CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Hisam, Bilal |
|---|---|
| Title | Blessed are the Strangers: Egyptian Exiles Navigating Legality and Citizenship in Istanbul |
| Summary | My research explores the experiences of Egyptian exiles before and after the Revolution, examining the factors that led to their politicization and subsequent migration to Turkey. I examine how global events, the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak’s regime’s oppression, and family influenced their politicization, social networks, and experiences in exile. I argue for the richness of the concept of "exile" in explaining individual and collective affects and experiences, while acknowledging the political conditions that forced their escape. Due to the absence of an “exile” legal status, I show how exiles navigate Turkey's changing legal structures influenced by the Syrian migration. The exiles found themselves legally categorized as “tourists” until confronted with expiring passports, leading them to pursue various strategies, including asylum outside Turkey and humanitarian residence. Then, I focus on “exceptional Turkish citizenship” as a preferable strategy by many exiles, contextualizing it within broader Turkish citizenship discussions, such as the marginalization of Kurds and the expansion of exceptional citizenship for Syrians. Finally, I show the embodied affects of citizenship for the exiles, elaborating on the process of acquiring citizenship. I argue that the disembeddedness from society and subjectification to humanitarian discourses immobilized their rights-claiming subjectivity turning some of the exiles into “humanitarian subjects”. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/hisam_bilal.pdf |
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