‘NEW WAVE TURKS’: TURKISH GRADUATES OF GERMAN UNIVERSITIES AND THE TURKISH DIASPORA IN GERMANY

ABSTRACT

Mobility is becoming a defining feature of today’s globalising society. Individuals move for a variety of reasons, including finding employment or pursuing education. This paper focuses on the interrelationship between two different types of migrants who have all moved out of one specific country to another. It builds on the perceptions of Turkish graduates of German universities who moved cross-border recently to study in German universities, the self-styled ‘New Wave Turks’, to understand their place within the existing Turkish diaspora there. Although the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany is well researched, as is how diasporas can facilitate further mobility, the interaction between these newcomers and the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany has received little scholarly attention. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with recent Turkish graduates of German universities, we explored how the existing diaspora provides support but also challenges for the newcomers, complicating their experiences. We argue that international student mobility led to the emergence of a new form of ‘total diaspora’ in Germany, comprising both the existing Turkish diaspora and newly joined Turkish graduates of German universities. Social media was instrumental for these newcomers in setting themselves apart within the total diaspora, allowing them to create their own community identity.

Keywords:

• higher education
• diaspora
• international student mobility
• Turkey
• Germany

1. Introduction

Mobility is becoming a defining feature of today’s globalising society. Individuals move for a variety of reasons, including finding employment, pursuing education or escaping from turmoil in their home country. These individuals can fully assimilate into their new land, or form their own communities, with distinctive cultural, linguistic or religious identities; they can also maintain or abandon links with their original country, through family, culture or politics. These patterns of mobility create new social structures and relationships that necessitate new investigations and perspectives. The dispersal of groups of individuals around the globe leads to the formation of ‘diasporas’ outside their traditional homelands. Brubaker (2005) famously identified the key features of a diaspora as dispersal, homeland-orientation, and boundary maintenance. Dispersal could be a result of many factors. Traditionally this phenomenon was seen to be a result of a harsh situation at home that ‘forces’ the people out – to disperse. More recently, the dispersal of people does not have to be a result of forceful push factors, but could be better living prospects or job opportunities (Butler, 2001; Reis, 2004)

This study focuses on two groups of migrants from Turkey to Germany. One group is constituted by recent Turkish graduates of German universities who moved to Germany to pursue higher education and either stayed in the host country or returned to Turkey after graduation. This group is referred to as Turkish gradates of German universities, or ‘New Wave Turks’, to use their self-designation from this research. The study draws on the perceptions of recent Turkish graduates of German universities to understand their interrelationship with the existing Turkish¹ diaspora in Germany, which is the other group. There is a long history of migration between Turkey and Germany, from the late Ottoman period onwards, which included academics and intellectuals (Baer, 2013; Bruner and Lavi, 2009). The existing diaspora however is mostly rooted in the Turkish Gastarbeiter community, who travelled to find work in West Germany in the 1960s onwards, though clearly some have returned and others have joined it over the years, and extends to second and third generations. This group is referred to as the existing Turkish diaspora in the study, following the terminology our interviewees used in relation to the group, though we recognise that this existing diaspora comprises a variety of different ethnicities, communities and networks, located across Germany.

New Wave Turks and the existing diaspora had different reasons to move to Germany, different levels of educational attainment, and different demographics such as their age and political stance. The existing Turkish diaspora is well-established (Icduygu and Sirkeci, 1999; Sirkeci et al., 2012), while these recent graduates are relatively new to Germany. The former dwarfs the latter in its sheer numbers, with up to 4 million people from Turkey in Germany (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2016), while there were 7625 Turkish international students in Germany in 2018 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2021). We discuss these two groups and how they differ in more detail below in the following sections, drawing on both diaspora studies and higher education research. Finally, we deploy the term ‘total diaspora’ to describe the ensemble of recent Turkish graduates of German universities and the existing diaspora there, since the dynamics of this entire group are note-worthy as a new pattern of intra-diasporic interaction; the New Wave Turks are in some respects a small ephemeral group within the total diaspora, so their distinctive self-identification is all the more striking.

As a general principle, an existing diaspora in a country is seen as an entity that decreases the costs of moving to that country and thus attracts further mobility (Carrington et al., 1996; Pedersen et al., 2008). As discussed in Massey et al. (1993), through network externalities, diasporas decrease the risks and costs of moving in various ways, including through providing information and help with housing. However, a few studies look more closely at how this support mechanism of diasporas works in attracting further mobility, showing different patterns of migration. For example, whilst diasporas may increase overall mobility, low-skill migrants often seem to benefit more (Beine et al., 2011; Bertoli, 2010; McKenzie and Rapoport, 2010). By contrast, Chiquiar and Hanson (2005) examine the Mexican context to show that it may not always be the low-skilled migrants who benefit from an existing diaspora, and that general rules are hard to draw.

This focus on low-skilled migrants inevitably raises questions about educated and highly skilled newcomers, as their relationship with the existing diaspora could be different in nature. However, the literature seems to fall short in studies on the relationships between highly educated migrants -especially the migrant graduates of host country universities- and an already-existing diaspora. This interview-based study draws on the literature from the fields of diaspora studies and higher education to examine how Turkish graduates of German universities perceive their relationship with the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany.

The paper starts by a literature-based overview of international student mobility from Turkey to Germany, a brief history of the formation of the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany, and a discussion on the limited empirical and theoretical literature available on the links between diasporas and international higher education. The research questions are provided after these introductory sections. A description of the qualitative methodological approach follows. The paper then reports the findings from the interviews with Turkish graduates of German universities, followed by a discussion of the findings, and a conclusion.

1.1. Turkish Graduates of German Universities

Turkish graduates of German universities arrive in Germany as internationally mobile students. Germany is the top European destination for Turkish international students,² hosting 7625 of them in 2018 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2021).

There could be several reasons why Germany is such a popular study destination for Turkish internationally mobile students. One approach explaining international student mobility is through a push-pull model (Chankseliani and Hessel, 2016; Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002). According to this model, the reputation of German universities can be one ‘pull’ factor that attracts Turkish students to Germany. Moreover, unlike universities in the USA (the top destination for Turkish students) and the UK (the third most popular destination for Turkish students), public universities in Germany do not charge a tuition fee. At the same time, Turkey’s current situation of decreasing freedoms (Freedom House, 2020; The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2019) and earnings potential after graduation can be viewed as ‘push’ factors that encourage students to study abroad. However, the push-pull model has been criticized for overemphasizing macro-level factors and downplaying the importance of individual factors (Li and Bray, 2007; Maringe and Carter, 2007). Also, it is criticized for not explaining mobility outside the wealthy Western world (Lee and Sehoole, 2015)

Another potential reason why Germany is a popular destination for Turkish international students could be its large existing Turkish diaspora, which is discussed in the next section. The existence of a diaspora community is seen as a factor that supports student mobility (Carrington et al., 1996; Pedersen et al., 2008) because of the decreased risks and costs associated with moving to another country, including access to insiders’ knowledge about the new country and help with finding accommodation (Massey et al., 1993). Yet the literature also offers the argument that although diasporas may help increase overall mobility, it is the low-skill migrants who benefit from this rather than the highly-educated (Beine et al., 2011; Bertoli, 2010; McKenzie and Rapoport, 2010). In other words, the role of the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany in attracting Turkish highly educated individuals requires further investigation.

1.2. The Existing Turkish Diaspora in Germany

There are up to four million Turks residing in Germany, making it the largest minority group in the country (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2016). Guest workers (‘Gastarbeiter’) make up the majority of the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany. The post-war migration of Turkish guest workers to Germany can be traced back to 1961, when the Federal Republic of Germany decided to meet its workforce deficit with foreign workers (Icduygu et al., 2001; Sirkeci et al., 2012). This was a win-win for both Turkey and the Federal Republic of Germany. Turkey was able to send redundant workforce abroad who were expected to send back remittances, and that the country would have a qualified workforce when the migrants would return (Icduygu and Sirkeci, 1999). The flow of Turkish guest workers to the Federal Republic of Germany began in the early 1960s, gained momentum from the mid-1960s to 1970s, and slowed down in the 1980s (Icduygu et al., 2001).

The Federal Republic of Germany referred to these immigrant workers as ‘guest workers’ because the initial plan was to limit employment to three years and recruit replacements afterwards, avoiding long-term immigration and settlement issues. Indeed, due to the economic crisis in 1973, the Federal Republic of Germany tried to halt recruiting foreign workers and started encouraging those who were already in Germany to return to Turkey. However, the number of Turkish guest workers kept increasing because of family-related migration such as partners, children, or siblings joining the immigrants (Sirkeci et al., 2012).

Further, not all Turkish migrants went to Germany for economic reasons, as guest workers; there was irregular migration to Germany for social and human security reasons as well. Sirkeci et al. (2012) discussed the relationship between the number of violent events in Turkey (i.e., armed clashes, forced displacement, and killings by unknown perpetrators) and migration flows from Turkey to Germany, and elsewhere across Europe. They argued that the migration flows follow violent events, with a slight lag. Also, the recent coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and the volatile political atmosphere that followed afterwards, as noted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (2019) and Freedom House (2020), is worth including. Recently published papers on the matter indicate that this recent volatile situation in Turkey has created further migration flows to Germany and overall Europe (Ataç et al., 2017; Girdap, 2020).

The links between the diaspora and Turkey have remained strong, and indeed, diasporas have long been seen safe spaces for political dissent. Furthermore, in an age of social media (Bozdağ, 2014; Christensen, 2012), the links between the Turkish diaspora and Turkey are altering. The diaspora is immediately aware of and can engage contemporaneously in political or social events, neither having to wait for the news, nor to wait to make a comment or reply (Giglou et al., 2018).

Thus, the Turkish diaspora has existed in Germany for almost six decades., and its relations with Turkey are constantly changing, including through social media. A community of this size and history, and with different purposes of movement may have implications for a newly joining Turkish graduates of German universities.

1.3. The Total Turkish Diaspora: the Existing Diaspora and the Recent Graduates of German Universities

The recent Turkish graduates of German universities and the existing Turkish diaspora originating from the 1960s onwards have different characteristics, backgrounds and reasons for relocating from Turkey to Germany. Both of these two communities reside in one country, but one is significantly larger, older and potentially more heterogeneous than the other, and they inevitably interact with each other, and with the wider German population, as the total Turkish diaspora. We use total Turkish diaspora in this paper for analytical clarity. However, we recognise that this distinction exposes Brubaker’s (2005, 2017) tensions, as whilst both the existing diaspora and the students are located in Germany, they may not constitute a united community, nor have the same attitudes to their hosts, nor have the same homeland-orientation. The term ‘total diaspora’ is therefore potentially problematic in that this wider collection of migrant Turks in Germany is not necessarily the same order of diaspora.

There are only a few studies looking at the place of graduate international students within diasporas, and they almost all highlight the benefits of an existing diaspora for these students. For example, Bamberger (2019) argued that the long-standing Jewish diaspora around the world supported international students and hence played a role in the internationalization of higher education in Israel. Further, Wu (2016) showed how the existence of Chinese diaspora in the United Kingdom attracted and supported Chinese students, and influenced their choice between returning to China or staying. However, as noted above, these specific studies can be contextualised within more generic studies of the benefits of existing diasporas, i.e. decrease in the costs and risks of migration (Carrington et al., 1996; Pedersen et al., 2008).

Overall, the literature neither accounts fully for the issue of graduate international students of host country universities who stayed on, nor the nature of the diaspora specifically. As discussed above, there are few studies investigating the role of diaspora in understanding the complexities of international students and their choice between returning or staying after graduation. Further, there are few studies exploring the role of international higher education in building diasporic communities and how this is influenced by already-existing diaspora communities in the target country, especially for the Turkish diasporic context in Germany. The literature is lacking an adequate engagement of international higher education and diaspora discourses despite their clear connections (Bamberger, 2021)

This paper addresses the gaps in the literature identified above. It investigates the role of international higher education in generating a new type of network within the total Turkish diaspora in Germany, and specifically looks to answer (1) how recent Turkish graduates of German universities explain and identify themselves in relation to the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany; (2) how they explain their experiences with both the existing Turkish diaspora and the wider German population; and (3) their explanation of their decision to stay or return in relation to the earlier-mentioned communities.

2. Methodological Approach

To address its research questions, the study draws on interview data from recent Turkish graduates of German universities. Participants of the study included the recent graduates of degree-mobile students (i.e., students who study a whole degree such as undergraduate or master’s in a new country) and did not include short-term mobile students, such as Erasmus students, with the assumption that the longer time spent in the host country might help the participant get to know the local life in Germany better and may impact on their decision to stay. Moreover, the study included both those who stayed in Germany and those who returned to Turkey after graduating from a German university. The participating Turkish graduates of German universities were intending to stay though eventually some of them returned to home country. The inclusion of both those who stayed on and who returned is to understand the potential reasons behind the decision to stay or return, and whether they come to see themselves as part of the existing Turkish diaspora, or whether they considered themselves part of a different network within the total diaspora. Table 1 sets out the participants’ demographics and shows that eight participants stayed in Germany after graduation and six participants returned to Turkey.

TABLE 1. Participant demographics

	Pseudonym	Current return status	Gender	Field of study
1	Derya	Stayed in Germany	F	Social & cognitive neuroscience
2	Adnan	Stayed in Germany	M	Sociology
3	Didem	Stayed in Germany	F	Biology
4	Ahmet	Stayed in Germany	M	Economics and management
5	Zeynep	Stayed in Germany	F	Economics and management
6	Defne	Stayed in Germany	F	Migration
7	Elif	Stayed in Germany	F	Law
8	Mustafa	Stayed in Germany	M	Chemistry
9	Duru	Returnee graduate	F	German language and literature
10	Ebrar	Returnee graduate	F	Computer science and information systems
11	Alican	Returnee graduate	M	Economics and management
12	Fatih	Returnee graduate	M	Engineering
13	Alpaslan	Returnee graduate	M	Law
14	Halil	Returnee graduate	M	Transportation systems engineering

The participants were selected through snowballing and the search feature of LinkedIn. In the selection procedure, we paid special attention to having a balanced gender distribution (male = 7, female = 7), return status and a diverse range of study fields. Study fields and gender may have implications on the international student experiences in the host country and the opportunities available afterwards for staying or returning. The participants’ age was limited to young adults (i.e., twenty to thirty-five years old) (Armstrong, 2007) to gain insights into the relatively recent experiences in international student mobility, and to ensure the comparability of their thoughts.

The use of LinkedIn for participant identification may have implications for the findings of the study, as a LinkedIn group may have specific characteristics that are different than non-LinkedIn participants such as being more professionally-oriented. However, considering that there were no previously established contacts based in Germany, locating participants in Germany would not be feasible otherwise.

The study participants were the graduates of high-ranking, internationally recognised universities in Germany. The international rankings such as Times Higher Education, QS World University Rankings and uniRank were used for this purpose. This effectively limited the participants to those who studied in Berlin or Munich, as they host most of the high-ranking, internationally recognised universities in Germany. The choice of such universities was to account for the variation in the quality and the subsequent opportunities provided by various types of higher education institutions. The assumption was that the experience during international education and the opportunities available afterwards may have implications for the overall experiences in Germany and the decision to stay or return after graduation. We acknowledge that the selection of universities in Berlin and Munich may have implications for the generalisability of the findings; to illustrate, the participating students were not living in the rural areas of Germany. The diaspora dynamics and the incentive to identify oneself as part of ‘New-wave Turks’ could be different in rural areas of Germany.

All interview data was collected by the first author who conducted interviews both in Berlin with Turkish graduates of German universities who stayed in Germany, and in Istanbul with those who returned to Turkey after graduation. One interview with a participant in Munich was conducted over Skype. All interviews were conducted between 17^th February and 2 March 2019. The interviews were conducted in Turkish since it is the native language of the participants.

This research followed British Educational Research Association [BERA] (2018) research code and was approved by the University of Oxford’s research ethics structures; informed consent was obtained, and participants have been anonymised. Reflexively, the place of the first author as himself a Turkish international student, albeit in UK, had the potential both to facilitate discussion around similar experiences, but also to create problematic comparisons between the different universities attended.

The study draws on the data from a wider qualitative study of Turkish international study graduates in Germany, UK, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan (Oldac, 2021). As a fresh analysis of existing qualitative data, a new thematic analysis of the existing interview data was conducted. This involved inductive coding in relation to the new research questions. The underlying study focused on a different but related topic of self-formation and societal contributions. Though the underlying study was not directly focused on student-diaspora relations, they developed as a strong and coherent theme during the data analysis. The more refined codes and clusters that emerged from this re-analysis (Miles et al. (2014) are detailed in the findings section that follow.

3. Findings

3.1. ‘New Wave Turks’ and the Existing Turkish Diaspora

There are millions of Turkey-origin individuals living in Germany, including Turks and other ethnic groups, e.g. Kurds and Arabs (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2016), but currently there seems to be a new network of students and graduates. Members of this new network often differentiate themselves from the existing Turkish diaspora. The participating Turkish graduates of German universities described this vividly and explained that this new community self-identify as ‘New Wave Turks’. One participant shared the following description of them:

The number of people who speak Turkish properly are increasing every day. In subways, cafes, clubs. Many of us are well-educated young people […]. There are 3.5 million Turks living here and the number of people like us is around 2,000-3,000 or maybe at most 5,000. […] We are building here a new expat life from the ground. The Turkish people who have been living here have already built a life, but that life is not for us. We, the New Wave Turks who come here to study or work are building our own expat lives, opening our cafes and having our own communities. (Ahmet)

He identifies how they ‘speak Turkish ‘properly’, are ‘well-educated’, as ‘expats’, with their own infrastructure and communities, as against the existing Turkish diaspora life, which is ‘not for us’.

Another participant also supported Ahmet’s words about the value of this recent community but added her discomfort with how they refer to themselves and such strong group boundaries:

You became friends with people from Turkey because you normally came here for similar reasons, you have similar feelings and thoughts […] Have you seen that there is this new group on Facebook called “New Wave”? This is a group created by the newly arriving people. Although I don’t approve of its name, it explains the situation well. The “New Wave” sounds like “we are more qualified”, something a bit haughty. (Zeynep)

The importance of social media in creating and sustaining a group identity for diasporas is recognised (e.g. Christensen, 2012), but here it functions differently, as a means for a particular network to differentiate themselves within the total diaspora. Another participant, Alican, discussed the inclusion criteria, suggesting that the New Wave Turks included young people who were recent migrants; either Turkish graduates who were studying at a German university or young professionals working at a German company:

There was this Turkish group, a Facebook group called “New Wave Berlin”. […] These are Turks who are neither German nor Guest-workers. This is a group comprising of those who came to study at university or work in Germany, they support each other and make life easier. (Alican)

As can be seen from the quotations above, social media plays an important role in the formation of this community. A Facebook group named New Wave in Berlin was created in 2016 and already had thousands of members by January 2020. Another Facebook group called ‘New Wave in Germany’ was created in March 2019 and it had over five hundred thousand members in January 2020. Any person who wants to join these groups and attend their social gatherings need to answer three questions in Turkish. These include questions on how long the applicant has lived in Germany and how long they intend to stay in Germany. This way, the site administrators can regulate membership.

Another difference that interviewees suggested was that New Wave Turks were fairly homogeneous in their political views, whereas the existing diaspora was mixed. One participant, Defne, succinctly put this below:

You may go [to a Turkish restaurant] eat and maybe you do not want to talk about politics, but they ask stuff like “Why did you come, child? Why did you leave Turkey?” and answering them could be risky as German-Turks may or may not like Erdoğan. […] In the meantime, it is much easier to talk to politics with New Wave Turks as the majority are distant from the government, or liberal […] So, when you are with New Wave Turks, you can automatically assume that everyone has more or less the same opinion with you. (Defne)

The imaginary of the homeland in diaspora groups is well documented, especially around politics (e.g. Koser, 2002). Here this was neither a case of the existing diaspora having one view and the newcomers another, nor that there was a mix of views in both groups. For New Wave Turks, they could make simple assumptions about each other, but the existing diaspora was complex and uncertain.

The role of an existing diaspora has been shown to be supporting in nature for newcomers (e.g. Beine et al., 2014; Pedersen et al., 2008). However, New Wave Turks’ perceptions of the existing diaspora were mixed in recognising the support it provided. Support could come in different ways. Some had familial connections to the existing diaspora. Two participants who had familial connections with the existing diaspora repeatedly mentioned the support they obtained. For example, below is a quotation from Didem about her aunt and uncle, who had been living in Germany before she arrived for studying, supporting her when she faced difficulties with learning German.

Researcher:

but you have not thought of returning to Turkey?

Didem:

I thought about it a lot.

Researcher:

How did you manage staying here then? Did someone support you or encourage you? Or was it your self-motivation?

Didem:

those who are here supported me, otherwise I would have returned thousand times … My uncle and aunt supported me a lot. (Didem)

For some, the nature of the existing diaspora affected their choice of city/university. Duru was the daughter of a guest worker in Munich, but her family returned to Turkey before she started high school. However, she went back to Germany for her undergraduate degree in Berlin. She mentioned Islamophobia in Munich a few times during the interview and talked about the support she was hoping to receive from the diaspora in Berlin: ‘I thought Berlin would be better. There are more Turks there anyway … there are more Muslims and it is more diverse in terms of ideologies’ (Duru).

However, New Wave Turks initially sought help from the existing Turkish diaspora but afterwards turned their heads to other New Wave Turks for support.

I was living with Turks when I first arrived. […] I lived there for 3 months. […] Now I live in another neighbourhood. […] The good thing with my new house is that it is just above the bar where New Wave Turks hang out. So, if anything happens, I can directly go to the bar and seek help from them. (Defne)

Notice how she uses ‘living with Turks’ upon first arrival but then moving to a neighbourhood where ‘New Wave Turks’ hang out. Her referring to the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany in a generic way as ‘Turks’ seems to support the earlier point in this section that they may be more diverse and mixed while New Wave Turks are perceived as more homogeneous.

3.2. New Wave Turks and the German Population

The hardships that newcomers experience in relation to the local society in a host country when they first migrate is well studied (e.g. Berns-mcgown, 2007). However, the challenges New Wave Turks face in Germany seem a little different. An important theme emerging from the data concerned how New Wave Turks felt that their opportunities to meet with Germans and integrate with the wider German population was hampered by German experiences of and attitudes to the existing Turkish diaspora there.

First, they commented on an ‘involuntary prejudice when they don’t know you’ (Fatih). Being recent graduates from German universities, the participants had opportunities to join the wider society using university internships or other social opportunities. Fatih, who is an engineering graduate from a prestigious German university, explained his experience on a workplace internship below.

Even while I was working in [an electronics company], during lunch times Germans used to talk to each other and hence foreigners had to talk to each other separately. […] However much you try to integrate, you cannot integrate completely! It is impossible. Wherever you go, you encounter the treatment like a second-class citizen. To be a first-class citizen, you have to give up all your values and customs. You have to become like them or in other words you have to assimilate. However, I think there would still be 10% prejudice even if you assimilate fully. (Fatih)

Such experiences do not only occur in the workplace. Alpaslan below, talked about his experience in a social event in which he went out with a mixed group of people from his university.

When we go out for drinks with a crowded group, a lot of people tell me “you are Turkish, are you drinking alcohol!?” This is an important point: “how can you drink?”! To be honest, this is also related to people not knowing our lifestyles … I am actually not doing anything here that I would not do in Turkey. […] When you do something different [from the other Turks that they have been seeing] they see this something like being out of character [and] find this odd. (Alpaslan)

Most of the participants considered that the Germans’ perceptions of the Turkish graduates were based on their impressions of the existing diaspora. Alpaslan discussed his experience in the law faculty:

To be honest, being a Turk here is a disadvantage. There is no other Turkish person in the law faculty. So, people here do not see Turks at the faculty or around the university. And the reputation that Turks have in Germany is not very positive. Since they are known as workers, the attitudes of Germans to Turks are not very nice. When they learn that you are Turkish, they kind of take one step back. However, when you tell them that you are at the law faculty and part of an academic work at the university, then they take a softer tone and start communicating. (Alpaslan)

The study participants differentiated themselves from the existing Turkish diaspora, as they considered themselves to be educated individuals who were able to succeed the hardships of moving across borders to obtain a degree education at a German university.

Further, it is well-documented that language can be a barrier that impacts communication between newcomers and the local society (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2019; Plaza Del Pino et al., 2013) The language barrier was the case for New Wave Turks in Germany, but in a subtle way. The New Wave Turks reported that local Germans often assumed that they had been living in Germany for a long period of time, as members of the existing Turkish diaspora. This caused issues when they did not speak German language well, as they felt that local Germans then assumed that they were unintelligent.

If you do not speak German well, you directly encounter reactions such that you have a low intelligence level. This is also because of the disadvantage we have as being a Turk, which is seen as a low class here. […] They have this prejudice that “she has been living here this many years and could not even speak the language” and put you into the same group with Turkish-Germans. Your education level and other stuff do not matter. (Elif)

The newcomers could then become self-conscious about mixing with Germans, and thereby prefer to socialise with other Turks:

When you speak German, you are seen as being as intelligent as your level of spoken German. Maybe I interpreted their attitude towards me this way and thus could not use my German much and hung out with Turks and felt more relaxed. (Halil)

Surprisingly perhaps, some study participants empathised with local German prejudice. While New Wave Turks in Germany were not very fond of the struggles they faced in their daily lives in Germany and in their efforts in trying to integrate into the local society, they also rationalised why this was happening. The two examples below show why New Wave Turks face challenges in integrating with local society and how they clearly differentiate themselves from existing diaspora by emphasizing their affiliation to a university.

I can’t say I don’t understand the Germans. There are some inferior Turks there. They vandalise bus stops, they try to stop trains by hitting the windows to get on them. I have seen such types, […] but these are a minority and those in the university know that we are different. (Fatih)

Here Fatih distinguishes between Germans in the university and German society more generally. Halil also pointed to differences between the two communities while empathising with the local Germans:

The psychology of Turks in Germany … well, they may have committed offences, have had violent outbursts or demonstrated bad behaviour. They may not abide by German laws adequately. These are of course the Turkish people in the streets; they are not the ones in the university environment. (Halil)

These two examples also indicate how New Wave Turks can draw on their university as a site of support, and moreover their affiliation with ‘university Germans’ distinguishes them from both other Germans and from the existing diaspora.

3.3. The Decision to Stay or Return? The Role of the Interactions with the Wider German Society

Another issue concerned the fundamental issue of whether these newcomers stayed in Germany: the fundamental issue of dispersal. The return – or not – of internationally mobile students after graduation is an important topic in research on higher education (e.g. King and Raghuram, 2013; Van Bouwel, 2010); however, the role of an existing diaspora is not frequently investigated. As discussed in the methodology section, among the participating recent graduates of German universities, there were both those who stayed on in Germany and those who returned to their home country after graduation. This is the case even though they all had thought about staying on after graduation beforehand. A key question is therefore why they would return when they could stay in Germany, or indeed move elsewhere. Their perspective on why they returned provides interesting insights into the New Wave Turks views of the total Turkish diaspora. Below is Alpaslan’s view on this:

Being a Turk in Germany is hard. One is always treated like a second-class citizen. This was not much of a problem within my social network; however, I had to explain to everyone else that I was not a second-class citizen. Of course, I cannot say that all Germans have the same attitude, but some do. (Alpaslan)

He hints at the problem of confronting German prejudices towards all Turks as inferior Guest-workers. Further, some Turkish recent graduates return to Turkey after graduation even when they explicitly expressed that were not planning on doing so. Fatih explained why he returned:

Why do those of us who develop themselves and obtain high level degrees return to Turkey and not stay here? Those Turks return not because of the attitudes [of local Germans] towards themselves, but because they are disgusted by the attitude [of local Germans] towards the [existing Turkish diaspora]. I saw them look down on the others. And they do this to me when they first meet me as well. (Fatih)

One of the ironies is of course that many of the graduate students were simply temporarily in Germany in order to return to Turkey when they finished their studies. Some, like Fatih and Alpaslan, simply became graduates who had studied abroad once. Five of the six returnee participants of this study who were considering on staying on in Germany, recognised that it would be difficult to be continually treated as inferior, Turkey became the inevitable place of return because they could not bear to be treated as if they were part of the existing diaspora, even though they would seek to retain a different identity as a new Wave Turk.

4. Discussion

This paper has looked at the role of international higher education in generating a new element within the total Turkish diaspora in Germany. It specifically investigated the perspectives of recent Turkish graduates of German universities on how they position themselves in relation to the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany; how they explain their experiences with both the wider German population and this existing diaspora; and their explanation of their decision to stay or return to Turkey. These findings have three broad implications for higher education and diaspora research.

First, the prior existence of a diaspora community in a destination country has often been seen in higher education research as a unitary factor that decreases the costs and risks of moving for further migrants and thus, seen as a factor that helps attract more people to that country (Beine et al., 2014; Carrington et al., 1996; Pedersen et al., 2008). However, this paper argues that an existing diaspora might have a multifaceted relationship with newcomers, especially when the newcomers are highly educated individuals, giving partial support to the economic theory that diasporas are generally better at supporting low-skilled migrants (Beine et al., 2011; Bertoli, 2010; McKenzie and Rapoport, 2010). Although the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany may positively support international students earlier on in their mobility experience, this relationship becomes more complicated as these international students try to start their life and build communities and networks in the host country.

Second, the presence of an existing Turkish diaspora in Germany provides support to and at the same time challenges the New Wave Turks, and this uneasy relationship itself sets up questions about the definition of ‘diaspora’, further problematising debates within diaspora research (Alexander, 2017; Brubaker, 2005, 2017). Duru exemplifies this: a second-generation member of the diaspora, she and her family returned to Turkey, only for her to choose to study in Germany – and then return to Turkey. On the one hand, our participants expressed how they benefitted from the presence of Turkish community facilities and networks in finding accommodation, information and other services, i.e. being part of a total Turkish diaspora. By being part of it, they also reconnected this diaspora with their shared homeland. On the other hand, they were acutely aware of the socio-economic and educational differences between them and the existing diaspora and were frustrated by being treated as part of it by local Germans, with whom they often wanted to forge new links. According to participants, overgeneralisations by local Germans from their observations of the existing Turkish diaspora led to New Wave Turks being treated similarly, making the relationship between New Wave Turks and the existing Turkish diaspora in Germany a complicated one. This influenced their decision to stay in Germany as part of the total diaspora, or return to Turkey. In other words, it influenced whether they were simply short-term migratory students, or more definitely part of the diaspora, and even if they decided to stay in Germany, they might still maintain their difference from the existing diaspora through online networks.

Third raises questions about technology and diaspora (Oiarzabal and Reips, 2012). Social media have come to reshape the relationships between diasporas and their homelands (Mahmod, 2016; Oiarzabal, 2012), including the Turkish diaspora (Bozdağ, 2014; Giglou et al., 2018). Here, social media allow different elements within the total diaspora to set themselves apart from each other. The use of social media allows these newcomers to create their own community identity across Germany, such as the use of Facebook groups discussed in the study, both providing networks but potentially resulting in a degree of segregation within the total diaspora. Intra-diasporic relations are reconfigured virtually. In this respect, social media offers a way for students and skilled migrants to support each other, without recourse to more traditional networks and communities in the host country, and in direct contact with the homeland.

5. Conclusion

This paper provides a perspective into how two research areas, diaspora studies and international higher education research, can inter-connect by drawing on educational research data in new ways. The study of the interconnections between these two research areas has been lacking in the literature, despite their clear connections (Bamberger, 2021). Clearly, our findings only present the perspectives of these well-educated transient Turkish graduates of German universities, and it would be valuable to gather perspectives from the existing diaspora: what do they make of these fleeting visitors and new arrivals, who benefit from the existence of an established diaspora community, but who arguably contribute little to it, and indeed seek to distance themselves from it? Further, the role of social media and technology both for the existing diaspora and for the international students would deserve further study by, for example, using online methodologies.

By contrast, for higher education research, it would be valuable to explore both the institutional and policy mechanisms at work in encouraging international students to study in countries with a diaspora community for the home country and for the host country, as well as the impact on students’ self-formation (Marginson, 2014) in such settings. Future research can also focus on the role of the recent coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and the politically volatile atmosphere that followed afterwards on creating new flows from Turkey to Germany or Europe overall. These newly emerging flows may have implications for Turkish graduates of German universities. They may also change or shape German perceptions of Turks.

Finally, there are several practical and policy implications. The study is of high relevance, for other stakeholders across German higher education both at the national and institutional levels. More efforts are necessary in nuancing the place of newcomer international students, especially Turkish ones, to local German life. As discussed earlier, the Turkish diasporic groups in Germany have different characteristics, backgrounds and reasons for relocating from Turkey to Germany. More attention could be given to improving the awareness of the heterogeneity of the total Turkish diaspora in Germany. This has the potential to increase the satisfaction levels of incoming Turkish international students, improve their relations with the local population and help retain highly skilled graduates from German higher education institutions. Conversely, there are implications for Turkey in considering how this highly educated elite engages with or returns to the homeland from its time with the existing diaspora in Germany.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Maia Chankseliani for her comments on the earlier drafts.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Association for International and Comparative Education under [Grant number 20181101]. Further, this study is part of a wider doctoral study of the first author which is funded by Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

Notes

1 The terms ‘Turkish’ and ‘Turks’ in this article refers to all population groups in Turkey, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs and others.

2 The references to international students in this study are to those who moved from one country to another to pursue a degree education, as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017).