Kristen Biehl

Kristen Biehl is an anthropologist specializing in migration and urban studies. She is currently working as an assistant professor at Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and a researcher at Sabancı University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence (SU Gender). For close to 15 years Kristen has been involved both academically and professionally in intensive research within the migration and asylum field in Turkey. She has worked closely with a great range of international, national, and local actors working with different migrant and refugee communities in Turkey (UN and EU agencies, humanitarian organizations, ministries and other public institutions, municipalities, a vast range of civil society organizations and civic initiatives).

Her research interests range from ethnographically examining processes of change and practices of coexistence in urban contexts of migration, to exploring the impact of different social integration and cohesion policies and programs for refugees in Turkey. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, including Ethnic and Racial Studies and Social Analysis, as well as numerous edited volumes, including Istanbul: Living with Difference in a Global City and Contested Spaces in Turkey: Politics of the Urban, Secular, Legal and Environmental.

Project: “Examining policy formations and everyday realities of refugee integration in Turkey”

Today, Turkey has become the world’s leading country hosting the largest number of refugees, including over 3 million people primarily from Syria, as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries. With numbers soaring, there is growing pressure on Turkey to look beyond the emergency needs of refugees, who have largely been conceived as temporary guests, and to develop comprehensive and longer-term models for integration. This pressure is being exerted on multiple fronts. At one end is the EU, which has re-emerged as a powerful actor aiming to shape Turkey’s migration affairs. At the other end are different urban polities and localities of Turkey, where the massive refugee influx is significantly transforming everyday life.

This project explores refugee integration as a concept shaped by these different levels and dynamics. How are policy makers conceiving refugee integration in Turkey? Who and what factors are influencing their views? How are refugees and host populations experiencing living together? What are their views on needs and possibilities for integration? By examining and comparing these different viewpoints and experiences, this research aims to explore ways for bringing refugees, urban stakeholders, policymakers, and researchers into closer dialogue.