By Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Sena Uzunboy, Koç University, Istanbul
Historically, cities in general, some neighborhoods in particular, have been the main destinations for internal migrants from rural areas and for newly arrived international migrants. Zeytinburnu has historically been a first-stop “arrival neighborhood” because of its mix of old industrial areas (textile, leather), the availability of inexpensive workshops and housing (often with shops beneath residential units). Its long-standing tradition of migration makes it easy for newcomers to find both work and accommodation in the same area. Beginning in the 1960s with Balkan migrants, followed by Kurdish migrants in the 1990s, and since the 1980s, families fleeing the conflict in Afghanistan have settled there. Already established translocal and transnational networks continue to attract new migrants. It was no surprise that Syrians also began to settle in Zeytinburnu, in the aftermath of the Syrian civil war. By 2016, 25,000 Syrians (8.6% of the population) were officially registered in the district, alongside a significant number of undocumented Afghans, Pakistanis, and Uyghurs. According to a report prepared by the Marmara Municipalities Union in 2021, the ratio of the foreign population to the total district population is 23.06%. The distribution of foreigners in Zeytinburnu by nationality is as follows: Syria (37.3%), Afghanistan (32.5%), China (10.3%), Uzbekistan (6%), and others (13.9%). Compared to other districts hosting Syrian refugees in Istanbul, Zeytinburnu displays greater diversity in terms of both social class and ethnicity, which is observable spatially across neighborhoods and structurally in the built environment.
Zeytinburnu is one of Istanbul’s earliest gecekondu (informal housing) settlements and has been undergoing urban renewal for decades. This has led to visible contrasts between newly built luxury sites and older housing clusters. For example, Merkezefendi and Seyitnizam neighborhoods now contain gated residential complexes where property prices range between 20 to 30 million TL, standing in stark contrast to the typical dense and aging urban fabric of the district. Meanwhile, Veliefendi and Sümer, located on the district’s western border, offer more affordable housing where real estate prices are below the district average. Meanwhile, newly constructed units can still reach up to 15–20 million TL in sales value.[1] Additionally, Yenidoğan and Gökalp neighborhoods host many leather industry businesses, while Beştelsiz and Telsiz are hubs for textile manufacturing.
Zeytinburnu is also classified as one of the high-risk areas for earthquakes. According to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s 2020 earthquake risk report, 16% of the district’s buildings were constructed before 1980, and 63% between 1980–2000. This means that in the case of a potential 7.5 magnitude earthquake, approximately 93,000 people (31,030 households) would require emergency shelter.
Given its history of migration, Zeytinburnu has become a district where de facto integration is observed. According to a report by GAR, residents of Zeytinburnu believe that Syrian migrants have largely integrated into Turkey. However, urban space in Zeytinburnu is also changing in ways that reflect both securitization of migration and social tensions. Residents increasingly perceived the area as less safe, marked by more controls and heightened earthquake concerns. Relations between different ethnic groups have also shifted: the living areas of Syrians and Afghans are increasingly diverging. According to the same field report by GAR, a real estate worker with nearly two decades of experience notes that almost 80% of Syrians who once lived in neglected, inexpensive areas like Çırpıcı and Veliefendi have relocated to other neighborhoods within the district, particularly after the pandemic. There have also been significant shifts in housing preferences: Syrian families increasingly express a desire to live in apartment buildings with Turkish families and to avoid areas populated by Afghans. Syrians, who once lived in the cheapest rental neighborhoods, are now moving away, and these areas are being filled largely by newly arrived Afghans.
Another emerging group in Zeytinburnu consists of wealthier migrants from Gulf countries and Iran, including individuals who gained Turkish citizenship through property purchases. Although there is no detailed public data on this population, they are observed residing in luxury housing complexes in the Kazlıçeşme neighborhood, like Fişekhane and Yedi Mavi. The report by GAR notes that, rarely, some of these groups also live in luxury residences in Sümer, but their preference is predominantly for Kazlıçeşme. Taken together, Zeytinburnu portrays the layered dynamics of migration, integration, and urban transformation. It functions as both an arrival hub and a site of diversification, where issues pertaining to class, ethnicity, housing, and risk perceptions intersect. While Syrians have achieved relatively significant levels of linguistic and social integration, broader urban shifts—shaped by securitization, earthquake risks, and evolving migrant geographies—continue to define the urban characteristics of the district.
Üstübici (2020) lengthily discussed that informality in Zeytinburnu was tolerated and normalized. Previous waves of migrants coming from Afghanistan since the 1980s largely became citizens and newcomers incorporated into the labour market. There were widespread work opportunities in workshops and small factories. Migrants could live and work semi-openly without strong enforcement of registration. Newcomers could rely on informal networks. Back in 2013, Malik, a 22-year-old who came from Afghanistan and crossed the Iranian border on foot a few years ago to settle in Zeytinburnu with relatives, describes his experience of finding work as follows: “My fiancée’s brother was here, and I had other relatives too. We arrived, slept, and started working the next day… Yes, the very next day! My relative told me that this is how things work in Istanbul.” This example illustrates how, particularly in response to the demands of economic production, irregular migrants can easily be integrated into the informal labor market during certain periods, especially when the demand for cheap labour is at stake.
Migrant men and women interviewed before 2015 explained that, over time, their initial fear of being stopped by the police in Zeytinburnu subsided. Beyond the uncertainty tied to their irregular legal status, many reported living their daily lives without constant anxiety. Although the risk of apprehension by security forces remained real in Zeytinburnu and other districts, this period was also marked by a broader atmosphere of tolerance—particularly toward groups less associated with transit migration. Even Afghan nationals, who were frequently targeted in apprehension statistics and widely perceived as subject to prolonged detention, described feeling more secure as long as they avoided border areas and kept clear of crime-related incidents. In such circumstances, they felt their chances of deportation were lower and that they were, to some extent, accepted within society.
Security forces themselves acknowledged their selective leniency towards certain groups, particularly depending on the type of mobility involved. A police official interviewed in 2012 emphasized that enforcement efforts were concentrated on specific groups: “Checks are conducted in public spaces and entertainment venues. They are carried out based on profiling; we don’t check everyone we encounter on the street.” At the time, officials frequently justified this approach by pointing to migrants’ contributions to the local economy and to Turkey’s evolving role as a country of immigration. Such reasoning allowed for a measure of tolerance toward migrants’ economic participation, even when they lacked legal status.
Limits of informality and post-2015 developments
Yet, previous forms of toleration were not without its limits. As a response, migrants seeking to obtain legal status through residence permits have developed practical strategies to minimize their risk of being subjected to deportation measures. One of the most common tactics employed—especially by those without registration—is to avoid leaving the neighborhoods of Zeytinburnu where they feel relatively safe and comfortable. If they do need to leave, they make every effort to avoid drawing attention to themselves while using public transportation. Especially after 2015, reducing mobility and visibility has become a primary protection strategy. As a result, even within Zeytinburnu, the areas in which undocumented migrants can move about freely have significantly narrowed.
As evident from Syrian-owned shops, the languages spoken on the streets, and signs written in the Arabic script, the presence of Syrians in the area became significantly more visible after 2015. It became common to find Syrians working in nearly every textile workshop in the district, majority without an official work permit. During fieldwork conducted in 2017-2018, a local entrepreneur, exclusively employing Syrians, reported that she employed hundreds of Syrian women in textile piecework, either by sending materials to their homes or having them come to the workshop. Contrary to her positive account, and as frequently noted by officials, this visibility led to a shift in local perceptions after 2015: foreigners, especially Syrians, were no longer perceived primarily as “vulnerable, needy, and poor” refugees but increasingly as economic competitors and potential threats.
When examining the differences before and after 2015, another key point to emphasize is that the fear of deportation shifted from being a low-probability concern to a far more likely reality. At the national level, discourse began to prioritize return policies over social integration. During this period—marked by growing public backlash especially against Syrian refugees—it was observed that the mobility of undocumented migrants within the city became increasingly restricted. Both the Afghan interviewees and civil society organizations identified the lack of legal status as a fundamental issue. To protect themselves from intensified inspections and deportation practices, many people reportedly confined themselves to their homes and avoided spending time during the day in the district’s commercial hub, the 58th Boulevard.
