In Pursuit of Belonging: Forging an Ethical Life in European-Turkish Spaces 9781789202700

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I N P U R SU I T O F B E LO N G I N G

A N TH ROP OLO GY OF EU ROPE

General Editors: Monica Heintz, University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense Patrick Heady, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Europe, a region characterized by its diversity and speed of change, is the latest area to attract current anthropological research and scholarship that challenges the prevailing views of classical anthropology. Situated at the frontier of the social sciences and humanities, the anthropology of Europe is born out of traditional ethnology, anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies, but engages in innovative interdisciplinary approaches. Anthropology of Europe publishes fieldwork monographs by young and established scholars, as well as edited volumes on particular regions or aspects of European society. The series pays special attention to studies with a strong comparative component, addressing theoretical questions of interest to both anthropologists and other scholars working in related fields. Volume 4 In Pursuit of Belonging Forging an Ethical Life in European-Turkish Spaces Susan Beth Rottmann Volume 3 All or None Cooperation and Sustainability in Italy’s Red Belt Alison Sánchez Hall Volume 2 European Anthropologies Edited by Andrés Barrera-González, Monica Heintz, and Anna Horolets Volume 1 The France of the Little-Middles A Suburban Housing Development in Greater Paris Marie Cartier, Isabelle Coutant, Olivier Masclet, and Yasmine Siblot

I N P U R SU I T O F B E LO N G I N G Forging an Ethical Life in European-Turkish Spaces

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ Susan Beth Rottmann

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2019 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2019 Susan Beth Rottmann

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78920-269-4 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-270-0 ebook

This book is dedicated to Linda and Peter Rottmann, who inspire me to live an ethical life. Their love has been the essential element that enables me to be my best self, to achieve my goals, and to find belonging in this world. It is also dedicated to Ergun, who nourishes my creativity and helps me to find meaning in my work and life. When I write my memoir, he will play the biggest part in my story. I am very lucky to have you, my most valuable friend, my love, hayatım.

CO N T E N TS

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction. At Home in European-Turkish Space

1

Chapter 1. Making a Living in Illegal German-Turkish Call Centers

29

Chapter 2. The Circumcision Celebration: Motherhood and Ethical Transformations

57

Chapter 3. A “Man from a Village” and a “European Girl”: Love and a Life Together

84

Chapter 4. Shaping a Community: A Dream Comes True

108

Chapter 5. Being and Becoming Muslim

134

Conclusion. In Pursuit of Belonging

160

Appendix 1. Leyla’s Memoir Study Guide

169

Appendix 2. Leyla’s Memoir

171

References

186

Index

197

I LLU ST R ATIONS

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ Figure 1.1. A busy Istanbul street (Istiklal). Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Figure 2.1. Traditional Turkish circumcision outfits for sale in a store window in Istanbul. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Figure 3.1. Typical Turkish tea glasses. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Figure 4.1. Scene of houses in an Istanbul neighborhood. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Figure 5.1. Detail from an Istanbul mosque. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Figure A.1. Original pen and ink drawing of Leyla. Artist: Linda Rottmann (2018).

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A C K N O W LE D G M E N TS

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬

I

must start by acknowledging the most essential person: this book exists because of the total support of its main subject to whom I am eternally grateful. There are some friendships that transcend differences of national identity, education, language, age, and more. This book is the result of one such friendship. There are some friends with whom you can laugh, cry, and grow, and maintain a connection through it all. Leyla is one of those friends. Thank you manevi kardeşim, spiritual sister. Over the years, you generously shared so much with me. I am honored to be able to share some pieces of your wisdom and kindness with the world in this book. I would also like to thank all of the other German-Turkish return migrants who shared their stories with me through the years. Many colleagues supported my work on this book. I am extremely grateful to Kenneth M. George and Kirin Narayan for their mentorship during and beyond my graduate studies, for encouraging me to write life stories, and for their true friendship. Myra Marx Ferree and Katherine Pratt Ewing’s work on gender and Germany has been inspirational and every piece of advice they have given me has proven invaluable. I am especially thankful to Myra for a writing group she facilitated during graduate studies and her ongoing mentorship. Ayşe Parla and Eva-Marie Dubuisson provided feedback on drafts of chapters as part of an Istanbul writing group, and together we organized an ethnographic writing workshop that brought immense insights to this work. Their assistance on this and other projects has been priceless. It is wonderful to see that we have all published books as a result of our mutual support. Suzanne Carslon provided excellent editing assistance with early chapter drafts. Kimberly Hart provided very useful feedback on a draft that led to substantial improvements. For nourishing my intellectual curiosity throughout the years, I thank B. Venkat Mani, Claire Wendland, Leila Harris, Natalie Porter, Jeremy Walton, Ayhan Kaya, Önver Cetrez,

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acknowledgments

Soner Önder, Maissam Nimer, Ayfer Bartu Candan, Bulent Küçük, Daniella Kuzmanovic, Hae Yeon Choo, Ayeshah Kurshid, Erika Robb, Alison Carter, Krista Coulson, Mustafa Özkaynak, Chris Butler, Aida Ibricevic, Şule Hussein, and Didem and Zeynep Ikizoglu. Finally, I thank my colleagues and friends at Özyeğin University for their support of my research and writing, in particular, F. Esra Gençtürk, Sevgi Üsta, Nuray Akyüz, Güray Erkol, Cimen Günay Erkol, Berna Zengin Arslan, Aslı Eren Kapaklı, Michelle Martinez, and Ceren Mert. Several institutions provided the funding necessary to complete parts of this project. I first met Leyla during dissertation fieldwork supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Grant (2008–2009), a Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2008–2009), and an American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2008–2009). The Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) provided a Summer Research Grant (2007) for preliminary research, two Graduate Summer Language Study Grants (2005; 2006) and a Dissertation Writing Grant (2011–2012). The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) supported my work with a Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (2007) and The Scott Kloeck-Jenson International Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant (2005) facilitated preliminary research. At the University of Wisconsin, the Center for German and European Studies (CGES) awarded me three graduate research fellowships (2005; 2007; 2010), which assisted me in developing my research plans. I’ve acknowledged my mother and father in the book’s dedication. My mother deserves further recognition for tirelessly editing multiple drafts of this book and for her always perceptive and supportive advice. In fact, she has read so much of my writing over the years that I consider her an honorary anthropologist. I am also grateful for her beautiful drawing of Leyla, which appears at the end of the book prior to Leyla’s memoir. I thank my father for the lovely photographs that appear in the pages to come, as well as for his constant encouragement while writing. I am also lucky to have had the support of many other family members and friends, including Jenny Rottmann, Andrew Colvin, Maxine, John and Andrew Ross, Penelope Revelle, Janet Fischer, Cindy Revelle, Dave Rogers, Elizabeth Revelle, Harriet Mack, Maddy Fisher, Havva Bağcı, Yunus Bağcı, Daniella Leifer, Jana Wilson, and Ergi Hebelekoğlu. We lost my dear aunt, Rita Fischer, just before this book was published. She was a wonderful supporter of my work and everything else that I do.

Map of Europe with the location of Turkey and Germany highlighted. Created by “Turkish Flame,” CC-BY-SA 3.0. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Germany–Turkey_relations.

I N T R O D U CT I O N At Home in European-Turkish Space

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬

“S

tay strong. You will surprise yourself with how strong you can be,” Leyla advises her neighbor Melis.1 Melis is distraught over having found her 17-year-old daughter, Sahra, in an intimate embrace with their Qur’anic recitation instructor. “I almost killed myself after I found them together,” she tells Leyla. If word gets out, Sahra’s honor will be tainted, reflecting badly on the whole family. Even more troubling for Melis is that the fallout from this event will likely result in the exposure of additional family secrets for which Melis is wholly unprepared to deal with right now. “People tell me about the things that make them feel ashamed,” Leyla comments to me after we have left Melis. “They open up to me, because I don’t judge people; I try to help them. After you finish writing the book about my life, Susan, you have to write another book about all of the secrets that I know.” This is the book about Leyla’s life to which she was referring. It examines how her transnational experience contributes to her ability to be nonjudgmental, as she demonstrates with Melis, and also provides her with a plurality of ethical perspectives from which she derives a sense of knowledge and strength. Migration between Germany and Turkey results in new ways of thinking about education, gender roles, and Islam for German-Turkish return migrants like Leyla. Leyla combats the social norms that produce shameful family secrets, creating a distinctive ethical life and, in so doing, forging belonging in her community. The day we meet Melis begins as many have before: “How about a walk to the park for some fresh air?” Leyla asks. “A great idea,” I agree. It’s one of those spring days where the air smells like earth and the sun is shining brilliantly, but it’s not actually warm. Leyla, her daughter Hande, her son Mert, and I put on our coats and begin walking through the surrounding hills of Huzurköy, a district on the outskirts of Istanbul.2 Actually, Huzurköy

