My work in migration studies focuses on how states classify, protect and leave vulnerable the people who cross their borders. I pay particular attention to labour, family and everyday life — the sites where “protection” meets the realities of unequal economies and uneven governance.
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syrians in türkİye
syrians in türkİye
My interest in forced migration began with my master’s thesis, which examined how Türkiye governs the Syrian population it took in after 2011. Reading Turkish migration and asylum policy through World-Systems Theory, I argued that the Temporary Protection regime created the conditions for Syrians to be absorbed into the lower rungs of the labour market under precarious, often informal terms. The thesis combined a critical reading of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection with a focus on labour market integration.
A decade on, I have returned to this question. In 2026 I presented Understanding Syrian Integration after a Decade: Results of TGSS 2024 at the “Reimagining Refugee Protection: 75 Years and Forward” conference in Ankara. The paper asks what “temporary” has come to mean as the regime has outlived every projection, and how incorporation into work has shifted alongside it.
Related work:
An Analysis of Turkish Migration and Asylum Policies in the Framework of World Systems Theory (MSc thesis, METU, 2019). Open access
A Critical Book Analysis from Transnational Perspective: The Lowest of Low (chapter, 2019)
ukraInians in TürKİye
ukraInians in TürKİye
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 produced a new mobility toward Türkiye, one that unfolded alongside — and often in stark contrast to — the Syrian experience. My current work examines how Ukrainians navigate everyday life in Türkiye’s Aegean provinces, and how comparing Ukrainian and Syrian trajectories exposes the uneven architecture of refugee protection.
The ethnographic groundwork for this is published in Turkish as a chapter on the life practices of Ukrainian refugees in Manisa and Aydın. In 2024 I presented Ukrainian Refugees in Turkey: Experiences and Struggles at the 16th European Sociological Association Conference in Porto. I am also co-author of a chapter forthcoming with Routledge that compares Ukrainian displacement across Belgium, Bulgaria and Türkiye through the frame of “governed uncertainty.”
Related work:
Schrooten, M., Çam, F. & Hristov, P. (in press). Transnational Families under Governed Uncertainty: Ukrainian Displacement across Differentiated Protection Contexts. In Transnational Families in Turbulent Times. Routledge
Çam, F. (2024). Manisa ve Aydın İlinde Yaşayan Ukraynalı Mültecilerin Yaşam Pratikleri. İdealKent Yayınları.
Transnational Families
Transnational Families
Since 2023 I have been part of COST Action CA21143 — Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy), where I serve as Co-Leader of Working Group 3 (Social Rights and Social Protection). The network brings together researchers across Europe to study how family ties stretch across borders, and how national welfare states do or do not keep up.
My contribution focuses on how national social policies address — and often fail to address — families whose members live under different protection regimes in different countries. I am a co-editor of the forthcoming Emerald volume Social Protection of Transnational Families in Europe: Comparison of National Cases (2027), and co-author of a literature review on qualitative methods in this field.
Related work:
Česnuitytė, V., Çam, F., Cukut Krilić, S. & Lendák-Kabók, K. (Eds.). Social Protection of Transnational Families in Europe. Emerald, forthcoming 2027.
Kuti, S., Mačkinė, I., Sulaj, A. & Çam, F. (2026). Qualitative methods in transnational family research: A literature review. Slovak Ethnology.
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