SOCIO-SPATIAL SEGREGATION OF DISPLACED COMMUNITIES

ABSTRACT

Massive influx of displaced people into urban areas reshapes cities’ economic, social, political and spatial structures. By analyzing the formation of urban marginality in the case of Syrian refugees in Turkish border city Gaziantep, this research creates a broader understanding of the displaced-persons phenomenon as one of the main drivers of urban transformation. This paper uses the findings from the fieldwork that I conducted in Gaziantep including in-depth interviews with both refugee and host communities, and a series of mapping exercises showing the spatial distribution of urban refugees in the city. The urban marginalization explored in the research reveals that understanding the city as a distinct social and physical entity is as important in the integration process of refugees as traditional policy interventions. 

Tuzcu, Nil (2015), “An Inquiry into Socio-Spatial Segregation: The Case of Syrian Urban Refugees in a Turkish Border City,” in the proceedings of the Association of European Schools of Planning Congress (AESOP 2015), Prague, Czech Republic, 13-16 July 2015