Suriyeli Mültecilerin Esnaflaşmasını Anlamada Bourdieucu Yaklaşımın Olanakları
Olgu KaranBu çalışmada mültecilerin esnaflaşmasında karşılaştıkları sorunları anlamak için kullanılan kuramsal çerçevelerin, bütüncül bir bakış açısı sağlayamadığı, karşılaştıkları zorluklardaki dinamikleri ve baş etme stratejilerini anlamakta yetersiz kaldığı iddia edilip, bu bağlamda Bourdieu sosyolojisinin kavramlarının sosyal araştırmacılara ne gibi olanaklar sağladığı araştırılmaktadır. Mülteci esnaflaşmasında karşılaşılan dinamiklerin aydınlatılmasında daha bütüncül, ilişkisel bir bakış açısı Bourdieucu yaklaşımın alan kuramıyla sağlanabilir mi sorusunu tartışmaya açmak çalışmanın temel amacını oluşturmaktadır. Bu bağlamda Türkiye’de yaşayan mültecilerin esnaflaşmasının dinamiklerini anlamak için Bourdieu sosyolojisinin kavramları işlemselleştirilerek varolan göçmen/mülteci girişimcilik yazınındaki boşlukların Bourdieu’nun çok katmanlı ilişkisel kavramları ile kapatılması hedeflemektedir. Dolayısıyla sosyal araştırmacılara mülteci esnafların yaşadıkları sorunları anlamada kullanabilecekleri kuramsal bir alet çantası sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Göçmen girişimcilik literatürü üç ana başlık etrafında değerlendirilecektir. Bunlar, fail merkezli teoriler kültürelcilik ve ulusüstücülük, yapısalcı teori ve sosyal gömülme teorileri olarak gruplandırılacaktır. Farklı analitik araçların ve teorilerin odaklandığı temalar değerlendirilip teorilerdeki boşluklar vurgulanacaktır. Bourdieucu yaklaşımın ilişkisel kavramları tartışılacaktır. Son olarak, bahsi geçen kavramlar işlemselleştirilerek mülteci esnafların yaşadıkları sorunları anlamada kullanılabilecek kavramsal çerçeve sunulacaktır.
Opportunities for Understanding Syrian Refugees’ Entrepreneurship in Turkey Using the Bourdieusian Approach
Olgu KaranThis study shows that existing theoretical approaches in understanding migrant small-business ownership do not provide a composite, multi-layered framework. The dynamics of hardship faced by Syrian refugees and Syrian survival strategies are asserted to be unable to be fully understood through existing theoretical approaches. The existing literature on refugee-owned small businesses is discussed under three groupings: agency-oriented theories, structuralism, and the mixed approaches of embeddedness. This paper adopts a Bourdieusian approach to exploring the opportunities provided by Bourdieusian sociology in understanding the multi-layered dynamics of Syrian entrepreneurship. The main research questions of the paper are as follows: What are the possible opportunities in Bourdieu’s concepts for shedding light on Syrian small-business ownership? Does Bourdieusian field theory provide a composite, relational approach in understanding Syrian refugee small-business ownership? In so doing, the multi-layered and relational concepts of Bourdieusian sociology are operationalized in order to fill in the gaps within the existing literature on migrant/refugee entrepreneurship. This paper provides researchers with a toolkit for working on migrant/refugee smallbusiness ownership and contains five sections. The first section sets the aim and methodology of the study. The second section discusses the analytical models for understanding migrant entrepreneurship. The third section elaborates on the theoretical approaches that shed light on migrant entrepreneurship. These last two sections critically engage with these models and theoretical approaches by showing the gaps within them. The fourth section sets out the Bourdieusian approach and operationalizes his concepts into the research area of Syrian small-business ownership in Turkey. The paper concludes with key research findings and implications for researchers and practitioners.
The Syrian internal war that erupted in 2011 led millions of Syrians to leave their countries looking for refuge in Turkey. According to the figures provided by the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Interior Directorate General of Migration Management, the number of Syrians under temporary protection with registered biometric data was 3,674,588 as of October 10, 2019 (Mülteci Derneği, 2019). As Turkey hosts more than 3 million Syrians, the refugee integration policies regarding access to health, education, labor market, and citizenship are under intense public debate. Syrian entrepreneurs residing in specifically near border regions and big metropolitan cities like İstanbul are also known to have set up small shops in various sectors. According to the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, 173 corporations and 8,038 limited companies operating with Syrian financial capital are found between January, 2013 and April, 2019 (TOBB Kurulan-Kapanan Şirket İstatistikleri, 2019). Accordingly, migrant entrepreneurship has been asserted to not only be able to foster migrant’s self-reliance and integration into the host society, but also to be able to ease the social and cultural adaptation processes of migrants into their new environment (Özservet, 2017, p. 3). In this respect, analyzing the dynamics and the difficulties within the field of migrant entrepreneurship is essential.