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in pursuit of belonging

was located on the outskirts of Istanbul in the past, but today, with Istanbul’s out-of-control construction boom, the designation “outskirt” is questionable. Huzurköy has been overtaken by mega-construction projects that include showy reproductions of European cities and 50-plus-story apartment complexes with Latin-sounding names, such as “Meridian” or “Brandium.” To get to the park, we pass by Amadeus,3 a development consisting of approximately 100 three-story condominiums with exterior walls composed of blocks of sand-colored wood and white stucco. Stylistically, it reminds me more of California than Istanbul, which was perhaps the developer’s intent. “The apartments are very small and very expensive,” Leyla tells me. Above a large and imposing gate hangs a sign in black block letters advertising the name of the prestigious contractor. Having “a name” makes the development “a brand” and increases the value of the homes. Outside of each entryway we can glimpse luxury cars, Mercedes and BMWs. While the development screams affluence, the street outside is barely finished, with broken pavement, no sidewalks, and piles of dirt and trash through which street dogs are rummaging. Patchy grass grows along the roadside, and between the apartment complexes we can catch a very distant glimpse of a shopping mall. The city center of Huzurköy is about a 20-minute walk away from Leyla’s house. Little distinguishes Huzurköy from any other suburb of Istanbul or from many small Anatolian towns. Main street businesses include four discount supermarkets and one more expensive Carrefour supermarket, two bakeries, a gas station, a medical clinic, a jewelry store, a fabric store, a stationary store, a men’s coffeehouse, an appliance dealer, a package delivery company, a fish seller, and a place selling çiğ köfte (spicy bulgur balls usually served in a thin flat bread). Buses and minibuses travel through the area continuously on their way between central Istanbul and more distant suburbs, and the sidewalks remain crowded with people well after dark. Huzurköy has few trees and no central monument or gathering area. People walking through its streets appear to have a definite purpose, to be on their way to and from work or visiting. It is not a place where one slowly strolls. Most women on the street are wearing headscarves and toting children by the hand, and the men that pass by have slumping shoulders and cigarettes in their mouths. The residents of Amadeus presumably drive to one of the nearby malls for shopping and dining, as their cars are rarely seen on Huzurköy’s downtown streets. After passing by several developments similar to Amadeus and one small supermarket, we arrive at our destination: a large grassy area with a substantial playground for children and a small café doing a brisk business of mostly tea and ice cream. The park abuts a middle-class neighborhood and is ringed by 30-story green and pink apartment buildings and a medium-sized cream-colored mosque. We sit down at the café and are immediately joined

introduction

3

by Melis and Sahra, who saw us arrive from where they were sitting on a nearby bench. In contrast to Leyla who is dressed in a yellow knit shirt and brown pants with no headscarf, mother and daughter are both dressed in the tesettür style (conservative Islamic dress) with plain dark coats that button from neck to foot and tightly fastened, colorful headscarves. Where Melis is so rounded that her arms and waist are stretching her jacket, Sahra is so wispy that her jacket looks like a thick curtain draped around her body. We exchange pleasantries. It is clear from her facial expressions that Melis wants to talk to Leyla about something but isn’t certain if she should speak openly in front of me. Leyla tells her that she should speak her mind, and Melis sends Sahra home to begin cooking dinner. “Sahra will be getting married in a month,” Melis relates in a tremulous voice. The circumstances of the engagement are complicated because they emerge from the tryst that Melis barely interrupted in time. In Melis and Leyla’s social milieu, an unmarried girl should not be alone in the presence of an unrelated man. Kissing one is a scandal unless the couple marries. “Luckily, he has agreed to marry Sahra,” Melis tells us. Pausing and looking away, she adds, “I had to tell him about my husband.” Tears fill her eyes. What does she mean by “tell him about my husband,” I thought, and why is she so sad? Leyla later explains to me that Melis is not legally married to Sahra’s father. In fact, her husband has another family—another wife and children—who do not know about his relationship with Melis and their children together. Polygamy is illegal in Turkey, and although it is officially allowed under Islamic law, it is quite rare and not socially acceptable in most regions. Being a single mother or having children out of wedlock is also unusual and not widely accepted. None of Melis’s neighbors know that her marriage is not “real,” and if they did learn the truth, Leyla explains that they would surely shun Melis. But, Sahra’s fiancé had to be told the truth, Leyla relates, as he would certainly find out when none of her father’s relatives came to the marriage ceremony. Now, Melis is worried that her neighbors will learn the truth about her own marital status as well. While she must have anticipated such a possibility, the current situation has left her emotionally wrought to the point of considering suicide. Leyla is quick to tell Melis that because she is a mother, suicide is not an option. She must remain strong. “You have to be strong for your daughter no matter what. Yes, people will talk if they find out, and you have to just not care about what people say.” As we walk back to her house, Leyla explains that if the truth ever gets out, the gossip could destroy Melis. “Everyone cares so much about what others think! They always say, ‘What will people say?’ But who cares about the decisions that Melis made in her relationship? That is her choice.” She relates that she feels glad that neighbors like Melis see her as someone who can be trusted to accept them and their secrets no matter what, even when no one else will.

4

in pursuit of belonging

This incident illustrates the significance people place on the acceptance of their neighbors in certain communities in Turkey, such as this one. People depend upon their neighbors for emotional support, help with daily tasks, and practical assistance during crises. At the same time, the social pressure of neighbors’ judgment—the fear of what people will say—is a real and potent force that affects actions. There is even a well-known phrase for this in Turkish: mahalle baskısı (neighborhood pressure). Neighbors evaluate and sanction each other’s actions as a way of maintaining what they perceive to be an honorable community. In advising Melis to disregard what others may think, Leyla modeled some of the key principles by which she lives her own life: she seeks to overcome sources of women’s shame with personal strength, to openly discuss taboo topics with the aim of helping others, and to fight against or at least to disregard neighbors’ judgments when she feels they are incorrect. Why is Leyla so willing to befriend Melis, potentially exposing herself to community scorn in doing so? Why does she insist that Melis disregard her neighbors’ disapproval? Leyla understands Melis’s feelings. She herself has been subject to neighborly disapproval many times. In her case, a major cause of condemnation is her background as a return migrant from Germany. Her ideas and actions set her apart from neighbors who are not returnees. She has been accused of being “Germanized,” a bad Muslim and a neglectful mother. “In Germany you live for yourself, but in Turkey you live for society,” she often laments. Leyla struggles to forge a path between living for herself and for societal acceptance. As the interaction with Melis shows, she remains nonjudgmental about sexual indiscretions and stresses instead the overriding importance of being a caring parent, strong-willed and selfsufficient. She is committed to helping others, particularly her female neighbors, and rarely refrains from speaking her mind. With her suggestion that a book should be written about “all of the secrets” she knows, she intends to convey that there is no cause for anyone to feel alone or ashamed. PURSUING BELONGING AND AN ETHICAL LIFE Belonging is a not a state that we achieve, but a struggle that we wage. This book examines how migration affects belonging for Turkish migrants returning to Turkey from Germany. It is premised on the idea that the struggle to belong is the lifelong struggle to be a good person and to be accepted by others—in other words, to be ethical and to be recognized as ethical.4 Belonging emerges through concerted efforts of nurturing, guiding, or shaping oneself or others in particular areas, for instance, as a worker, a parent, a community member, or a citizen. This book describes these efforts ethnographically,

introduction

5

through the eyes of a second-generation return migrant woman—through Leyla’s eyes.5 The coming chapters follow Leyla as she travels from Germany to Turkey, marries, raises five children, works in illegal German-Turkish call centers, and triumphs over personal traumas and neighbors’ condemnation to become a community leader. Living abroad and returning home are not periods of time that migrants like Leyla overcome. The experience of migration infuses Leyla’s life as she forges belonging not once, but again and again. Like all lives, we can view Leyla’s life as a series of ethical projects or actions undertaken with the purpose of doing what is good and right. The book examines these ethical projects by drawing on Leyla’s own reflections on her life and beliefs, and my observations of her interactions over the course of several years. I also juxtapose her life story with other ethnographic materials at key junctures—interviews with and observations of other return migrants—so that readers grasp what is unique to Leyla’s story and what she shares with other German-Turks who have returned to Turkey. Three central ethical projects are important to Leyla and many other return migrants: the effort to educate oneself and others; the aim of being a good woman, mother, and wife; and the goal of shaping a respectable Muslim life. Each of these projects is multidimensional. Education is a form of self-work and a means of improving one’s community, a way of establishing friendships, and a defense mechanism against gossip. Leyla stresses the importance of her children’s formal education as well as their religious education, she tries to educate her husband and fellow citizens, and she views her own self-education as central to being a good person. In terms of gender, Leyla is struggling to be an honorable working woman, a caring mother, and a respected wife. Women like Leyla are negotiating overlapping, but occasionally contradictory, German and Turkish gender norms and discourses of honor, rights, respect, equality, duty, and care. Women’s (not men’s) experiences and relationships are the primary focus of this book because women face significant burdens as familial caretakers and representatives of community and national honor.6 Where religiosity is concerned, Islam provides comfort and guidance to migrants, and they constantly underline the importance of practicing Islam correctly. Muslim ethical projects are part of Leyla’s negotiation of call center work, childrearing, and neighborly interactions. The ethical perspectives of Islam—honesty, responsibility, religious duty, and religious education—permeate her daily conversations and actions. Yet, her ideas about Islam change continuously over time as a result of migration and ongoing transnational experiences. I refer to Leyla as a “German-Turk” because she is associated with Turkish guest worker migration to Germany, which began in 1961 as part of efforts to rebuild the German economy after World War II. Leyla, who turned 49 years old in 2019, is the child of a first-generation worker, and she attended ele-

