, as Jackson and Bauder (2013: 367) exemplify similar cases by showing the profession change from psychologist to kitchen helper or from university professor to duct cleaner in Canada. However, Syrian refugee agricultural workers illustrate a different manner, since they lose not only their profession, but also their urban place. The scale between their professions is huge, as the above quotation indicates—an English teacher is now picking tomatoes. They have to adapt their working and living habits in accordance with the rural life. Syrians whom I interviewed seem to accept this paradox instead of questioning and challenging it. The primary issue for them is to survive in a quiet place, staying away from taking the risk of death. Conflicts Between Different Worker Groups and Marginalization of Syrian Refugees An additional factor that contributes to the fragile status of Syrian refugees that reconstructs unequal power relations is the absence of solidarity between different actors. The discriminatory rhetoric adopted by their co-workers, representatives from NGOs and farm owners is particularly illuminating. Most of interviewees who came from Syria are Kurds or Arabs. Thus, I had expected to observe a solidarity relation between Kurdish and Arabic workers from Turkey and Syria based on ethnic and religious affinity. On the contrary, conflicts stemming from discriminatory manners against refugees were widespread during my fieldwork. First of all, Syrians are blamed for the drop in income and causing unemployment. A woman worker from Urfa, located in south-eastern Turkey, told me: Syrians make our situation worse this year. Our daily wage is 35 TL. They are working for 20 TL. The labour intermediary is receiving 50 per cent as a commission from them so the actual wage earned by Syrians is 10 TL but our money is worthy in their hometown; 10 TL is equal 100 TL. I haven’t been there but people are telling this situation. If they work for a year, they will buy a good house there because of the worthiness of Turkish Liras. If you work for 20 TL and I work for 30 TL, who will be selected for working by an employer? For an employer, all workers are the same if they do the same job. Syrians are more employed comparing to us. We are placed behind them in the order. Apart from employers, labour intermediaries also prefer Syrians for having more commission. Syrians make our situation worse; we have already been poor people. This year, we are wretched (in Turkish). Another interviewee, a man from Urfa, said: Syrians made us awful. Think, somebody comes and strips of your job…When we arrive in Nevşehir, suppose that a daily wage is 30, 40 or 50 TL, Syrians work for 15 TL. In this case, farm owners don’t employ us. They prefer Syrians. Syrian workers can’t do agricultural jobs because they don’t know how this job is practised. Their Turkish is too little. They also don’t know the crops. We don’t want to see Syrians, we go to far away distances from Urfa with the hope of that we will not encounter with Syrians. For instance, we thought that Eskişehir is far so we will not see Syrians. When we arrived in Eskişehir, we saw that Syrians were more than us! They are in everywhere now (in Turkish). A man from Diyarbakır said: In the past, our daily wages were increasing 5 TL regularly every year but it has been made no progress after Syrians came here. In Tarsus, five boxes had been a daily wage but employers decided 15 boxes for a daily wage after Syrians (in Turkish). The displeasure of the workers about the presence of Syrian refugees in the labour market is also shared by the representatives from related NGOs. The Director of the Association of Agricultural Intermediaries in Adana declares a list about the wages of the workers every year. It also includes the amount of commission taken by labour intermediaries. This document does not have sanctioning power but employers usually do care about the amount specified in this article. Aside from the amounts of wages, it is stated that ‘to hire foreign workers is not allowed’. The term ‘foreigners’ here clearly refers to Syrians. The director explains why the employment of Syrians is a contentious issue: Under which conditions does the value of workers increase? If there are more workers, or less? Why would I want Syrians here? I don’t want them because both the wages are down and my workers become unemployed. Why? The demand for workers is decreasing. The daily wage of my workers is 44 TL. Syrians make informal agreements and work for 30 TL. They are preferable. If there were less workers, the value of their labour would increase, but there are too many workers! And workers don’t have any value in the eyes of employers. Although we are in dialogue with the