This study shows that the existing theoretical approaches in understanding migrant small-business ownership do not provide a composite, multi-layered framework. It asserts that the dynamics of hardship faced by Syrian refugees and Syrian survival strategies cannot be fully understood by existing theoretical approaches. The existing literature on refugee-owned small businesses is discussed under three groupings: agency-oriented theories, structuralism, and mixed approaches of embeddedness. However, the paper adopts a Bourdieusian approach to explore the opportunities provided by Bourdieusian sociology in understanding the multi-layered dynamics of Syrian entrepreneurship. The main research questions of the paper are as follows: What are the possible opportunities for Bourdieu’s concepts to shed light on Syrian small-business ownership? Does Bourdieusian field theory provide a composite, relational approach to understanding Syrian refugee small-business ownership? In so doing, the multi-layered and relational concepts of Bourdieusian sociology have been operationalized in order to fill the gaps within the existing literature on migrant/refugee entrepreneurship. By using the full theoretical model of Pierre Bourdieu’s multi-layered relational concepts, the study aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics in migrant entrepreneurship. The paper provides researchers with a toolkit for working on migrant/refugee small-business ownership.
The paper contains five sections. The first section sets the aim and methodology of the study. The second section discusses the analytical models in understanding migrant entrepreneurship. The third section elaborates on the theoretical approaches that shed light on migrant entrepreneurship. These last two sections critically engage with these models and theoretical approaches by showing the gaps within them. The fourth section sets out the Bourdieusian approach and operationalizes his concepts into the research area of Syrian small-business ownership in Turkey. The paper concludes with key research findings and implications for researchers and practitioners. The methodological approach performs a critical evaluation of the theoretical approaches and analytical models to understand the dynamics within migrant entrepreneurship. Accordingly, a small number of academic studies on Syrian entrepreneurship in Turkey are discussed in relation to the theoretical approaches and analytical models. In addition to the critical elaboration of secondary resources regarding the literature on Syrian entrepreneurship in Turkey, I have utilized the field work observations I made during the research project titled A New Perspective on the Processes of Adaptation and Integration of Urban Refugees: A Social Innovation Experiment Aimed at Building Inclusive Cities, which was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey’s (TÜBİTAK) Priority Area R&D Funding Program No. 1003 (117K826) where I worked as a researcher. Next, a multi-level research framework that incorporates the micro, mid, and macro dynamics within Syrian entrepreneurship is presented using Bourdieusian concepts. Finally, the Bourdieusian concepts are operationalized into Syrian small-business ownership.
Rather than borrowing piecemeal from Bourdieu’s work, Bourdieu’s full theoretical account opens up fresh and innovative possibilities for theoretical and empirical research. The research shows how Bourdieu’s concepts, field, habitus, and forms of capital are constitutively bound up within each other. First, one of the advantages of Bourdieu’s theory in the context of small business ownership lies in its dynamic approach that enables discussion on how changes in the political economy have affected migrant labor markets and immigrants’ interests and employability, particularly ethnic entrepreneurship. A Bourdieusian approach calls for an assessment of deeper political structures and the power relations that shape the current configuration of social and economic life.
The concept of habitus offers a powerful means for linking the micro and macro processes in ethnic entrepreneurship. The habitus also links past fields to present fields and enables researchers to conduct comparative studies, as habitus takes into account the entrepreneur’s own sense of the structures, meanings, and definitions that people bring to their situation in the confrontation and negotiation between themselves and the structures.
Adjusting to the field of entrepreneurship requires investment and the transformation of forms of capital that are needed in small business ownership. The formation and activation of social, cultural, and economic capital, rather than pre-existing, exists solely in relation to the field of entrepreneurship. A Bourdieusian approach enables researchers to focus on the formation and reproduction of concrete social network ties in a specific field. As Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992, p. 101) put it, “Capital does not exist and function except in relation to a field.”
Moreover, the findings from the study suggest that not all Syrian shopkeepers possess these capitals equally. The ability to overcome difficulties in small business ownership is dependent on the volume and quality of social capital. Inequalities in the distribution of forms of capital in a particular moment in time could lead to different entrepreneurial strategies within the members of the Syrian community.
This study shows that existing theoretical approaches for understanding migrant small-business ownership do not provide a composite, multi-layered framework. It asserts that the dynamics of hardship faced by Syrian entrepreneurs cannot be fully understood through existing theoretical approaches.
The Bourdieusian framework has a greater potential for explaining the dynamics within Syrian entrepreneurship and provides researcher better analytical tools for understanding the dynamics of Syrian small-business ownership.