The purpose of this thesis is to describe the asylum seekers that reside in Turkey temporarily, from their own standpoint and from the viewpoint of workers and representatives working in the agencies and institutes involved in the field. This work focuses on the inconveniences experienced by asylum seekers and refugees during their stay in Turkey and the reasons of these inconveniences, in the context of social exclusion. The research for this thesis is based on the analysis of the in-depth interviews that were done with the asylum seekers, representatives and workers in UNHCR, government and in several NGOs. Relevant report by the UNHCR, and the scholarly literatures on migration and asylum and on transit migration and asylum seeking through Turkey was examined. The results of the study can be sorted as follows: Firstly, there is an increasing and visible reluctance to accept refugees in the world. Secondly, it is seen that Turkey does not have an effective asylum policy and legal arrangements on this issue. Thirdly, not only the asylum seekers but also the officers who are dealing with them face some problems. Lastly, it had been observed during the interviews asylum seekers are being excluded different ways during the period of living in Turkey.

In this study, the emergence of e-government as a &lsquo / governing rationality&rsquo / (i.e. e-governmentalisation) is analyzed from the Foucauldian genealogical perspective. In that sense, the type of governing rationalities, the modes of subjectivities, the strategies of power-knowledge and the practices of normalization/inclusion and exclusion that are linked to the emergence of e-governmentalisation are emphasized. Deleuze&rsquo / s essay on &lsquo / the societies of control&rsquo / is used as a theoretical framework in which the emergence of e-governmentalisation is positioned. Different aspects of the society of control are discussed within different chapters taking into account the material transformations in capitalism, the changing mentalities of the state, changing practices and rationalities of surveillance and the changing rationalities of inclusion and exclusion. Based on these analyzes, it is claimed that e-governmentalisation has two interrelated aspects. On the one hand, it is an &lsquo / ethico-political&rsquo / rationality which tries to transform individuals into active, techno-entrepreneurial subjects which is required for the production and re-production of the neoliberal knowledge-based society. On the other hand, it is a rationality of surveillance which tries to govern individuals through enhanced systems of surveillance such as databases. Throughout the thesis, the context of Turkey in terms of these two aspects of e-governmentalisation is also taken into account in order to make the theoretical discussions more concrete. It is concluded that e-governmentalisation is an intensifying rationality of the state which may have an influence on the identities of the citizens, on the formal citizenship status and on practices of inclusion and exclusion.

Technology conceptualized as a social entity and a relation has attained new meanings and inquired based on different methodological and theoretical standpoints since 1970s. It was widely recognized as autonomous however it emerges and related to social relations and have a determining role on social, economic and political character of societies. The role of technology in transforming scientific knowledge into needs of society is mostly considered within pragmatic understanding. The aim of integrating and questioning the social character of technology lead to critical contemporary discussions of technology. The goal of this study is to question whether technology is socially shaped and dependent or independent/autonomous social entity. That is whether it is largely external-outside of society, exogenous, supra-social and posses its own path or it is a socially dependent entity. This study thus aims to provide a critical inquiry on technological determinism and the social determinism is examined in the light of in-depth interviews carried out with scientists from Turkey. The social character of technology is related to issues concerning the expansion of capitalist social relations: uncertain, risky and rational.

The aim of this study is to understand the class character of the new middle class,that is defined as white-collar workers through the bulk of the class literature. To achieve this aim, two sets of research questions, operating both on the objective and subjective levels, have been developed. The first set of questions are / &ldquo / What are the objective conditions (such as economic capital, cultural capital,gender/age composition and class background) of the people who belong to the new middle class defined as white-collars according to structural definitions in Ankara? How are those conditions differentiated within this new middle class category?&rdquo / Those questions are tried to be answered by conducting a secondary analysis to an already existing three-generational representative database for Ankara By taking the quantitative analysis as a base, second set of questions that aim to scrutinize how this heterogeneity in terms of economic/cultural capital and class background are reflected on the subjective level, has been developed. Therefore interviews are held with 31 people in Ayranci neighborhood so as to answer to the following questions: &ldquo / How people who belong to the new middle class, defined as white-collars according to structural definitions, experience their class position? and what elements, in what ways affect their class experience/class practices?&rdquo / In the light of the interviews that question the &ldquo / social space of lifestyle&rdquo / &ndash / composed of daily life practices- and &ldquo / social relations&rdquo / &ndash / analyzed by the content and nature of the drawn symbolic boundaries- four new middle class milieus &ndash / which are highly dispersed among the habitus map of Bourdieu- are identified. The overall study highlights how it is problematic to attribute certain values, lifestyles and attitudes, which are the molders of the class experience, to the whole new middle class category that is defined within the occupational structure.

This thesis tries to display the practice of forced migration experienced in East and Southeast Anatolia after 1980s in Turkey and its consequences through the lived experiences of internally displaced women and children. In the first phase, the historical background of the practice of forced migration, which continues ever since the Ottoman period and the Republican period as well, has been analyzed within the framework of implementations and laws on settlement. In the second phase, in-depth interviews were made with internally displaced women and children living in Diyarbakir and Istanbul and embarking upon the lived experience of internally displaced women and children before, during and after the flight, the issue of social integration with the &lsquo / host&rsquo / population was analyzed comparatively. What was claimed with this comparative analysis was the fact that there would be a significant difference on experiencing the consequences of forced migration and social integration among the internally displaced women and youngsters living in Diyarbakir, which is a metropolis Kurdish citizens are intense, and those living in Istanbul, where Kurdish citizens are relatively low in numbers. Consequently, through the information gathered with this study, the extent that internally displaced persons are socially integrated with the &lsquo / host&rsquo / populations was depicted and that whether the spatial difference had a significant effect on the issue of social integration was analyzed.

Would it be possible to go one step further than proposing sustainable development as the ultimate answer where people live within nature harmoniously if natural resources were not managed by central authorities, who mostly are male, aged, middle-class bureaucrats? Bearing in mind that we have reached a stage where ecological credit crunch will define human&rsquo / s limits remarks for non-teleological and eco-friendly ways of conceptualizing the relationship between human beings and nature is explored with an emphasis of &lsquo / who&rsquo / that is local, female, young, social science-based, active in civil movement. The objective of conducting the research is to find out the ways why green approaches in social, political and economic spheres in Turkey are not integrated as a first step to decouple the antagonism in man&rsquo / s relationship with nature. The analysis tried to grasp the discrepancies of conceptualizing human-nature relationship in order to find out which segment of the society would be closer to adopt green values, with the intention of proposing them to be involved in a greater extent to decision-making mechanisms with regards to natural resources management, as well as an attempt to grasp the overall picture in understanding nature-human relationship in Turkey by focusing on wetland management based on the research conducted in Bafa Lake (Aydin), Uluabat Lake (Bursa), Salt Lake (Konya) and Egirdir Lake (Isparta). Thanks to the scale that is constructed by operationalizing the existing debates on environmental ethics, agents that would follow more ecologically sound discipline towards living harmoniously within nature is analysed.

This thesis analyzes the prevailing formats of writing in sociology or anthropology that are considered scientific. For whom are sociology and anthropology texts written, and who are the readers of these texts? How does this format of writing that constitutes a text as scientific influence the text-reader relationship? In discussing this, the legitimate ways of writing of sociology and anthropology are presented together with what scientificity brings. the reflexive critique that looks at sociology and anthropology with the very methods of these disciplines is explained in its main lines. within this debate, the importance of the question &quot / whom the texts produced in these sciences are intended for?&quot / is analyzed. This is followed by a discussion of the conditions that enabled the constitution of the conventional forms of expression in sciences. The concept of paradigm as proposed by Thomas Kuhn is used to explain the formation of these conditions.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the access of refugees to the right of health in Turkey. There are significant problems in the access of refugees to the available health services and there are no special health services designed to meet the needs of the refugees. Through field research in a city where refugees are settled, the problems related with the access to health services by refugees were examined. In a qualitative study design, this piece of research involved in depth interviews with health professionals, representatives of the NGOs working with refugees and refugees to understand the problems associated with the access of refugees to health services and the dynamics of the clinical encounter between the health professionals and refugees. The study has found that refugees cannot reach sufficient and appropriate health services in Turkey and their fundamental right of access to the right to health is not realized in practice. Moreover, it was found that the provision of health services is riddled with many difficulties, such as the lack of professional translators, the stereotypes common among health professionals about refugees. The legislation about health services and health insurance should be revised in a way to cover all asylum-seekers and to provide special health services for refugees such as comprehensive medical screenings on arrival and trauma and psychological counseling.

The aim of this study is to position T&uuml / rkSolu (TurkishLeft), a weekly newspaper, and its accompanying organizations in Turkey&rsquo / s contemporary socio-political environment. T&uuml / rkSolu, which defines itself as secular/leftist nationalist, will be investigated as a form of reactive nationalism that becomes viable in 2000s. By this means, it will be argued that T&uuml / rkSolu&rsquo / s secular/leftist nationalism is a form of extensively &lsquo / exclusive&rsquo / &ndash / ethnicist &ndash / interpretation of nationalism.

This thesis explores Jewish-Muslim mixed marriages with a particular focus on the mixed couples&rsquo / and their children&rsquo / s self-identifications regarding religion and their experiences in a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey. By adopting a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 Jewish-Muslim mixed couples and 3 children in Istanbul and in Izmir. In addition, an official from the Turkish Jewish Community and an active member of the community were interviewed to determine the general perception of the Turkish Jewish Community regarding mixed marriage. The Jewish-Muslim mixed couples&rsquo / self-identifications with their Jewish and Muslim cultures and heritages reveal the importance of understanding individuals&rsquo / self-perceptions about their own identities since their self-perceptions cannot be understood by primordial ascriptions. The children of these mixed couples&rsquo / self-identifications provide important insights into the issue of the relative attractiveness of Jewish and Muslim identities in Turkey. The Jewish-Muslim mixed couples&rsquo / and their children&rsquo / s experiences in the private and public spheres reveal significant aspects of being Jewish, being mixed-married and being a child of a mixed marriage in a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey.