This thesis tries to explore the effects of socio-economic status, gender and generation of Turkish migrants living in Berlin on their participation into transnational social fields established between Berlin and Turkey. In addition to this, evaluating transnational approaches used in international migration studies critically and acquiring a critical transnational perspective in the context of global capitalism are also in the interest areas of this study. This study is based on a qualitative field research conducted with 30 Turkish migrants in Berlin in 2006. This study maintains that, as well as global restructuring of global capitalism, new technological advances and nation state policies, migrants&rsquo / socio-economic status, gender and generation differences are vital elements to understand the way and content of transnational social fields in daily life of migrants. This study concludes that, apart from being liberatory, nation- state- based inequalities are reproduced in transnational social fields in macro and micro levels as dependent on migrants&rsquo / socio economic status, gender and generation differences.

This study focuses on the work strategies of 1989 immigrants who had to move from Bulgaria to Turkey and settled in Ankara. During this immigratio wave, nearly 150,000 people immigrated to Turkey and settled permanently. In this study, the operational definition of the immigrant work strategy is the activities and the attitudes that the immigrants take to find and maintain thier first jobs, immediately after immigration. To learn about the work strategies of the immigrants, I conducted a field research which was based on semi-structured in depth interviews. In my sample, there are fifteen women and fifteen men who have work experience both in Bulgaria and Turkey. During the field research, i asked the respondents questions about their immigration ad settlement processes, their working lives, both in Bulgaria and Turkey and their perceptions about working. Theni to interpret this data, I employ three approaches from the international migration literature: migration system approach, political approach and network aapproach with some important concepts like social capital and work ethic and I tried to connect them with work strategies of the immigrants. As a result of this study, it is suggested that to improve their standards of living, the immigrants developed a work strategy with two main steps: finding a job and maintaining this job. Immigrants follow different patterns in these two steps. While they are trying to find a job, they benefit from existing immigrants&#039 / networks which are products continous immigration waves from Bulgaria to Turkey and Turkish state&#039 / s provisions which are for the accomadation of the immigrants who are privileged in the eyes of the state due to their ethnicity and religion. As a second step of the work strategy, they maintain these jobs with the help of work ethic they gained in Bulgaria and their ignorance about the operation of Turkish labour market. With these characteristics they are distinguished among the non-immigrant workers. The narratives which are widely told by the immigrants and shared by the employers and other employees enviably also emphasize how hardworking they are, how loyal they are to their job, to their employers and to their country and strenthen the immigrants&#039 / position in the labour market.

In this thesis, the purpose is to analyze the path that the nation building process in Kazakhstan has been following in the post-Soviet period through examining the various policies implemented and the official rhetoric and discourses stated by the Kazakh policymakers. The ethno-symbolist approach of Anthony D. Smith and the views of Walker Connor and Willfried Spohn on nationalism and national identity have been utilized in the analysis of the research. The Soviet Nationalities Policy is examined to be able to better understand the post-Soviet nation-building, because the policies implemented under this comprehensive project, which had been outlined by the Bolsheviks, had deep political, cultural, demographic and linguistic impacts on the process in Kazakhstan. The ethnic situation has also been laid down in order to highlight under which ethnic circumstances the nation building process has been taking place. After analyzing the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the post-Soviet policies about language, education, employment, culture and national symbols, the statements of the President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the move of capital, this study claims that post-Soviet nation building process and nationalism in Kazakhstan have both ethnic and civic components whereby the nation building process in Kazakhstan is a more ethnic process than it is civic.