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in pursuit of belonging

mentary school and high school in Germany. The nearly 3 million Turks in Germany are that country’s largest minority group and face significant discrimination. Turks are frequently the subject of heated debates about Muslim migration to Europe, EU expansion, and a multicultural Germany. After three generations in Germany, increasing numbers of migrants are choosing to return to Turkey. Yet, return migrants like Leyla are not readily accepted in Turkey. Neighbors are concerned that migrants change ethical norms in Turkish communities, even as their return also signifies the impossibility of Turks’ attaining a longed-for “European modernity.” For neighbors, return migrants are both too European and also not European enough. They are stigmatized as uneducated, dishonorable, culturally corrupted Almancıs (German-ers). Recently, Turkish and European media outlets have speculated that Turkey is turning away from Europe ideologically and materially and seeking greater social connections to the Middle East. However, observing German-Turkish return migrants’ experiences to date suggests that Turkish leaders’ historical project of making Turkey “European” remains a source of deep longing but also deep apprehension for citizens. What does the struggle for belonging look like when one is a foreigner in Germany and a “German-er” in Turkey? Transnational migration pushes migrants into challenging social positions as community outsiders who must confront shame and stigma. Shame and stigma are personal and community struggles for many people in Turkey, not only for migrants.7 But, migrants are particularly stigmatized because they are perceived as ethically altered by migration and thus as potentially harmful to the respectability of their communities. Migrants need to work on belonging, to work on ethical relationships. Marginalized in Germany and in Turkey, return migrants wrestle with ideals—with what is right and good—for themselves, their neighbors, and their nation. Migration actually does alter migrants’ ethics, expanding their range of ethical choices. For example, Leyla wonders: Is it acceptable to lie to and cheat Germans to support one’s family? How should one respond to community censure, gossip, and shame stemming from being a migrant, from being German-ized? Can a working woman raise hardworking, self-reliant children? Can a “European girl” change the ideas of a “Turkish villager” about women’s roles? What should citizens demand from political leaders and each other? After transnational experience, how should a Muslim choose among conflicting ideas about religious practice? This book is the story of how Leyla answers these questions—not once, but over and over again, how she struggles to transform negative ethical positions (lack of belonging) into positive ethical positions (belonging). Ultimately, Leyla’s broader ethical worldview is positive. Being transnational creates ethical dilemmas, but also provides a way out of these di-

introduction

7

lemmas because it provides a variety of perspectives that can be used to (re-)shape selves and communities, to transform belonging. For example, Leyla transforms shame into pride by actively teaching her children about Islam through unusually open mixed-gender discussions. She transforms stigmatization as a “bad migrant mother” and “bad Muslim” into ethical motherhood and a new way to be Muslim. Some neighbors reject her for these efforts, which they see as evidence of her German-ization, but many others embrace her ideas. Migration opens up ethical pluralities—an awareness of multiple ways of being educated, honorable, and religious—that unsettles, but also facilitates belonging. German-Turks negotiate acceptance in spite of and also because of their novel ethical ideas. ETHICAL PROJECTS IN MIGRATION We live in an era of movement; an era famously called “The Age of Migration” (Castles and Miller 2009). There are more and more international migrants every day—49 percent more today than there were in 2000 (258 million versus 175 million people).8 Not only are more people moving, but transportation and communication technologies also mean that people are creating and maintaining social connections across vast distances like never before. Whereas the first Turks who went to Germany corresponded with postal letters and drove back and forth in three-day trips, today’s German-Turks can e-mail and call Turkey any time they wish and fly there in several hours. With so much movement globally, more and more people are concerned about the threats to security and cultural integrity that they think migrants might pose to their countries. Migrants are prompting moral panics in Europe and the United States, where some worry that their presence disrupts ethno-national identities and strains social welfare systems. For example, Muslim migrants in Germany are believed by some Germans to endanger values of women’s rights, freedom of religion, and even democracy (Ewing 2008; Özyürek 2009; Weber 2013). As I explore in this book, German-Turkish return migrants also prompt heated debates about community and national identity in Turkey (see also Rottmann 2013). Many people do not fear migration, but they do wonder how to nurture a sense of community in the midst of increasing diversity. What is the best way to create a caring, inclusive, and accepting multicultural society? It is more essential than ever to understand the relationship between migration and ethics, to understand how migration creates ethical dilemmas, and how ethical pluralities stemming from migration are involved in pursuits of belonging during and after periods of migration. In its sustained and personal attention to migration and ethics, this book enters into conversation with a growing subfield of anthropology: the an-

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in pursuit of belonging

thropology of ethics (Fassin and Leze 2014; Lambek 2010; Zigon 2008). Existing research on ethics has examined religion, development, law, sexuality, medicine, and globalization in depth.9 Despite today’s large numbers of migrants and intense fears about migration and multiculturalism, just a few works explore ethics in relation to migration.10 Existing studies in the anthropology of ethics tend to focus on the cultivation of ethical virtues, such as the techniques through which people become model religious practitioners or citizens (e.g. Hirschkind 2006; Mahmood 2005; Zigon 2011). In contrast, this book highlights ethical change, even the fragility of ethical positions. For migrants, ethical aims for work, motherhood, marriage, community, and religiosity are not clearly defined or standardized; rather they are unstable, emergent, and multiple. Transnational migration creates a “double consciousness” (Gilroy 1993) or “plurality of vision” (Said 1984 [2001]: 172). Leyla draws on an awareness of German and Turkish lifeworlds when making choices. For example, she draws on an understanding of citizens’ rights in Germany and on knowledge of the importance of hospitality and honor in her Turkish neighborhood. Leyla often creatively combines contradictory discourses; for example, simultaneously mobilizing ideas of Muslim education and Christian honesty or women’s honor and women’s rights. Instead of certainty and stability, we see her “improvisation, experimentation, opportunism, and existential mobility” ( Jackson 2013: 202) as she acts with a unique consciousness regarding personal, gendered, and religious ways of being and relating. We can think of the ethical pluralities that migrants are able to access as a novel freedom stemming from migration. Michel Foucault (1997) suggests that ethics can even be conceived of as “the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection” (284). Foucault means that we are ethical when we have the freedom to reflect on what we are and, if we so desire, to change our thoughts and actions so that they align with our ideals. We thereby create better—more ethical—selves. Anyone can freely reflect on his or her life whenever he or she wishes. But transnational mobility fosters significant ethical reflection because of the removal of preexisting social structures, like familial and community ties. Migrants like Leyla see possibilities for action that others around them might not. For example, instead of accepting the given norms for married women’s roles in Turkey and instead of acquiescing to neighbors’ views regarding parenting, Leyla meets her needs in creative ways. By drawing on her observations of Germans and the German state, as well as her sense of herself as an independent, self-educated woman, she fulfills her ideals for herself in ways that surprise and occasionally disturb those around her. Of course, freedom is never limitless. Leyla’s experiences are still circumscribed by her social and political context, gender norms, class position,

introduction

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demands of family and friends, and her own particular life experiences. Her freedom is not the freedom of endless possibility, but the freedom and the challenge of choosing from among more options than her non-migrant neighbors in Germany or Turkey imagine. Her story ultimately shows us the tenuous, situated, and unstable complexity of ethics and the tension to be found between suffering and acting to change (Arendt 1958: 190). Leyla does not face clear, obvious choices but murky, complex ones. She must trade one ideal for another or figure out how to make a third possibility work for her. This ethnography shows the emergent and conflictual sides of ethical work (cf. Osella and Osella 2009; Schielke 2009). Leyla’s story also offers a window onto the temporality of ethical situations and striving. We see how right and wrong and good and bad shift for Leyla over time. Anthropologists have tended to maintain a synchronic focus on ordinary ethical practice (Lambek 2010) or on ephemeral cultural crises and personal breakdowns (e.g. Robbins 2007; Zigon 2008). This research, instead, illuminates the gradual, incremental process of ethical change by placing the effects of exposure to cultural difference, confrontations with family and friends, and life experiences at its center. For example, readers see how experiences in German schools, a child’s death, and financial hardship may affect religious practice and how love in a marriage deepens as people struggle for autonomy, understanding, and companionship through decades. In struggling to craft a good life, Leyla is not different from anyone else. Everyone strives to be ethical, meaning that everyone seeks to lead a life that makes him or her proud, a life worth living. I follow Michael Lambek and the contributors to Ordinary Ethics (2010b) in using the term “ethics” rather than “morality” because of its “possibly greater association with action than propriety and with ‘the good’ than ‘the right’” (9). Ethics concerns our ideals for ourselves—the way we try to improve ourselves, to act the way we think is right, kind, caring, fair, or appropriate. By reflecting on “the kind of relationship you ought to have with yourself,” you constitute yourself as the “moral subject of your own actions” (Foucault 1997: 263).11 Ethics are also embodied in our relationships with others. We make ethics as we interact with people who we please or disappoint, approve or reject, embrace or evade. Paul Ricoeur explains this eloquently as the way we esteem the “other as a oneself ” and “oneself as another” (1992: 194). In other words, we construct ourselves through ethical interaction. But Ricoeur’s discussion of ethics overlooks the missed cues, arguments, and hurts that are also part of relationships. All ethical negotiations do not end happily. Leyla’s story and other migrants’ stories show us both the rosy and also less rosy sides of ethical negotiations. For example, Leyla is deeply satisfied when encouraging her neighbors like Melis, and deeply frustrated with neighbors’ accusations that she is Almancı.

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MOBILITY AND BELONGING I use the term “return migrant” to describe Leyla and others in order to emphasize their experiences in Turkey during the time I knew them— in a sense, while I studied them, they were return migrants, regardless of how they might self-identify or be perceived by others (as Turks, TurkishGermans, Almancıs, transnational migrants, etc.). I found that most migrants expressed a desire to establish a home in Turkey, and their concerns seemed more similar to those of return migrants cross-culturally than to those of first-generation labor migrants. Thus, the term “return migrant” is appropriate. But “return migrant” is also problematic, as it implies that migration has ended in a permanent return. In fact, “return migrants” may continually travel between Germany and Turkey without any intention of permanently returning to Turkey. Even those who permanently return do not sever all transnational ties to Germany. “Transnational activities do not remain constant across the life cycle. Instead, they ebb and flow at different stages, varying with the demands of work, school, and family” (Levitt 2002: 139). Further, many second-generation migrants like Leyla discover Turkey for the first time when they are in their late teens and twenties and, thus, are not “returning” in the traditional sense. Ultimately, individuals often change their mind about moving between countries, and the meanings of being at home and being transnational can change throughout their lifetime. As Karen Fog Olwig (2003) points out, “It is difficult to capture such changeability with terms such as ‘emigrant,’ ‘immigrant,’ or ‘transmigrant,’ that have movement between places, rather than movement through life as a frame of reference” (800). Tim Ingold (2011) captures this changeability nicely when he describes how human life “unfolds not in places, but along paths” (148). It is most appropriate to think of Leyla and others not simply as return migrants, but as mobile subjects with a transnational perspective. Mobility refers not only to physical movement, but also to the multiple ways in which “economic and social life is performed and organized through time and across spaces” (Urry 2007: 6). As the paths of their lives unfold, people experience and seek out “mobilities,” which wax and wane in importance. Mobility can refer to changes in ideas and practices over time; adjustments as one moves between public and private spaces and between social groups; social mobility in the form of changing class statuses and values, the cultivation of social and cultural capital, and the formation of new community relationships; and the flights of imagination and reflection that move us to different beliefs and worldviews. Importantly, mobility is not only literal physical experiences, but also an aspiration, a way of being in the world. For instance, Julie Chu (2010) has studied rural Fuzhounese people in China for whom mobility is

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“less about either place of origin or physical travel than about inhabiting the world in a particular cosmopolitan and future-oriented way—that is, as a valorized subject of a modernizing and globalizing China” (12). Likewise, mobility for German-Turks encompasses physical movement, but cannot be reduced to just that. People returning from Germany to Turkey do not only move between point A (Germany) and point B (Turkey), they move through life. Leyla’s mobility encompasses her birth in Turkey in 1970 and migration to Germany at age 4, her return to Turkey in 1978 for a brief visit, and her permanent return in 1988. Her mobility continues via ongoing connections to her stepmother and half-sister still in Germany who call and visit frequently, her husband’s extended traveling in Europe as a long-distance truck driver since the 1990s, her work for a German-Turkish call center between 2009–2011, and her ongoing friendships with German-Turks. Leyla is also living in a transnational social field that connects Germany and Turkey, which I discuss further below. Leyla’s mobility also includes the mobility of becoming a wife and mother, of working and not working, of moving from the lower to the lower-middle class, of moving in and out of family and community relationships, and of moving in and out of religious groups. Being mobile is not just a practical reality. It is also a strategy for Leyla, a way that she becomes modern, cosmopolitan, and a good Turk and European. Real and aspirational mobility is a key element in her ethical projects. This book is the story of how mobility infuses struggles over what makes someone a good person and a life a good life. Leyla’s ethical projects are projects of belonging—a search for intimacy, inclusion, and acceptance. But, she often strives for a belonging that she does not attain, or she achieves a measure of belonging only to feel it snatched away by changed circumstances. Much writing on return migration and migration broadly presents a simplistic account of belonging. The return home is characterized as a period of difficulty followed by eventual readjustment and integration, ultimately ending in belonging. Researchers often conceptualize belonging in relation to positive or negative extremes. They describe how return migrants gain prestige and acceptance at home through gift-giving, displaying new wealth, or utilizing social capital (Potter et al. 2005: 14; Stefansson 2004: 3), or they describe tensions, ruptures, and discontinuities that are part of returnee homecomings (Huseby-Darvas 2004: 86; Tsuda 2003). Explanations for returnees’ difficulties typically point to their new class positions and unusual consumption practices (Çağlar 1995; 2002; Salih 2002) or their unfamiliar ethnonational identifications (Glick Schiller and Fouron 2001; Reynolds 2010). My ethnography leads me to different conclusions. Rather than focusing on “reintegration” as an endpoint, I tell Leyla’s story in order to capture the turbulence and rewards of living in transnational space in which the struggle to belong is enduring. Migrants strive for an acceptance just out of reach

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in some realms, while experiencing closeness and comfort in others. Leyla feels both satisfaction and frustration throughout her life as the experience of being a return migrant takes on different meanings—enabling employment in call centers, informing her fights with school officials, and prompting neighborly appreciation and criticism at different moments. Creating a happy home, finding accepting communities, and obtaining meaningful work cannot be charted according to a moment when a person is “reintegrated.” Rather, people negotiate happiness, acceptance, and meaning—an ethical life—continuously as they establish relationships of belonging. Migrants’ struggle for belonging is affected by their class and ethno-national identities, but also by the social and political context of their migration and by their own evolving ideas about how to live their lives. Belonging is not simply a class position or an ethno-national identity. To understand what belonging means, it is necessary to look at the lives that migrants shape over an extended period of time, to look at how they weave their ethical lives through the years. Just as return migration is not about movement between two points, belonging is not about movement between two communities, but about the process of forming ethical relationships: belonging to oneself through reflecting on who one is and working on who one wants to be, belonging to others with whom one interacts in daily life, and, finally, belonging to abstract categories of culture, religion, and nation. We cannot focus just on the disjunctures of returning for Leyla and others but must look at how people engage in future-oriented projects of belonging over time. GERMAN-TURKISH MIGRATION AND RETURN: FROM FOREIGNER TO ALMANCI Escaping unemployment and poverty, Turks first travelled to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s to improve their family’s quality of life.12 They were officially guest workers (Gastarbeiter), recruited by the German government after the resulting labor shortage brought on by World War II and the division of Germany into East and West Germany.13 Workers were recruited to literally rebuild West Germany, and their efforts have famously been said to have brought about an “economic miracle” (Wirtschaftswunder). Between 1955 and 1968, Germany signed recruitment agreements with Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Morocco, and Tunisia. An agreement with Turkey was signed in 1961. The earliest recruited workers were unskilled and semi-skilled men between the ages of 20–40 who did heavy or dirty work in Germany’s booming construction, metal, and mining industries. Eventually women were also recruited from Turkey and other countries,

