CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2026
| Author | Güner, Cagla Ekin |
|---|---|
| Title | Political (Dis)Continuity, Boundaring and Temporariness: Urban Governance and Refugee Integration in Hamburg and Izmir |
| Summary | This dissertation examines how refugee integration is rationalized, governed, and experienced at the urban scale through a relational comparative analysis of Hamburg and İzmir. At the heart of the study lies the argument that migration is not only a moment of movement but an ongoing, unfinished condition that reshapes and is reshaped by the urban contexts in which refugees settle. To capture this dynamism, the dissertation conceptualizes integration as an assemblage: a continually shifting configuration produced through the interplay of governance arrangements, urban politics, and refugees’ lived experiences. The analysis develops across three interconnected configurations. Governance is marked by political (dis)continuities and temporal shifts between national and urban agendas. Urban politics is shaped by processes of boundaring, embedded in societal attitudes and neoliberal growth imperatives. Belonging is structured by temporariness, which shapes refugees’ presence and participation in urban life. Bringing these dimensions together enables an understanding of integration that moves beyond functional indicators or idealized end goals, and instead situates it as a multi-scalar, negotiated, and deeply political process. Empirically, through city scaling, the study demonstrates that despite distinct geopolitical and institutional contexts, Hamburg and İzmir are situated similarly within global power hierarchies, and therefore reproduce comparable integration logics centered on labor and economic deservingness. Refugees’ visibility becomes confined to the economic sphere, producing forms of inclusion that rely on invisibilization. The dissertation contributes novel conceptual, empirical, and policy insights by urbanizing the political analysis of integration and foregrounding political economy within migration research. It advances a holistic framework for inclusive, intersectional, and human-rights-based urban integration governance. |
| Supervisor | Duman, Anil |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2026/guner_cagla.pdf |
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