ABSTRACT This thesis approaches the concept of citizenship from the angle of citizens by focusing on the citizenship perception of the citizens in Turkey. It has been aimed to measure citizenship perceptions in terms of the balance between both total rights and duties, and also in terms of civil, political and social elements of citizenship. Liberal and civic republican conceptions of citizenship have been employed as the ideal-standard models against which it is attempted to measure the citizenship perceptions, because it is consensually agreed that the Turkish notion of citizenship is based on a civic republican understanding which emphasizes duties over rights. For this purpose a scale for citizenship rights and another one for citizenship duties have been developed on the basis of a questionnaire. Additionally, in order to measure people&rsquo / s opinions concerning the possible effects of Turkey&rsquo / s EU membership on citizenship issues a scale of &ldquo / EU membership and citizenship&rdquo / has been developed. In addition to the questionnaire study which was applied to unionized workers, employers, bureaucrats and retired military officers, focus group meetings and interviews were conducted. The results of the scale study revealed that all occupational groups shared a republican perception of citizenship as far as the total right and duty items are considered. However, in terms of political and social elements of citizenship, occupational groups displayed different perceptions. In terms of political elements, while workers, employers and bureaucrats emphasized the political rights, with respect to social elements workers assigned more weight to social rights. The EU membership and citizenship scale results indicated that all occupational groups shared a pro-EU perspective with respect to its effects on citizenship.

The new international division of labour has transformed the economic structure of Turkey from an import-substituted to an export-oriented economy. Starting from the early 90s, many Moldovan migrants began to come to Turkey in order to work temporarily in the informal economy. They worked in clothing and shoe ateliers until the beginning of this century. Nowadays many Moldovan migrants work in clothing shops as Russian-speaking sales assistants and in the cargo firms as carriers. Based on this historical context, this study explores the changing labour market position and workplace interactions of irregular Moldovan migrants, who are working in the textile/clothing sector in Istanbul, Turkey. I firstly try to understand the mechanisms of the changing labour market positions of irregular migrants by focusing on the factors and agents behind these dynamic processes. Secondly, I intend to analyze the labour process control regimes and resistance in the workplaces where migrants work. With this aim in view, I conducted field research in Istanbul consisting of 35 in depth and informal interviews with Moldovan migrants, Turkish employers and Turkish employees. As a result of the analyses of my findings, I first observed that although foreign workers cannot change the exploitative working conditions, they can find ways of escaping from exploitative working conditions in a context. Secondly, the level of exploitation in informal working conditions are not only determined by the necessities of capitalist accumulation regimes and the migration policies of the state but also by the preferences of employers based on economic and cultural motives but also.

The general subject of this thesis is about farm labor intermediaries who are important not only because they are transferring and organizing seasonal agricultural work but also they have social relations and interactions with other actors of seasonal agricultural work. This analysis elaborates multi dimensional relations of farm labor intermediaries and construction and reproduction of these relations. These social relations which can be accepted also as social capital and their nature are important for both understanding farm labor intermediaries and seasonal agricultural work in Turkey. Adana is determined as research field because of its long history about seasonal agricultural work. Moreover, changes and transformations in terms of social and agricultural structure taking place in Adana for 20 years are very important factors with regard to understand how farm labour intermediaries reproduce social relations. Labor intermediaries are the people who are providing and organizing seasonal labor force demanded by employers in labor intense agricultural production in different regions of Turkey. Delegate, backer, or sarge is the some local names of intermediaries using in Turkey. As it can be understood from the function of labor intermediary, it is arbiter between employer and worker. Family, relatives, friends and neighbors are seen as the labor force resources of intermediaries. From the eyes of the seasonal agricultural workers, intermediaries are not only the people who are finding job for them but also they are the people who meet their basic needs. This is very crucial point, since seasonal agricultural labor force is supplied from very poor regions in Turkey. At the same time intermediaries are important actors for employers due to their controlling functions of agricultural work process. However, the relationship between intermediary and employer is simply defined as business where mutual interests are important. In this context labor intermediation in Turkey has lots of meaning other than finding job for workers and worker for employers. Labor intermediation is a legal job which is controlled and regulated by law. However, both pervious researches and this study demonstrate that this job is mostly executed as informal. The main determinant factor for this informal execution of the job can be related with working style of intermediaries, namely, face to face social relations that has been institutionalized within time.

This study aims to evaluate conceptual considerations of the sociology of agriculture and food from inside and outside of the literature in relation to transnationalization and its claim on the emergence of a transnational state. Although the history of the literature can be traced back to mid-1970s, its development corresponds to 1990s which is also the period that witnessed the hegemony of the concept of globalization in social sciences. This study argues that the claim on transnationalization reflects the intimate relationship of sociology of agriculture and food with the globalist interpretation of the concept of globalization or globalization theory which suffers from methodological and theoretical problems mainly in relation to the analysis of immanent contradictions and distinctive features of capitalism. With the criticism of the concepts of globalization and transnationalization, this study aims to break the intimate relationship of the sociology of agriculture and food with the globalization theory and suggests that the concept of imperialism is a powerful analytical concept in comprehending the transformation of capitalist relations, particularly the agrifood relations since late 1970s. In other words, this study aims to reevaluate the concepts (agrifood system and food regime) and problematics formulated in the sociology of agriculture and food literature within the theoretical framework based on the concept of capitalist imperialism exemplified in the analysis of transformation of agrifood relations since 1980 in the case of Turkey.

The aim of this thesis is to compare the ideas Ziya G&ouml / kalp and Yusuf Ak&ccedil / ura on Turkism. Nationalism emerged in the 18th century in Western Europe has been a real force in world politics for the last two centuries. Naturally, towards the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire with many different ethnic groups within its borders was influenced by Western nationalist movements. Analyzing Turkish nationalism, it is seen that from the late 18th century to the announcement of the Second Constitution in 1908, Turkish nationalism went parallel to the modernization attempts of the Ottoman reformers. The Ottoman bureaucrats considered modernity as a goal to overcome the difficulties of the Ottoman Empire. Ottomanism and Islamism were the sub-ideologies of the state, which were essential for its survival. However, after the Balkan wars, Turkism became popular among ottoman intellectuals. Both G&ouml / kalp and Ak&ccedil / ura played a leading role in the direction of Turkish nationalism during the transition from a multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire to a secular and modern Turkish nation-state. Additionally, after the foundation of the Turkish nation-state, they shaped the content of the reforms of the new state with their nationalist way of thinking. In this respect, they served as the intellectual sources of Turkish nationalism. The main purpose of this thesis is to offer an analytical framework for understanding the peculiarities of G&ouml / kalp and Ak&ccedil / ura&rsquo / s nationalist thoughts during the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. In this context, this thesis examines the ideas of the two scholars on a comparative basis and aims to reveal the differences and similarities in their ideas.

The aim of this study is to analyze the intertwined ontology and hermeneutics of the famous Muslim figure Ibn al-&lsquo / Arab&amp / #299 / with a phenomenological hermeneutical approach. The research subject Ibn al-&lsquo / Arab&amp / #299 / is to be scrutinized in comparison with Western phenomenology and hermeneutics. Hence, both phenomenology and hermeneutics will be not only the subject of the present study, but also its method of analysis. Throughout the study, Ibn al-&lsquo / Arab&amp / #299 / &rsquo / s question of being and hermeneutics will be compared with Western phenomenology and hermeneutics, with particular focus on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. In his account of ontology, the encounter of human being with the world happens always subjectively. On the side of hermeneutics, the world, which is textual, unfolds itself always through and only with interpretation. These two points can be unified and summed up in Ibn al-&lsquo / Arab&amp / #299 / &rsquo / s claim that world is an imagination. World is disclosed always subjectively and via interpretation / it is an imagination both hermeneutically and ontologically.

Kars is an ethnically diverse city located at the North East Turkey, neighboring Armenia. In the year 2002, Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk published a political-historical novel named Snow, the story of which is set in Kars. The book created a public debate on national and global scale about cutting edge questions of Turkey. This thesis aims to address these questions from the perspective of inhabitants of Kars, who had reacted fiercely to the representations in the book Snow. By focusing on identification and boundary negotiation processes of people in Kars, this thesis and presents an ethnography of Kars, which was achieved by application of grounded theory method and by discussing local perceptions of ethnicity, nationalism and secularism at the periphery of Turkey.