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and, by 1973, women comprised 30 percent of Germany’s foreign workforce (Chin 2007: 39). First generation migrants usually describe their jobs as difficult. For example, one returnee, Seda, related her experience working at a curtain factory during an interview. She described entering the workroom and seeing a machine that took up the entire room. It was as tall as the ceiling. “How am I going to do this?” she asked. “For the first two weeks, my fingers bled every day because I hurt them on the machine.” Many Turkish workers lost hearing or sight and developed lung diseases, stomach problems, and other physical disabilities as a result of their factory jobs. When the oil embargo hit in 1973, the German economy declined, unemployment grew, and recruitment of foreign workers stopped. The German government wanted migrants to return to Turkey and even provided financial incentives to returnees in the mid-1980s that led to the return of over 200,000 Turks. However, many Turkish workers calculated that there was no financial advantage to returning to Turkey’s struggling economy, and instead they brought their families to join them in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. Second-generation migrants differ greatly in terms of their evaluation of schooling in Germany—many describe academic difficulties, teachers’ racism, and being ostracized by classmates, while others found academic success and close friendships with German classmates.14 Those who returned to Turkey in their teens, either because their parents took advantage of incentives to return in the 1980s or because their parents simply decided that their children would benefit from a Turkish education, generally discuss difficulties adjusting to the Turkish school system (Rottmann 2015). The popular perception of second-generation migrants in Turkey is that they are caught between cultures, neither fully German nor fully Turkish, in fact, completely lost. However, I found that, in large part, second-generation migrants are able to productively navigate both German and Turkish societies and ultimately to shape fulfilling lives in either country. Leyla is one example of a second-generation return migrant who draws on diverse cultural knowledges to create a satisfying life. Today, German-Turks are deeply engaged with German society. They participate actively in German social, political, and economic life. But, German-Turks face myriad difficulties. Racial and anti-Muslim discrimination is widespread.15 Drawing from long-term fieldwork with Turks in Germany, Ruth Mandel (2008) argues that Germans see Turks as simultaneously “wrongful insiders” if they assimilate and become “too German,” but also as “unintegratable outsiders.” Thus, German nationalist rhetoric implies that Turks are potentially disloyal to Germany just like Jews in the past (131). Existing citizenship laws and heated media debates about Turkish migration clearly demonstrate German discomfort with the idea of being an im-

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migration country. Turks born in Germany and wishing to become German citizens must relinquish their Turkish citizenship by age 23. After age 23, dual citizenship is not allowed. New citizenship laws were passed in 2006 that added the additional requirement of 600 hours of language training and 30 hours of instruction about German culture with the goal of facilitating identification with German society and cultural values ( Joppke 2007). Legislation enacted in 2007 mandated proven knowledge of German language (A1 level) before Turkish migrants could receive visas to join their spouses in Germany. Arguing that the right to family reunification is essential to integration, the European Court of Justice ruled against the suitability of this legislation in 2014, but Germany continues to make language ability a condition for obtaining a spousal visa.16 Although there is a stable Turkish community in Germany, outward migration from Germany to Turkey began increasing in the 2000s. In 2006, the number of migrants leaving Germany for Turkey exceeded the number traveling to the country (Pusch and Splitt 2013: 135), reaching approximately 4,000 migrants per year by 2014. However, a weakening Turkish economy in 2017 and 2018 are likely to have reversed these trends. Already in 2015, the number of migrants traveling to Germany was greater than those returning to Turkey by about 2,000 individuals.17 By returning to Turkey, migrants are fulfilling German leaders’ historical expectations and hopes that Turks would be temporary “guests” in Germany. However, increasingly the loss of these migrants is viewed with concern, as German media outlets report that the low birthrate for ethnic Germans may soon prompt a labor crisis. Turkey began allowing dual citizenship in the 1980s, and, after 1996, began allowing people of Turkish descent to inherit property, even if they did not possess Turkish citizenship. Additionally, the Turkish state has devised a system whereby it recognizes its former citizens by giving them an identification card that can be obtained at Turkish consulates in Germany (Çağlar 2004). It allows former Turkish citizens who are now German citizens to enter Turkey freely and to maintain residency there, without the need for a visa or residence permit. Most recently, in 2010, the Turkish government created a General Directorate of the Ministry of Labour for Services for Workers Abroad (Çalışma Bakanlığı Yurtdışı İşçi Hizmetleri Genel Müdürlüğü) with the goal of facilitating German-Turks’ movement within and engagement with Turkish society. In contrast to previous efforts, which focused on reintegrating migrants, the state is now focused on diaspora policies. This Directorate seeks to improve the situation of Turks abroad, strengthen German-Turks’ economic ties with Turkey, support the pursuit of higher education in Turkey, and facilitate the activities of Turkish NGOs established in Turkey and abroad (Pusch and Splitt 2013: 143–144).

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Today, approximately 4 million people in Turkey have German migration background (Pusch and Splitt 2013: 132) out of a total population of nearly 80 million. Returnees include first generations who retire in Turkey permanently or spend six months in Turkey and six months in Germany and second and third generations who have returned to work in cosmopolitan Istanbul. About three-quarters of returnees are between 25 and 50 years of age and one-quarter are over 50 years of age (Baykara-Krumme and Nauck 2011). The Turkish government does not maintain statistics on returnees, so, unfortunately, we lack data about the locations to which migrants return in Turkey. During field research, I discovered many first-generation returnees settled back into their natal villages and hometowns or divided their time between their natal villages, Istanbul, and luxurious coastal retirement communities. Second-generation returnees may return to their parents’ villages, but they are more likely to pursue employment and other opportunities in Istanbul. Most returnees receive frequent visits from friends and relatives in Germany and often travel to Germany themselves.18 I refer to Leyla and others as German-Turks because this is the term that English language analysts use most often (Çağlar 1995; Mandel 2008: 181; White 1997). However, this term has been criticized for emphasizing German identity, and thus some feel that “Turkish-German” is a preferable label. Despite its popularity in English, the Turkish word for German-Turk, Alman-Türk, is not a well-known term in Turkish. Rather, most people use the Turkish words Almanyalı, Alamancı, or Almancı (German-like, Germanish, German-er). These words are each modifications of the Turkish word for German, Alman, and are only used to refer to German-Turks. However, they are considered derogatory by many. Alamancı and Almancı have particularly negative connotations as the -cı ending in Turkish is usually used to indicate one’s profession. For example, someone who publishes or writes for a newspaper, which is called a gazete, is a gazeteci. Thus, Alamancı and Almancı connote becoming a “professional German” and thus faking or putting-on German-ness. In fact, some returnees embrace these words, despite their derogatory meanings. While conducting fieldwork, I usually told people that I was studying “Turks who returned to Turkey from Germany” (Almanya’dan Türkiye’ye dönen Türkler). Most of the people that scholars call German-Turks, including Leyla, would refer to themselves as Turks, though a few would claim to be European Turks or “world citizens.” Their neighbors and relatives, however, most often refer to them as Almanyalı, Alamancı, or Almancı. These perceptions of return migrants are far from benign. They are shaped by anxieties about cultural and national identities and social, economic, and political connections between Germany and Turkey.

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GERMAN-TURKISH TRANSNATIONAL SPACE When German President Joachim Gauck criticized Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April 2014 for his harsh response to political protests, Erdoğan defended his actions a month later in a speech in Cologne, Germany. He told the 16,000 attendees, most of whom were of Turkish descent, not to assimilate into Germany and not to forget their language, religion, and culture. Erdoğan’s sentiments contrasted starkly with those of past Turkish leaders who have encouraged migrants to integrate and even to obtain German citizenship. This exchange between Erdoğan and Gauck is just one example of the ongoing struggle over control of the Turkish diaspora and over the terms of Turkey’s relationship with Europe. More recently, European leaders refused to allow Erdoğan (now Turkey’s president) to visit their countries and campaign for votes in advance of the June 2018 presidential election.19 For return migrants like Leyla, the struggle to belong is deeply impacted by this antagonistic transnational context. Debates between German and Turkish leaders are a key dimension of the transnational social field connecting Germany and Turkey.20 A transnational social field is the result of a “set of multiple, interlocking networks of social relationships” between two or more places (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004: 1,009).21 These interlocking networks hold particular significance for migrants, but they are also important for citizens who never travel between the involved countries. German and Turkish citizens participate in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field, even though they may never visit each other’s country (Rottmann 2014). For example, Turkey is a member of NATO and the G20 with the largest standing army in Europe and the 17th largest economy. Political, military, and economic events affecting Europe directly affect Turks. Bordering Iraq, Syria, and Iran, the country is a critical partner in security and migration control. A controversial deal brokered between the EU and Turkey in 2016 is widely seen as essential for addressing Europe’s “refugee crisis” and likewise contributing to Turkey’s own struggles to accommodate more than 3 million Syrian migrants.22 Many goods sold in Europe, such as clothing and appliances, are manufactured in Turkey. Turkish and European cultural products are in constant circulation. Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso are exhibited in Turkish museums, while Turkish filmmakers like Nuri Bilge Ceylan win Palm D’Ors at Cannes. Turks listen to French, German, and British music. Istanbul was a European Capital of Culture in 2010, and a myriad of events celebrated the city’s European-ness. Many Turks avidly follow the careers of Turkish soccer players, such as Mesut Özil who played in the 2018 World Cup for Germany. Among all countries in Europe, Germany is particularly significant for Turks because it epitomizes their ideological and practical ties to Europe.