In the aftermath of 2019 local elections: securitization and internal bordering
The announcement by the Istanbul Governor’s Office on July 22, 2019—that Syrians not registered in Istanbul would be required to return to their provinces of registration, and that unregistered individuals would be transferred to provinces designated by the Ministry of Interior—heightened anxieties to an unprecedented level. At the time, migrants contacted by phone reported that unregistered Afghans and Syrians, as well as those registered in other cities, were reluctant to leave their homes, even for work or medical care. Migrants with legal status also confirmed that checks at public transportation entry and exit points had intensified, further constraining the earlier spaces of de facto tolerance and inclusion. These internal checks were only temporarily relaxed during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Anti-immigration attitudes in an increasingly securitized context
Starting in 2021, a dispersal policy [Tr. seyreltme politikası] was implemented to prevent high concentrations of migrants. Zeytinburnu was one of the districts where new registrations for residence permits were closed, alongside other dense neighborhoods in Istanbul. It is highlighted that the intensified inspections during the 2023 general election period led to the deportation of many migrants, which in turn negatively affected the textile and related sectors. Migrants as a response were either leaving the district or being pushed into further invisibility. According to the report by GAR, mentioned above, reports that due to the detention of migrants working in labor-intensive jobs in garment workshops and wholesale shops, some businesses have reportedly been forced to shut down.
Amid the high visibility of migrants, Zeytinburnu is not a district identified with anti-immigration sentiment. In the 2023 general elections, Sinan Oğan, a nationalist politician who ran as the candidate of the ATA Alliance and is known for his hardline stance on immigration, received 4.7% of the vote in Zeytinburnu. This percentage is slightly below the national average. This points to the dual dynamics of securitization and de facto inclusion and tolerance in the district. On the one hand, there are performative aspects of securitization, including intensified inspections, controls, and deportations; on the other, there is evidence of everyday integration and the absence of strong anti-immigrant attitudes. The literature confirms that the presence of immigrants may not be the underlying cause of anti-immigration attitudes in a given context (Hopkins, 2010; Sides & Citrin, 2007). On the contrary, lack of contact with migrants, coupled with securitized and anti-migrant elite discourse, may lead to heightened anti-immigrant attitudes (Ceobanu & Escandell, 2010; Esses et al., 2013; McLaren, 2003).
Many studies agree that language problems are a major challenge for Syrian students’ integration into the Turkish school system (Crul, Lelie, Biner et al., 2019; Ozmen, 2020; Sarmini, Topcu & Scharbrodt, 2020). Yet, according to the GAR report, educators state that nearly all Syrian students can now speak Turkish at a native level; there is no difference between Turkish and Syrian children, and differences among students only stem from the neighborhoods they live in, reflecting socioeconomic status. Especially in the past five years, adaptation is considered to have reached a more stable stage (Atalay et al., 2022; Morgül, Savaşkan & Mutlu, 2021). The study results of Karsli-Calamak and Kilinc (2021) further confirm this process, showing that the teaching experiences of elementary school teachers have shifted from exclusion to inclusion for Syrian refugee children (Atalay et al., 2022, p. 276) despite the constraints in terms of resources available to them. Zeytinburnu therefore stands as an example of de facto integration in the absence of comprehensive integration policies at the national level. While inspections, deportations, and the challenges of a securitized urban environment have intensified, daily life in the district still reflects significant levels of adaptation and social coexistence, particularly among Syrians. At the same time, however, Zeytinburnu’s urban space is undergoing rapid changes. It is increasingly perceived as less safe and more securitized, shaped not only by growing controls but also by societal concerns such as earthquake risks. Inter-ethnic relations show signs of strain: Syrians and Afghans are beginning to cluster in separate areas. Syrians, who once lived in the cheapest rental neighborhoods, are now moving away, and these units are largely being filled by newly arrived Afghans. While newly emerging spatial segregation reflects class-based differences; restrictive immigration policies, ethnic relations, housing market pressures, and earthquake risks continue to shape the ongoing transformation of this historical arrival neighborhood.
Acknowledgment
This blogpost is built on extensive fieldwork in Zeytinburnu conducted by Ayşen Üstübici, between 2011 and 2013, talking to over 20 Afghans living in the area, engaging in daily conversations with locals and migrants living in Zeytinburnu and later updated in 2017-2018 and triangulated with other field studies conducted in the district.
References:
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Ceobanu, A. M., & Escandell, X. (2010). Comparative analyses of public attitudes toward immigrants and immigration using multinational survey data: A review of theories and research. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102651
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[1] This price range approximately equals to 360.500 to 485,000 USD in total, that is from 3600 to 4,850 USD per m² for a 100 m² unit). In comparison, in Sümer, newly built units command roughly 1,430–2,210 USD per m², while in Veliefendi, prices hover around 600 USD per m².