September 19, 2012

Walking in the shoes of others: Stepping in and out of Turkey

Michael Samuel *

What inspires migrants to leave home, friends and country to cross over into unknown worlds? Often many make the journey driven by the prospects of better life opportunities. Others seek escape of refuge from oppressive regimes. Some journey the paths onto the other side having themselves been abandoned by their countries of origin. Some patterns of migration have been fueled by natural disasters; others may be voluntary or forced movements of whole communities, or individual trajectories. Early colonial conquests throughout history have also seen these migratory paths as journeys of conquest or plundering, of seeking new markets, of evangelism, of stamping one’s identity on the alien land. Usually these migratory relationships produce contestations of power and hierarchy between host and source countries: those in authority begin to become more conscious about how they police their boundaries of geography, class, race, caste, and religion – their identities. Although migration patterns are oftentimes constructed around the opening up of new ventures within the host countries, it is usually understood as a posing of a threat to any culture. The foreigner is always regarded with skepticism as she or he usually heralds new sources of influence. The migrant himself or herself is usually caste with uncertainties and ambiguities around their future. Some more orchestrated movements of peoples, such as the movements during the slave trades of the 16th and 17th century, have led to patterns of inequity and injustice which permeate over many centuries (Bourne, 2011).