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Germany is by far Turkey’s most important political and economic partner and events in Germany are frequently highlighted in Turkish media. For example, recent German elections, Angela Merkel’s statements on hosting refugees, and Germany’s treatment of Greece during the financial crisis were topics of daily conversation in Turkey. Özil’s announcement that he will no longer play for Germany’s national soccer team due to racism was a major news story.23 Turks actively follow developments related to dual citizenship for Turkish citizens24 or anti-migrant protests25 in Germany. Many Turks enroll their children in German language classes or take German lessons themselves in order to work in German companies. Many German businesses, such as Mercedes, Siemens, and Bosch, produce products in Turkey for sale both domestically and in Europe. German-Turks are essential figures in creating the Germany-Turkey transnational social space, where they are usually portrayed negatively, either as excessively traditional and backwards or as culturally corrupted (Rottmann 2014). For instance, films usually show them to be uncultured villagers or arrogant show-offs. In the film, Yellow Mercedes (Fikrimin İnce Gülü; Sarı Mercedes; Mercedes Mon Amour [1987]), the famous actor Ilyas Salman plays a narcissistic returnee who values his yellow Mercedes more than his fellow Turks. He is depicted as a conceited fool whose return to Turkey is disastrous. In German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin’s films about German-Turks, such as Head On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007), firstand second-generation returnees are shown to have lost their family ties and to be enmeshed in violence, drugs, crime, and prostitution. Media accounts are not much better, often emphasizing migrants’ backwardness and naiveté. German-Turks’ inability to integrate into Germany is often discussed. For example, in an article titled, “Unsuccessful Migration Stories,” appearing in the leftist Turkish newspaper Radikal, Kerem Çalışkan (2011) argued that “the reality” of German-Turkish migration is poverty, inadequate education and high unemployment. In January 2009, Turkish newspapers reported that a new study showed Turks to be the “least integrated immigrant group in Germany.”26 Such news stories are rarely critical of Turks’ treatment in Germany, but rather emphasize that migrants were unable or unwilling to fit in to Germany. This affects non-migrants’ views. For example, one non-migrant, Emre, offered these comments in response to my questions about his views on this study: “These results don’t surprise me. My aunts lived in Germany for 20 years and did not learn a single word of German. Can you believe that? They made absolutely no effort to integrate.” Occasionally positive news stories do appear. The focus tends to be on German-Turks’ success as entrepreneurs and politicians in Germany. For example, one newspaper reported, “A Turk living in Germany has plans to produce small airplanes by investing 30 million euros in Turkey” (Baysal

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2010). In 2013, Turkish media widely praised the election of Cemile Yusuf, a parliamentary representative for the ruling CDU (Christian Democratic Union).27 The Germany-Turkey transnational social field emerges from a fraught historical relationship between Turkey and Europe extending back hundreds of years. When Turkey was founded in 1923, leaders explicitly aimed to make the country European by synthesizing Turkish nationalism with Western capitalism and what some authors refer to as “European modernity” (Irem 2004) or “modernity as Westernization” (Kahraman 2005; Keyman 2009). Their endeavor was “a total project, embracing and internalizing all the cultural dimensions that made Europe modern” (Keyder 1997: 37). The intended transformation involved far-ranging political and social transformations, everything from changing the script from Arabic to Latin to banning female state employees from wearing headscarves. Despite Turkish leaders’ attempts to model Turkey into their vision of a European country, and despite the sense of shared political, economic, and cultural space between Turkey and Germany, Turkey’s European modernity is not and never has been “obvious” for Turks or Europeans. Nothing demonstrates Turkey’s ambiguous position in Europe more clearly than the country’s stalled European Union membership bid.28 Turkey has faced innumerable rejections from European countries regarding its potential membership. For many years, Germany was strongly opposed to Turkish membership (Onis 1999). Some European leaders, such as Nicolas Sarkozy of France, called for Turkey to be offered “privileged partnership” rather than full membership. In April 2018, Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister claimed that Austria’s stance on Turkish membership has “turned from oppositional to hostile.”29 According to a recent survey, more than half of Europeans oppose Turkey’s EU membership (59 percent), while only about 30 percent are in favor of membership.30 Although the Turkish government has rapidly changed laws to comply with EU demands, popular support for joining Europe through EU membership has not remained stable (Çarkoğlu 2004), and currently support for Turkey’s EU membership in Turkey is hovering at around 33 percent.31 European skepticism about offering full EU membership to Turkey has led to a deep sense of anxiety about Turkey’s identity, with some scholars identifying a symbolic binary between modern-urban-European-Western and traditional-rural-peripheral-Oriental (Helvacıoğlu 1996; Keyman 1995). In order to become European, some leaders and citizens have argued that Turkey must shed its traditional practices. In the past, “efforts of the Turkish state to modernize have included negative depictions of the village, its inhabitants, and the backwardness of ‘traditional’ practices” (Ewing 2008: 45). For much of the twentieth century, powerful groups in Turkey ex-

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pressed the view that European or German (often used interchangeably) ways of life were the ideal. Although many others contested this notion, the perceived superiority of European-ness has nevertheless retained a deep symbolic power for Turks. German-Turks are seen as European Turks and thereby become a flash point for debating Turks’ European-ness, modernity, and a myriad of cultural and ethical stereotypes associated with these categories. The overwhelmingly negative images of German-Turks within German-Turkish transnational space mean that migrants are thrown into a suspicious social position when they return to Turkey. Leyla and other migrants’ ethical projects are part of their efforts to prove that they are not backwards nor culturally corrupted. Many scholars argue that the winds of change for conceptualizing Turkey’s identity are here. They point to a new cultural project beginning in the 2000s, which they call “neo-Ottomanism” (cf. Walton 2010). Instead of looking towards Europe, they note that Turkish leaders are now looking towards the country’s Ottoman past, which is imagined as a glorious, harmonious, multi-ethnic, Islamic empire. Celebrations of Ottoman heritage are visible in advertising, television, and film; political rhetoric; and in conversations in daily life. Despite years of leaders’ intense efforts, Turks increasingly wonder if Turkey is capable of becoming a European country and if they actually want to become European, or whether or not they should instead appreciate their independence and cultural differences, which they frequently attribute to their Ottoman heritage. My ethnography of return migrants suggests that it may be too soon to announce Turkey’s turn away from Europe. While growing admiration for Turkey’s Ottoman past and increasing interest in spiritual and material connections to the Middle East are clearly apparent, German-Turks’ experiences show us that Europe remains a key orientation point for Turks. GermanTurks often find themselves at the center of conflicts related to their background as migrants to Europe. The chapters to come describe accusations that migrants like Leyla are anti-social, arrogant, backwards, and even lost. Non-migrants are predisposed to react negatively towards migrants because of negative images of German-Turks. Migrants’ conspicuous consumption and class conflicts exacerbate animosities. But, there is something more going on too: there is deep concern about how Europe affects Turks and anxiety about how changed family and religious ties will affect not only migrants, but Turkey’s citizens broadly. Images of Turks’ difficulties in Europe—images of their backwardness or lack of integration—parallel Turks’ own fears about maintaining and/ or attaining Turkish and European modernities. Having lived in Germany, migrants like Leyla represent historical and contemporary relationships between Turkey and Germany, and they symbolize the dangers and oppor-

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tunities of German-Turkish hybridity. Being a German-Turk, a European Turk, or a return migrant is not an identity or static background for migrants like Leyla, but a set of tools they work with and through to achieve their aims. Experience in Europe means simultaneously positive resources for creatively refiguring social relationships and negative baggage that must be overcome or altered. WHY LEYLA’S LIFE STORY? “Tell me, my friend, how have you been?” Leyla greets me. As always, her hug envelops me completely as soon as I walk in her door—she’s a few inches taller and wider than me, her arms are very strong, and she smells of cigarettes and tomatoes. “Come sit down.” Mert and Hande look on quietly, waiting to give and get their greeting kiss on the cheek. Through the kitchen window, I see a few children squealing noisily as they prance around a street dog and a group of lanky teenage boys furtively smoking cigarettes as they meander towards the center of town. It’s March and a gentle breeze is brushing through the sparse grasses that dot the muddy lots behind Leyla’s house. Tucking away strands of light brown hair that have flopped down into her eyes and straightening the blue knit shirt she’s wearing, Leyla gestures to her sofa and the coffee table, which has been set with traditional pear-shaped tea glasses. We exchange news about our husbands. She pours tea. I ask about her older children—Recep, Sanem, and Ceren—who are not present. A game show on TV covers any silences. Finally, I timidly bring up a topic that I’ve been thinking about for some time: I want her life story to be the central thread of my book about German-Turkish return migration; how would she feel about that? She knows that she is “in my research” about German-Turkish return migrants— I’ve stayed at her house frequently, observing family events and neighborhood gatherings, I’ve formally interviewed her multiple times, and I’ve asked her countless questions about being a return migrant over the course of six years. And yet, if she is “the star” of my planned book, it will involve disclosing more personal information to a larger audience than she might have anticipated. “Of course, you should write your book about my life,” Leyla says smiling. I’m relieved that she has assented but feel the need to be sure she fully understands what I plan to write. I explain how her story touches on themes that are relevant to my research, but I also note that I do not consider her to be an “ordinary” person. In addition to overcoming the stigma of being an Auslander (Foreigner) in Germany and an Almancı (German-er) in Turkey, Leyla has experienced heartrending abuse and loss. I find her story to be a

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very sad one, even though I think of her enduring cheerfulness as the core of her being. I suggest that her story might inspire others, but I also ask if she is sure that she wants to tell it in this way. She insists that she is not worried; she trusts me. “You are such a special person,” I explain, “because you have overcome all of the things that happened to you, and you are so cheerful, such a responsible mother, and a truly kind person. How did you do it?” She smiles and tears fill her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know how I did it, but . . . I never got anything from being sad.” This is the story of how Leyla “did it”—how she overcame sadness as she pursued belonging, as she forged an ethical life. Life story collection is a qualitative research methodology in which the researcher obtains information about a person’s subjective experiences (Atkinson 2002). The method evolved from oral history and life history writing and emerged alongside an explosion of interest in personal narratives in the humanities and social sciences in the 1980s and 1990s.32 When I began studying anthropology, I was immediately drawn to the idea of writing people’s lives, which is a well-established tradition in the discipline (Behar 1993; Frank 1995; George 2010). Early anthropologists recounted the lives of Native Americans (Langness and Frank 1981: 14), and feminist anthropologists in the 1980s showed that life histories provided a much-needed emphasis on women’s points of view (e.g. Shostak 1981; Kendall 1988; Cruikshank 1990). Yet, I had not originally planned that my intended book about German-Turkish return migration would be built around a life story. I studied German-Turkish return migration between 2008–2015 through ethnographic research in three sites in northwestern Turkey: İlçe,33 a town of about 15,000; Tekirdağ, a small city with a population of about 100,000; and Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, estimated to have a population of between 15 and 20 million. Although I collected partial life stories, my primary goal was to observe daily life and to conduct ethnographic interviews. I lived with four families for weeks or months at a time, and made observations of daily conversations and activities, including the use of household objects when relevant. I attended weddings, circumcision ceremonies, a funeral, güns (women’s reception days), sohbets (religious discussion groups), kermes (yard sales to benefit the poor), political party meetings, mosque services, meetings of a return migrants’ group (the Rückkehrer Stammtisch), and spent the Ramadan, Sacrifice Feast, and Republican Day holidays with German-Turkish families. I also accompanied people to workplaces and on shopping trips and neighborhood and family visits. I conducted in-depth, formal interviews with 57 German-Turks and more than 100 informal interviews.34 Because I was interested in the process of people moving between Germany and Turkey, I asked many questions about migrants’ memories of Germany and the early days of their return to Turkey, as well as questions

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about family and community relationships, religious practice, and German, European, and Turkish politics. German-Turks are a diverse group, and I did not conduct research with every demographic category of migrant. All those I met self-identified as ethnically Turkish, not Kurdish, and as having a Muslim background. I met several Alevis (members of a minority Muslim community), but focused chiefly on Sunni Muslim return migrants, who are the largest group of returnees. Though this book is about Leyla, a second-generation migrant, it also examines the experiences of first generations. When discussing return migrants’ experiences, it is occasionally worthwhile to differentiate between first and second generations, but more often than not, these distinctions are irrelevant. Divisions into generations are often guided by researcher’s ideologies about national identity and assimilation, rather than empirical evidence (Soysal 2002). For example, second generations abroad may be just as involved with their home-countries as first generations, and a person’s age or life stage may be more analytically relevant than generation (Levitt 2002). Critically, whether they are first-generation retirees or second-generation migrants in the prime of life (like Leyla), German-Turks share the experience of being immersed in a factious social and political milieu that often results in their experiencing very similar dilemmas. After getting to know Leyla well between 2009 and 2013, I discussed with her the possibility of writing her life story as a biography aimed at a popular (not academic) Turkish reading audience after I finished my book on German-Turkish return migration. I found her story interesting and inspiring and thought that it would be meaningful for her to have it published, as Leyla often expressed interest in educating people in her community. The idea that Leyla’s life story would be a perfect focus for an academic book on return migration came to me in 2014 when Leyla told me that she had written about her life for her 16-year-old daughter Ceren’s Turkish class project. Would I like to read it? Of course! She handed me an 11-page typewritten account of her migration to Germany and return to Turkey, her courtship and mothering experiences. She titled her story, “Suffering Transformed into Happiness.” I was completely bowled over by the poetic, poignant, first-person account she had written. Immediately, I encouraged her to expand the memoir so she could publish it and offered to help her do so. (This is an on-going project).35 Reading her words inspired me to write her story myself. I realized that I could combine my extensive observations and interviews with other return migrants with my deep, personal knowledge of Leyla’s life into the account of German-Turkish migration that I imagined. At several points throughout the book, I include passages from Leyla’s memoir.36 At the end of this book, I’ve included Leyla’s entire short memoir of her life as well as some study questions in the hope that readers gain a

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greater understanding of Leyla’s perspective on her story as well as on the anthropological process of life writing. I invite you to consider some key ideas regarding both texts: how do my story and her story confirm and challenge each other? How do they play against one another? How does access to both stories provide insight into the genres and methods of ethnography and memoir? How does each text enhance your understanding of ethics, belonging, and Leyla’s truth? We all experience the world through stories. We are all constantly creating narratives about who we are, where we have been, and where we are going. As we tell these narratives to ourselves and others, we reveal, conceal, expand, embellish, and edit. Therefore, writing an effective life story requires being present “when stories are narrated as part of on-going social life,” in order “to overhear spontaneously evoked commentaries, debates, revisions, and retellings” (Narayan and George 2001: 819). This is the approach I take to writing Leyla’s life. I do not only focus on information that she related to me during interviews or her own writings, but also use stories she told to me and others in daily life over our ten years of friendship. Relating a life story like Leyla’s is an ideal means of capturing return migrants’ multidimensional ethical projects. A life story methodology shifts analytic focus away from abstract ethical principles towards concrete ethical dilemmas in the complexity of real-life situations. Leyla struggles not with lofty ideals, but with everyday ethical needs: what is the best way to teach her children about Islam? How can she maintain her honor while working with criminals? How can she get along with her neighbors, but fight for her rights as a citizen? Can she please her husband and satisfy herself? A life story approach is attuned to emotional resonances, memory, the interplay between personal and community histories, and the process of constructing a self. Relating a person’s “ethnographic biography” (Herzfeld 1998) in vivid detail brings the scope and the sequence of an individual’s striving for belonging into relief while highlighting the various interconnections and disjunctures that animate social spaces. Anthropologists have shown that life stories can effectively capture the relationship between individuals and societies, between micro- and macro-level forces. Leyla’s story is a story that links her to other migrants globally—a story of someone who “sought a lifeworld beyond the one they were born into, which so many around them accepted as inevitable, destined, or right” ( Jackson 2013: 219). It is a story that links her to other German-Turkish return migrants, particularly those who share her social, economic, and political conditions (childhood poverty, divorce, and neglect in many cases), outsider status in Germany and Turkey, and similar views and ethical projects. Leyla’s personal characteristics—as a middle-aged, religious woman and working mother—provide a focus for the book, enabling an exploration