employers, they don’t care about us because there will always be new workers. Even if you are not here, there are too many workers! (in Turkish). He uses a nationalistic rhetoric, blaming Syrians for working under price and substituting the place of Turkish citizens. He implies Turkish citizens with the term ‘my workers’. He complains about the lack of attention from landowners, although they warned the latter about this issue. However, all farm owners are not the same. While some of them support the employment of Syrians, others strongly criticize, again with reference to nationalist arguments. The statement below from an interview conducted with an agricultural employer is a clear example of the latter group: Syrians work as cheaper labour. A worker from Turkey earns 30 TL for a day but it is 15 or 20 TL for Syrians. This situation disturbs the balances here. I don’t understand why the state turns blind eye to Syrians! May be it is because of Syrian policies. Local people here don’t approve this. I don’t know how this situation will continue, I hope that there will not be problems for us in the region. So we are very uncomfortable. Syrians are travelling very easily here. I don’t understand their comforts during their travel …. We are saying: ‘they are our neighbours’, ‘they are our Muslim brothers’ but the situation is going on another way. I don’t approve the migration from Syria to Turkey with these huge numbers …. There has already been problems deriving from Kurd migrants from eastern regions of Turkey; they have carried their own problems such as blood vengeance resulted in sometimes leaving this city. We have already couldn’t solved our problems perfectly so added problems due to Syrians have made matters worse. This will bring different conflicts to the society. Eventually, everyone is struggling to increase his or her life standards. If someone come and take your bread from your hands, won’t you be annoyed? (in Turkish). This man typically constructs a discriminatory rhetoric that describes Syrians as ‘excess baggage’ for the Turkish nation and the Turkish state. His main argument is based on the economic burden for ordinary people whose privilege is replaced by Syrians. The interesting point here is that he is not involved in this ‘disadvantaged group’, since he has a position that technically can hire Syrians as labourers. However, the nationalist discourse guarding the ‘priority’ of Turkish citizens in the labour market lays a burden on the state that should focus on solving the economic problems of primarily its own citizens according to him. Although he emphasizes shared religious identity, economic interests shape nationalistic discriminatory discourse by discarding Muslimism. From his point of view, Kurdish Turks from eastern regions of Turkey also are a burden in terms of carrying their problems to the employer’s hometown, but Kurds are preferable to Syrians in his order. Furthermore, he attracts attention implicitly on the very possibility of conflicts in this picture. Apart from the discrimination relying on economic reasons, political arguments about their position in the war are also important factors that permeate the tensions between worker groups and consolidate the isolated and marginal figures of Syrian refugees in Turkey. To illustrate, a male worker from Mardin said: ‘If a person leaves their homeland, their honour, their land, this person is a traitor. They are the traitors.’ He advised me not to talk to them. Another man asked: ‘Why are they coming here? They should defend their land!’ (in Turkish). Additionally, there are other factors that have led to conflicts between two groups. For instance, a woman from Urfa said: ‘We don’t want Syrians here. Syrian girls become second wives (kuma). In Urfa, many families were dissolved because of these Syrians. We don’t want to see them!’ (in Kurdish). A man from Urfa also touched on the issue: We have good relations with everyone, except for Syrians. If they were a good tribe, they would have struggled for their homeland but they haven’t done it. They came here and made Turkey messy. Tayyip Erdoğan gives more importance Syrians than us. If a Syrian says ‘for Allah8’, he can give his daughter or wife to you. If he says ‘for Allah’… so they are not good people for their lands (in Turkish). All of these tensions based on economic, social and political challenges lead to implicit and explicit conflicts. In one labour camp in Mersin, I observed the separated tent area away from the other tents; a child worker explained the reason to me calmly, as if he was describing an ordinary event. He told me about a fight at a marriage ceremony, with brawls and guns between Syrians and other workers. After the ceremony, the tents of the Syrian workers were separated from those of the other workers to avoid further conflict. When the child described the departure of Syrians, his tone became more poignant and his face showed the traces of remembering a bad memory. Fear of Death and Violence Under these conditions, most of the Syrian workers whom I asked about their ideas on returning expressed that, if life in Syria was stabilized and secured, they would go back immediately, and yet the conditions are not suitable for return. A male worker from Idlib said: I want to go to back but if I return to Syria, I will be arrested because I didn’t do my military service. It is not just me, all men from my family shared the same fate. I can’t go back until the war is totally over and they forgive our penalty (in Arabic). Another female worker from Kobani expressed her fear as follows: We escaped from the war in Syria and came to Turkey. ISIS did bomb attack and fired villages in Kobani. Then, kidnapped the girls. ISIS would cut off heads of women. I feared for my daughters and myself. I immediately decided to go away. I talked with my husband. Turkey was the easiest option for us. Then we arrived to Urfa and then Adana to work (in Kurdish). As the above quotations indicate, the main motivation behind the migration is war and violence. Their frame of reference about Syria consists of two options. The first is to fight in the war and risk death. For women, there are also other risks, such as kidnapping. The second is to keep being exploited by working in Turkey under inhumane conditions. Pushing factors for leaving their country consist of political rather than economic reasons. Syrians seemingly do not care much about their underpayment, working hours, poor shelter or discriminatory behaviours against them with regard to the frame of reference shaped by the memory of war and they just wait for the day when all violent events will end. In fact, their obedience in the hosting places and acceptance of all inequalities in a witting manner are in close relation to their first motivation that forced them to migrate. Having an experience with violence shapes not only their departure, but also their docility in labour relations that reconstruct all relations between different actors. This distinguishes their case from other seasonal migrant instances such as Mexicans in the United States (Martin 2002) or eastern European workers in Norway (Rye and Andrzejewska 2010). They are also different from the refugees who wait to become a citizen of the hosted country in the future. Thus, beyond the concept of fear of deportation, fear of death and violence explains their disadvantaged position in the labour market. With the background of war, kidnapping, all kinds of violence and death, they accept all conditions, which allows profit maximization for big agricultural employers, and provides the necessary surviving conditions for small producers in the highly competitive neo-liberal market. Turkish agriculture has been restructured by the presence of Syrian refugees while creating new tensions among different worker groups as a result of increased competition. Conclusion Turkish agriculture is open to the seasonal employment of Syrians due to the fact that ongoing rural transformation since the 1980s has led to an increase in labour demand due to the loss of unpaid family workers with the effect of the dissolution of agriculture and urbanization. The findings of the article show that Syrians face unfair working conditions in terms of wages, working hours and accommodation in the sites of Manisa, Adana and Mersin, where the field survey was conducted. The mixed labour composition has led to complex relations between different groups of workers, which are shaped by several dynamics. Although having the same ethnic and religious identity could have helped to develop emphatic relations between Kurdish workers from eastern Turkey and Syria, I observed that Turkish Kurds are uncomfortable with the presence of Syrians by the emphasizing of their drop in income due to the lower wages of Syrians and the difficulties finding a job because of the availability of more workers. Moreover, some women dislike Syrians due to the fact that some of them became second wives in Turkey. Besides economic and social factors, in some of the interviews, Syrians were accused of their political stance and escaping the war. As for the relationship with labour intermediaries and employers, economic interests are more dominant in shaping the work relations. Swindling the wages of workers and dictating unfair working conditions were frequently expressed, which means that the presence of Syrian refugees in the labour market provides an opportunity to some for obtaining cheaper