Logistification and Hyper-Precarity at the Intersection of Migration and Pandemic Governance: Refugees in the Turkish Labour Market

Abstract

This article analyses the governance of migration and the Covid-19 pandemic on precarious Syrian refugees in Istanbul. Drawing from a review of state policies and interviews with refugees before and after the pandemic, we argue that the intersecting governance of migration and the pandemic compounded inequalities. While refugees initially lost their employment without notice in lockdown periods, their partial lifting revealed unequal expectations towards their labour, as they were reincorporated within even more hyper-precarious labour relations. Unlike citizens who were somewhat protected by the state, refugees were under the limited care of international funders and subject to the whims of the market. Pandemic governance resulted in increased hyper-precarity and the need to rely on individual coping mechanisms for refugees. This research shows how shifting inclusion and exclusion shapes refugees' hyper-precarity related to Covid-19 governance, transforming Syrians into ‘market buffers’ to prevent or delay bankruptcies.

A Strategic Narrative Construction of the Trump Administration on Iran’s Nuclear Program

“…Refugee vulnerability has moved into a new dimension with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poor medical background and psychological disorders (Kurt, Ilkkursun, Javanbakht, Uygun, Karaoglan-Kahilogullari, & Acarturk, 2021), impoverished living conditions due to the difficulty in access to the labor market (Elçi, Kirisçioğlu, & Üstübici, 2021;Falkenhain, Flick, Hirseland, Naji, & Verlage, 2021;Martuscelli, 2021) and social services, crowded homes (Fouad, Mccall, Ayoub, Abu-raddad, & Mumtaz, 2021), job losses triggered by the pandemic (Nimer & Rottman, 2022), limited access to remote education due to lack of necessary technological devices (Primdahl, Borsch, Verelst, Jervelund, Derluyn, & Skovdal, 2021, pp. 82-83) would exacerbate refugees' vulnerability in the pandemic (Júnior, de Sales, Moreira, Pinheiro, Lima, & Neto, 2020).…”

A corona-carnival? A carnivalesque interpretation of (im)mobilities under COVID-19 lockdowns

“…The chosen terminology of ‘essential worker’ highlighted the social contradictions of the pandemic response ( De Genova, 2020 ; Nimer and Rottmann, 2021 ). That is, the notion of ‘essential’ begs the question: essential to whom, and essential for what?…”

“…In this regard, it was often the ‘work’ itself deemed essential and not the ‘worker’, who was defined in strictly utilitarian terms. While these workers are essential, they are also disposable ( De Genova, 2020 ; Nimer and Rottmann, 2021 ). It is ‘essential’ that they get to the work site and provide their labour for the basic reproduction of society to occur.…”

Immigrants and refugees, tourists and vagabonds: why and how they integrate differently

“…Kaya (2017) righty points out how refugees rely on social networks rooted in century-old cultural and religious ties between Aleppo and Istanbul to access resources such as job information and safety. Nimer and Rottmann (2022) successfully captured how Syrians demonstrated agency by mobilizing the goodwill of private individuals, including their fellow Syrians, when civil society initiatives were insufficient during the pandemic. However, my data, as the above quote poignantly suggests, like Ertorer's (2021) study, cautions against protectiveness of these networks, noting Syrians' limited bargaining power in the face of their precarious status that generates exploitation in and beyond the labor market.…”