From fear to freedom: The impact of the Syrian civil war on place making and refugee return migration in Türkiye

Abstract

After 14 years of unrest, violence, and instability, Syria is forging a new path following the fall of the Assad regime, and Syrian refugees in Türkiye are making the decision whether to return home. Economic turmoil and regime violence drove the Syrian people to their breaking point in March of 2011. In hopes of clinging to power, Bashar al-Assad responded with brutality against his own people, triggering civil war. The direct involvement of international actors in Syria fractured military forces leading to proxy sponsors and proxy agents with various geopolitical agendas. Now that the war is over, Syria is transitioning to peace and Syrians are making the decision to return home. This thesis examines how proxy sponsorship divided the country politically, how Turkish media portrayed the end of the war to meet its own geopolitical goals, and how each impacted return migration of Syrian Sunni Muslim refugees in Gaziantep, Türkiye. This thesis utilizes discourse analysis to discover how three Turkish newspapers, the Daily Sabah, the Hürriyet Daily News and the Sözcü portray return migration and the political transition of Syria to meet the geopolitical goals of Türkiye’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). It then connects this analysis to the everyday lives of Syrian Sunni Muslim refugees as they make the decision whether to return home. Drawing on established frameworks from the geopolitics of returns, brain gain, and a sustainable future, this thesis investigates how the intrinsic longing for home intersects with the structural considerations of state rebuilding to drive decision making for this group of Syrian refugees in Gaziantep, Türkiye. I conducted interviews in Gaziantep and further analyze the personal experiences of six Syrian refugees to understand what factors drive return migration for refugees and how their understanding of home contributes to their decision-making process. Together, this thesis contributes to the geopolitics of return migration and how geopolitical policy and news media can impact refugee decision-making.