labour thanks to the precarious legal position and increasing dispossession of Syrians. All of these social, political and economic variables have continuously reconstructed the dynamics of unequal power relations in local-scale rural settings by placing Syrians in the lowest-ranking group. The contributions that this article has sought to make are two-fold. First, this study has analysed that Syrian agricultural workers are the most vulnerable group among seasonal migrant workers with regard to push and pull factors and the concepts of bargaining power, fear of deportability, status of paradox, and frame of reference that are useful to unravel the lowest rank of Syrian refugees in the work hierarchy. However, putting the difference between refugee and emigrant for the case of seasonal agricultural employment necessitates new analytical tools beyond economic and political causes, since hyper-exploitability is going on unreasonably with new relations of power. Thus, to further these concepts as a second contribution, I suggest that the concept of ‘fear of death and violence’ may explain the extremely vulnerable case of Syrian refugees as seasonal agricultural workers surrounded by divergent interests of employers and labour intermediaries and asymmetries of power and conflicts between the employer–worker–labour intermediary relationship and also between different worker groups. In this context, ‘fear’ of refugees illustrates the impact of an emotion to accept unequal conditions–even living under hunger limit as a family in a foreign land-. The availability of refugee workers as reserve army of labour is the key for accelerating neoliberal transformation process of agriculture. In fact, refugee employment provides with necessary profit for the survival of small-medium sized farmers and greater profit for big agricultural enterprises. Altering inequalities faced by Syrian refugees will necessarily require significant shifts in economic and political realms. Thus, it is not easy to develop effective policy recommendations on this issue, since the problems of Syrian refugee agricultural workers are closely related to the major problems of Turkey, such as the prevalence of informal employment, neo-liberal agrarian policies and the refugee question, but some precautions and implementations surely can improve the worst conditions of their working life in the short term. First and foremost, the status of the refugee is more important than the status of the worker for the fragility of Syrian seasonal labourers—even they do not hold the exact ‘refugee’ status; they are under temporary protection. Therefore, the legal status of Syrian refugees should be specified with regard to basic human rights. Second, the presence of the informal labour market creates hierarchies shaped by ethnic grounds. Thus, the agrarian labour market should be regulated by the state and informal employment should be banned. Labour inspection should be done routinely, since the informal feature of the agricultural labour market paves a way for a rule-less work life designed along ethnic lines. In the case that everything is under control, legal departments are supposed to enable Syrians to seek their rights against any unfairness without fearing their legal status. After providing equal conditions for Syrians and the other workers, the shared problems such as low wages, unhealthy sheltering conditions and improper working environments may be an area of struggle for all seasonal agrarian workers as a whole. Further Research This study is limited by the qualitative data due to the informal feature of the field. If quantitative data is obtained, a study that argues Split Labour Market Theory, Dual Labour Market Theory or Group Conflict Theory would make a significant contribution to the literature. Acknowledgements I thank the anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Refugee Studies for helpful comments and precise revision. This study was presented at the Migration with(out) Boundaries Conference, Michigan State University in October 2016 and the 21st Annual Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention, Columbia University in April 2016. I am grateful to comments of the discussants, Aaron Ponce and Mostafa Minawi. I also thank Şevket Pamuk, Alain Morice, Jean Françoise Pérouse, Umut Türem and Ahsen Akdal for reading and giving feedback on this article. Footnotes 1. Imece refers to a kind of a mutual agricultural work which is organized by small producers in Turkish agriculture. All seasonal harvest work of the peasant family farms are arranged in an order. Household members in a village work respectively in the fields of their neighbors during the harvest times and there is no payment. This system dissolved due to the lack of unpaid family members after the accelerated urbanization process during the 1990s. 2. ‘Icar’ corresponds to share-crooping, which is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of the land; the portion is usually 50 per cent in Turkey. 