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Call for papers: ***Extended Deadline: 28 May 2015***
Special Issue on the Syrian Crisis and its impact on Migration
Migration Letters invites contributions for a special issue on the Syrian Crisis and Migration. The deteriorating situation in Syria as well as immigration flow from this country has been identified as one of the biggest humanitarian tragedies of our time. Since the insurrections arose in Syria in 2011, the turmoil and violence has caused mass migration to destinations both within and outside the region. According to the UNHCR, 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced and in addition more than 3 million have fled to neighbouring countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Although the number is quite small when compared to neighbouring countries, a growing number of Syrians have sought asylum in Europe. Since the conflict shows no signs of abating in the near future, there is a constant increase in the number of Syrians fleeing their home.
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Although Turkey has been an important immigration and asylum country (see Kale, 2005; Kaya, 2009, 2012; Kirisci, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2007) as well as a transit county (Sahin-Mencutek, 2012) in the region, the legal infrastructure to deal with the migration subject has been somewhat poor . This field has been governed by piecemeal legislations, and this lack of primary legislation, which covers both rights and responsibilities has been indicated as one of the reasons for decreasing the level of protection given to refugees and asylum seekers (Amnesty International, 2009). When we come to 2011, it is possible to see a remarkable development in the field of asylum seekers, although negotiations with the EU remained in deadlock. In 2011, The Law on Foreigners and International Protection in Turkey (No. 6458) was drafted and it was approved by Parliament on 4 April 2013.  This was an innovative movement in the history of Turkish migration policies because it was the first comprehensive law to cover both foreigners and those who need international protection.

This article deals with the policy of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) in Turkey with regard to Syrian ‘refugees’. Initially referred to as ‘guests', they were subsequently granted the official status of ‘temporary protection’. The article also covers efforts to incorporate the Syrians into some areas of Turkish society (the job market, healthcare, citizenship, the housing market, social prominence and marriage relationships). It is argued that the JDP's policy towards the Syrians is based on ideological–sectarian reasons. It also contends that Turkey has struggled to deal with the mass influx from Syria into Turkey, since it did not have the proper legal infrastructure to deal with mass refugee influxes. This has rendered the management of the refugees' stay in Turkey problematic and confused. This study provides a novel contribution to the study of the Syrian refugee issue by scrutinizing the JDP's nation-building project and the partial integration of Syrian refugees into Turkish society as an unexpected result of this policy.

With the growing insurrections in Syria in 2011, an exodus in large numbers have emerged. The turmoil and violence have caused mass migration to destinations both within the region and beyond. The current "refugee crisis" has escalated sharply and its impact is widening from neighbouring countries toward Europe. Today, the Syrian crisis is the major cause for an increase in displacement and the resultant dire humanitarian situation in the region. Since the conflict shows no signs of abating in the near future, there is a constant increase in the number of Syrians fleeing their homes. However, questions on the future impact of the Syrian crisis on the scope and scale of this human mobility are still to be answered. As the impact of the Syrian crisis on host countries increases, so does the demand for the analyses of the needs for development and protection in these countries. In this special issue, we aim to bring together a number of studies examining and discussing human mobility in relation to the Syrian crisis.

Gang warfare is one of the social problems that attract attention in Denmark and it occupies an important place in the media discourse. However, the discriminatory and exclusionary effects of this discourse have been largely overlooked in many of the previous studies focusing on this problem. Taking this into account, this study examines the discriminatory aspects of the online news discourse covering these gang wars. In this way, it uncovers the forms of anti-immigrant bias in the news discourse in Denmark by examining articles from two online news articles by the newspaper Politiken and the news quoted from the same newspaper. Specifically, this study aims to demonstrate that the discriminatory and exclusionist discourse on the gang wars in Denmark may cause ethnic discrimination by producing negative social capital. The chosen sample of news articles has been analysed by devoting special attention to the concepts of 'racism', 'exclusion', 'marginalisation' and 'negative social capital' which are based on the critical discourse analysis of Teun A. van Dijk, who does not perceive news media as passive reporters but instead draws attention to their role in (re)constructing news events and dominant ideology.

Since the rst arrival of Syrian refugees, the issue has sparked considerable national and international interest. Political discourses concentrated on state 'generosities' to provide protection to those coming from insecurities and possibilities to reduce 'burden of refugees' to receiving countries via international solidarity. While these concerns focus on eects of hosting refugees, what happens to refugees themselves, how they are aected by government policies and how they are perceived by host country people are questions yet to be answered. This book brings together a multidisciplinary set of contributions scrutinising the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey.