Rural-urban mobilities in Turkey: Socio-spatial perspectives on migration and return movements

Abstract:

Based on original data, this article discusses rural-urban mobilities and the contemporary employment-migration relationship. Starting with the observation of reduced rural population but maintained family-farm numbers, it engages with multiple issues, including rural employment, the process of urban migration, settlement in the city, the relation of migrants to the rurality and (return) counter-migration. It supports the thesis that migration is not so much about a ‘movement from one place to another’, the classical migration definition, and more about a coupling of practices (related to mobilities, residence, employment, etc.) with places over time.

Thus, migration and counter-migration are conceptualized as socio-spatial strategies, conceptualized as ‘multi-place living’ or ‘dual life’, which are based on variable engagements with rural farming, urban wage labour and return movements (for retirement, refuge, etc.). The newly emergent and growing dual/multi-place structures that result from this are re-shaping village life in particular, expressed in various ways, such as in a changing village demography and function.