3. Labour Law (İş Kanunu), law no. 4857, does not encompass temporary agricultural workers because the workers who are employed by agricultural and forest enterprises with fewer than 50 workers and job durations shorter than 30 days are out beyond its scope. Legislative regulations under the Project for the Improvement of the Working and Living Conditions Lives of Seasonal Migratory Agricultural Workers (Mevsimlik Gezici Tarım İşçilerinin Çalışma ve Sosyal Hayatlarının İyileştirilmesi Projesi) were designated to compensate for the strict excluding limits of the labour law, but this Circular has not brought an effective struggling informality to the labour market, increasing labour inspections and providing the minimum wage. The target of this project is just the improvement of current living, shelter, transportation, education, health and security conditions of seasonal migratory agricultural workers. However, all implementations regarding these targets are much more designated for the workers who are Turkish citizens. However, as this article shows, there is a significant emigration pattern to Turkey that should be taken into account. 4. Dayıbaşı means uncle in Turkish. 5. Elçi means delegate in Turkish. 6. All interview quotes were transcribed by me. The original language is indicated for each quote. 7. ‘Poverty in turn’ is a concept that is used for explaining the economic interest-based relations between migrants in the district of Sultanbeyli located in Istanbul. It is used to explain the case of urban migrants; however, today it could be explanatory to understand unequal power relations in rural areas that are ethnically more heterogenous. 8. Allah için is a religious expression. He implies that ‘Syrians can make an arrangement with Turkish men about Syrian women by giving religious references. It is not a problem for them’. He criticizes this situation ethically. References AFET VE ACİL DURUM YÖNETİMİ BAŞKANLIĞI (AFAD) ( 2014 ) Türkiye’deki Suriyeli Sığınmacılar Saha Araştırması Sonuçları . Ankara : AFAD . WorldCat COPAC ASKINS K. ( 2009 ) ‘Crossing Divides: Ethnicity and Rurality’ . Journal of Rural Studies 25 ( 4 ): 365 – 375 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat AYDIN Z. ( 2002 ) ‘The New Right, Structural Adjustment and Turkish Agriculture: Rural Responses and Survival Strategies’ . European Journal of Development Research 14 ( 2 ): 183 – 208 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat BASOK T. , BELANGER D. , RIVAS E. ( 2013 ) ‘Reproducing Deportability: Migrant Agricultural Workers in South-western Ontario’ . Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40 ( 9 ): 1394 – 1413 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat BONACICH E. ( 1972 ) ‘A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market’ . American Sociological Review 35 ( 5 ): 547 – 559 . WorldCat ÇINAR S. ( 2012 ) ‘Bağımlı Çalışma İlişkileri Kapsamında Mevsimlik Tarım İşçilerinin Malatya Örneği Üzerinden Analizi’, PhD dissertation, Marmara University, Istanbul. DEDEOĞLU S. ( 2016 ) Türkiye’de Mevsimlik Tarımsal Üretimde Yabancı Göçmen İşçiler Mevcut Durum Raporu Yoksulluk Nöbetinden Yoksulların Rekabetine, Kalkınma Atölyesi Resarch Report . Ankara : Altan Matbaası . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC DURUİZ D. ( 2011 ) ‘Embodiment of Space and Labor Kurdish Migrant Workers in Turkish Agriculture’. In Gambetti Z. , Jongerden J. (eds) The Kurdish Issue in Turkey: A Spatial Perspective . New York : Routledge , pp. 289 – 309 . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC ERENSU A. İ. , KAŞLI Z. ( 2016 ) ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Multiple Practices of Bordering and Degrees of “Transit” in and through Turkey’ . Journal of Refugee Studies 29 ( 4 ): 528 – 548 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat FRELICK B. , KOHNEN B. ( 1995 ) ‘Filling the Gap: Temporary Protected Status’ . Journal of Refugee Studies 8 ( 4 ): 339 – 363 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat HAYATA DESTEK DERNEĞİ ( 2014 ) Mevsimlik Gezici Tarım İşçiliği Araştırma Raporu . İstanbul : Hayata Destek Derneği Yayınları . WorldCat COPAC İÇDUYGU A. ( 2015 ) Syrian Refugees in Turkey The Long Road Ahead . İstanbul : Migration Policy Institute . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE REGARDING THE WORK PERMITS OF FOREIGNERS PROVIDED WITH TEMPORARY PROTECTION ( 2016 ) http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2016/01/20160115-23.pdf (accessed September 2017). IŞIK O. , PINARCIOĞLU M. ( 2015 ) Nöbetleşe Yoksulluk . İstanbul : İletişim Yayınları . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC JACKSON S. , BAUDER H. ( 2013 ) ‘Neither Temporary, Nor Permanent: The Precarious Employment Experiences of Refugee Claimants in Canada’ . Journal of Refugee Studies 27 ( 3 ): 360 – 381 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat KARTAL S. ( 2008 ) ‘Ethnic Identity and Turkey’s Migrant Kurds in Urban Provinces’, PhD dissertation, Northern Illinois University, Illinois. KEYDER Ç. , YENAL Z. ( 2013 ) Bildiğimiz Tarımın Sonu Küresel İktidar ve Köylülük . Istanbul : İletişim Yayınları . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC KİRİŞÇİ K. ( 2001 ) ‘UNCHR and Turkey: Cooperating Towards and Improved Implementation of the 1951 Convention’ . International Journal of Refugee Law 13 ( 1 ): 38 – 55 . WorldCat KİRİŞÇİ K. ( 2014 ) Syrian Refugees and Turkey’s Challenges: Going Beyond Hospitality . Washington : Brookings Institute . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC KOCA T. B. ( 2015 ) ‘Deconstructing Turkey’s “Open Door” Policy towards Refugees from Syria’ . Migration Letters 12 ( 3 ): 209 – 225 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat MARTIN P. ( 2002 ) ‘Mexican Workers and U.S. Agriculture: The Revolving Door’ . International Migration Review 36 ( 4 ): 1124 – 1142 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat MORICE A. ( 2013 ) ‘Migrants in the World’. In Migreurop , Atlas of Migration in Europe A Critical Geography of Migration Policies . Oxford : New Internationalist Publications , pp. 12 – 16 . Google Preview WorldCat COPAC MURA E. ( 2016 ) ‘Dynamics of Intermediation in the Agricultural Labour Market: Women Workers in Adapazarı, Turkey’, PhD dissertation, Middle East Technical University, Ankara. NIESWAND B. ( 2006 ) ‘Methodological Transnationalism and the Paradox of Migration’, Conference Paper, EASA Biennial Conference, pp. 1–11. ÖZBEK A. ( 2007 ) ‘New Actors of New Poverty: The “Other” Children of Çukurova’, MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara. PELEK D. ( 2010 ) ‘Seasonal Migrant in Agriculture: The Cases of Ordu and Polatli’, MA thesis, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. ROGALY B. ( 1996 ) ‘Agricultural Growth and the Structure of “Casual” Labor-hiring in Rural West Bengal’ . Journal of Peasant Studies 23 ( 4 ): 141 – 165 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat RYE J. F. , ANDRZEJEWSKA J. ( 2010 ) ‘The Structural Disempowerment of Eastern European Migrant Farm Workers in Norwegian Agriculture’ . Journal of Rural Studies 26 ( 1 ): 41 – 51 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat SMETS P. , ten KATE S. ( 2008 ) ‘Let’s Meet! Lets Exchange! Lets as an Instrumental for Linking Asylum Seekers and the Host Community in the Netherlands’ . Journal of Refugee Studies 21 ( 3 ): 326 – 346 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat STEFANOVIC D. , LOIZIDES N. , PARSONS S. ( 2014 ) ‘Home Is Where the Heart Is? Forced Migration and Voluntary Return in Turkey’s Kurdish Regions’ . Journal of Refugee Studies 28 ( 2 ): 276 – 296 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat SUAREZ-NAVAZ L. ( 2007 ) ‘Immigration and the Politics of Space Allocation in Rural Spain: The Case of Andalusia’ . Journal of Peasant Studies 34 ( 2 ): 207 – 239 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat TÜİK ( 1980–2010 ) ‘Population Censuses Survey’, http://www.tuik.gov.tr/UstMenu.do?metod=temelist (accessed June 2018). TÜRKİYE ZİRAAT ODALARI BİRLİĞİ (TZOB) ( 2010 ) ‘Zirai ve İktisadi Rapor (2007–2010)’, https://www.tzob.org.tr/zirai-iktisadi-raporlar# (accessed May 2018). ULUSLARARASI ORTADOĞU BARIŞ ARAŞTIRMALARI MERKEZİ ( 2014 ) Statü Belirleme Sürecinde Türkiye’de Bulunan Refakatsiz Sığınmacı Çocukların Durumu . Ankara : IMPR . WorldCat COPAC UNCHR ( 2014 ) ‘Syria Response Plan (RRP6)’, http://www.unhcr.org/syriarrp6/docs/Syria-rrp6-full-report.pdf (accessed July 2017). UNCHR ( 2018 ) ‘Syrian Regional Refugee Response Statistics’, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria (accessed July 2018). YILDIRIM U. D. ( 2014 ) ‘1980 Sonrası Türkiye Tarımında Yapısal Dönüşüm ve Mevsimlik Tarım İşçileri’, PhD dissertation, Istanbul University, Istanbul. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Syrian Refugees as Seasonal Migrant Workers: Re-Construction of Unequal Power Relations in Turkish Agriculture
JF - Journal of Refugee Studies
DO - 10.1093/jrs/fey050
DA - 2019-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/syrian-refugees-as-seasonal-migrant-workers-re-construction-of-unequal-NeF2ZGZe2s
SP - 605
VL - 32
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -