The problem of representation: civil society organizations from Turkey in the GFMD process

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the global governance of migration and the problem of migrant representation and migration-related problems within its framework. It concerns an analysis of the participation of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the summit of Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) which took place in Istanbul in 2015. The authors analyse the Turkish chair’s presentation of migration-related problems and how this relates to the representation of migrants in Turkey by Turkish CSOs. Thus, the 2015 GFMD in Turkey is utilized as a case to reflect upon problems of representation. Furthermore, its democratizing potential as an informal, multi-sited framework for deliberations on new global migration governance avenues is recognized. Based on the participant observation, the authors maintain a critical stance concerning the inherent problems of the GFMD framework as a space for representing civil society in general and migrants and their organizations in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• GFMD
• global migration governance
• migrant representation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank editors, Branka Likic-Brboric, Gülay Toksöz, and Raul Delgado Wise of this special issue as well as Carl-Ulrik Schierup for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The authors are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers who greatly helped them to refine the argument with their guidance and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Nazlı Şenses http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3473-7604

Notes

1 MIGLINK (Migration and Development Civil Society in Global Governance 2014–2016) was an international research project which analysed the role of civil society in global migration governance by focusing on and comparing the empirical contexts provided by the GFMD 2014 Sweden and the GFMD 2015 Turkey. Through our participation in the 2015 Forum as civil society delegates from Turkey, we had the opportunity to interact with CSOs in Turkey and observe their positions towards the GFMD, starting from October 2014.

2 We organized a dialogue meeting in October 2014 with pro-migrant civil society actors targeted at introducing them to the GFMD processes. We invited almost all of the active members of migration-related civil society, however, only 11 CSOs actually turned up at the meeting. Apart from the ILO and IOM members, almost all other organisations that participated in the meeting, and with whom we communicated with during the invitation process, had heard about the GFMD/CSDs from us. This indifference/unawareness may have depended on various reasons such as the lack of international links Turkish civil society organisations have with other pro-migrant national and global civil society actors. Civil society in Turkey lacks the necessary material and human resources to deepen its activism both nationally and globally (personal communication, 15–17 November 2017).

3 This quotation is from the official website https://gfmd.org with detailed descriptions of the GFMD institutional framework and its long-term development.

4 An overview of the civil society report for the 2015 Common Space is available at http://gfmdcivilsociety.org/common-space-and-chairs-report-2015/.

5 The website of the GFMD Civil Society Days (CSD): http://gfmdcivilsociety.org/gfmd-csd-2015overview/.

6 The negotiations between Turkey and the EU started on 15 October 2015 when the GFMD was held in Istanbul. The EU-Turkey Action Plan was agreed later on 29 November 2015 (IOM, 2015).

7 The Turkish workers’ unions appeared not to be interested in the GFMD and did not participate in the Forum.

8 These organizations are: the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants, the Research Centre on Asylum and Migration, the Association for Solidarity with Refugees, the Refugee Rights Turkey, Amnesty International Turkey, Caritas Foundation, the Human Resource Development Foundation, Support to Life, Izmir Balkan Migrants Culture and Solidarity Association, Turkish Red Crescent, Maya Foundation (Project Lift), and the Children’s Film & Art Association.

9 According to its statute, the association is autonomous and shares the general principles of the International Red Crescent and Red Cross Movement.

Additional information

Funding

This article is a contribution to the Swedish Research Links project, ‘Migration and development. What space for civil society in global governance? (MIGLINK)’, with financial support through the Swedish Research Council [grant number 348-2013-6682].

Notes on contributors

Cavidan Soykan

Cavidan Soykan is a dismissed academic for peace. She was working as a lecturer in human rights at Ankara University until 7 February 2017. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Essex. She is specialized in the asylum system of Turkey. Her main research interests are transnational migration, sociology of rights and sociology of law. As an independent researcher she continues to write and teach in these areas.

Nazlı Şenses

Nazlı Şenses is a member of the department of Political Science and International Relations at Başkent University. She got her PhD in Political Science from Bilkent University in 2012. Her PhD dissertation is a comparative study of irregular migration policies in Greece, Spain and Turkey. Her research interests include politics of state with regard to international migration, the intersection between precarity and migration and civil society activism on migration.