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of the interplay between migration and Muslim religiosity, class, and gender roles, and, more specifically, of the responsibilities women bear for familial reproduction and honor in Turkey. Beyond this, Leyla’s story is completely singular because everyone’s story is unique. Her story is the story of everyday acts of courage and commitment, of forgiveness, trust, and risk. Leyla is an ordinary person lacking even a high school diploma, but she is bright, courageous, and strong-willed, a woman who has overcome many personal difficulties, including childhood abuse and the loss of a child, to create a stable family life and to garner the respect of many of her neighbors. Even more than this, however, Leyla is unique because she wanted to tell her story to me and to the world. She wanted you to know her, her family, and her life. By comparing her story with those of other migrants, I highlight what is shared among migrants in general, while also showing how one individual uniquely incorporated various ideas and experiences into her individual life projects. THE UNFOLDING OF LEYLA’S STORY In the next chapter, we meet Leyla as I did, as “Claudia Schmidt,” a worker at one of four illegal German-Turkish call centers where she was employed between 2009–2012. Facing desperate financial straits, Leyla/Claudia sold enrollments in a lottery scam that did not offer enrollees opportunities to win or, more significantly, to withdraw. She could find work at illegal call centers because she had the necessary transnational experience—German linguistic and cultural knowledge—and she gained further transnational experience daily through constant interactions with return migrant co-workers and bosses and German customers. The chapter investigates how working at call centers exposed Leyla to a number of ethical predicaments and spurred her to draw on a variety of ethical discourses about work and womanhood to justify her actions. We see that ethical projects and relationships within transnational social fields are neither constant nor straightforward, because what is ethical is negotiated dynamically through diverse interactions and changes over time. Chapter 2 describes a circumcision celebration, which Leyla arranged almost single-handedly for her youngest son, and elaborates on her other parenting efforts to examine how migrants negotiate ethical motherhood and community belonging. It goes on to explore how German-Turkish family relationships are transformed by transnational experiences and focuses on a widespread migrant ethical aim of education, which involves the selfeducation of parents and parents’ education of children. Beyond characterizing migrant efforts in this area, a major goal of this chapter is to investigate how a plurality of ethical perspectives becomes a resource that migrants use

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in distinct, unique circumstances. To do so, I look at two very personal family experiences for Leyla: her experience of sexual abuse and her mothering of a disabled child, both of which can be significant sources of shame for women in Turkey. I explore how Leyla draws on her knowledge of parenting, gender norms, and education in Germany to challenge commonly accepted ideas about motherhood and women’s sexuality in Turkey, as well as to escape the stigma of being labeled a “bad” migrant mother. She thus crafts a novel strategy for coping with community censure—literally turning her shame into pride, her dishonor into honor. Marriage is the focus of Chapter 3. I explore how migration and return affect gender roles and marriage relationships, leading to what scholars refer to as companionate marriages—marriages based on mutual respect and equality. Ultimately, contrary to popular discourses in Germany and Turkey, the chapter shows that transnational migration does not simply lead migrants to adopt the relationship models and gender norms of one country or another. Rather, it fosters a degree of openness to alternatives—an expanded field of awareness—which enables migrants like Leyla to creatively renegotiate commonly accepted ideals for women and to forge novel, fulfilling relationships. Leyla’s neighborly relations are the focus of Chapter 4, which opens with descriptions of Leyla’s monthly gatherings for neighborhood women—her gün as it is called in Turkish—and her innovation in arranging for a psychologist to visit the group. I explore how Leyla becomes a leader among neighbors by stressing the importance of education and fighting for one’s rights. This example becomes a jumping-off point to examine how return migrants draw on their experience in Germany to argue for the importance of demanding citizenship rights and to make claims of support for political positions across the left/right spectrum. Migrants combine notions of liberal citizenship—rights and equality—with notions of ethical care between citizens and states to re-imagine Turkish citizenship. With the goal of highlighting the tenuous, partial nature of belonging, the chapter moves from examining migrants’ positive neighborly relationships to exploring the stigma that Leyla and other return migrants face in neighborhoods when neighbors perceive Europeanized Turks as disruptive to local social relationships. Chapter 5 shows how Leyla struggles with competing religious ethical principles (such as, reading the Qur’an in Arabic or Turkish) and explores the role of transnational experience in leading to original notions of religious ideas and belonging. The chapter ultimately stresses that while Leyla’s feeling of being a religious Muslim permeates her story, the very meaning of “religious” has changed over time for her. For instance, relative ignorance about Muslim practice in Germany gives way to learning about Islam 12 years after she returns to Turkey and is shaped by the experience of her young daugh-

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ter’s death and by confrontations with members of the Islamic revival movement. While emphasizing ethical change, this chapter challenges crude understandings of migrant religiosity as either reactively “traditional” or attenuated by exposure to cultural difference, and it also problematizes simplistic depictions of Islamic and secular identities in Turkey. The last chapter of the book relates the central theme about the pursuit of belonging amidst a plurality of ethical perspectives to Leyla’s key ethical projects: being and becoming educated and educating others, being and becoming a good woman—a working woman, a mother, and a wife—and being and becoming a good Muslim. The conclusion ultimately asks us to consider what Leyla’s experiences tell us about Turkey and its future. Further, it asks: why should Leyla’s life matter to those of us who are neither German-Turks nor return migrants? I hope to show that Leyla’s life provides insights into processes of negotiating ethical conflict and sheds light on how we all might find comfort and hope as we negotiate our own quandaries of ethics, belonging, and mobility. notes 1. To protect the privacy of research participants, I use pseudonyms, change nonessential identifying personal details, and do not identify the names of some research locations. 2. Huzurköy is a pseudonym. 3. Amadeus is a pseudonym. 4. Below, I discuss precisely what “ethics” means and my reasons for choosing to use the term “ethics,” rather than the term “morality.” 5. “First generation” typically refers to adult migrants leaving a home country for a host country, while “second generation” typically refers to the children of initial migrants born abroad. Leyla’s migration trajectory demonstrates the imprecision of these labels. She was born in Turkey but traveled to Germany with her father at age four. Due to her young age at the time of her migration, her story closely resembles that of most second-generation migrants. 6. Also, I was able to establish closer, more open relationships with women during my research. 7. The concept of belonging can be expressed directly with the phrase “ait olmak” in Turkish, but people rarely use this in daily life. More commonly, people discuss feeling comfortable (rahat), at peace (huzurlu), happy (mutlu), and having closeness and trust (samimiyet) and understanding (anlaşmak). 8. These figures are from the United Nations website and can be reached here: www.un .org/development/desa/publications/international-migration-report-2017.html. Accessed 19 June 2018. 9. See the following: ethics and religion (George 2010; Hirschkind 2006), ethics and development (Pandian 2009), ethics and law (Richland 2010), ethics and sexuality (Day 2010), ethics and medicine (Zigon 2011), and ethics and globalization (Ong and Collier 2004).

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10. See for example: Jackson (2013), Gowricharn (2004), Fassin (2005), Carling (2008), Olwig (2011). 11. Most Turks do not know the precise meaning of the direct translation of ethics (etik) in Turkish. In daily life, the word for morality, ahlak, comes closer to describing morality in the same sense we use it in English, but it has a narrower meaning, typically referring to religious or gender matters. While returnees only sometimes use the Turkish word ahlak, they do talk about “the right and good” using concepts such as manners (terbiyeli), honor (şeref, namus) discipline (disiplin), order (düzen; düzgün), respect (saygı), rights (haklar), honesty (dürüstlük), sharing (paylaşmak), helpful (yardım sever), and friendly (canı yakın, dostça), among others. These concepts are explored at many points throughout this book. 12. Recent studies of Turks in Germany include: Çağlar (2006), Mandel (2008), Ewing (2008), Özyürek (2009). 13. For more information on the guest worker program, see Chin (2007). 14. For more information on Turks’ performance in German schools, see Kristen and Granato (2007) and Sohn and Ozcan (2006). 15. For more information, see Ewing (2008) and Fetzer and Soper (2005). 16. For more information about the European court ruling, see: www.euractiv.com/ sections/global-europe/european-court-justice-bans-german-language-requireme nt-turkish-spouse-visas. The German response can be found here: www.ankara.di plo.de/Vertretung/ankara/tr/06__Visa/eugh-entscheidung-spracherwerbsnachwe is.html. 17. Migrationsbericht 2016. Migrationsbericht des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge im Auftrag der Bundesregierung. Migrationsbericht 2015, p. 34–35. Available at: www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Migrationsberichte/mi grationsbericht-2015.pdf?__blob=publicationFile. Accessed 22 June 2017. Figures for 2016 and 2017 will be available when the next Migration Report is published at the end of 2018. (For more information, see: www.bamf.de/EN/DasBAMF/For schung/Ergebnisse/Migrationsberichte/migrationsberichte-node.html) 18. Studies of German-Turkish return migrants include Çağlar (1995, 2002, 2006), Dişbudak (2004), Gerdes et al. (2012), Güven (1994), Hesapçıoğlu (1991), Razum et al. (2005), Wolbert (1991, 1995, 1996). 19. For example, see: “Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans election rally in Europe.” DW. 24 April 2018. www.dw.com/en/turkey-president-recep-tayyiperdogan-plans-election-rally-in-europe/a-43511756. 20. An earlier version of this discussion of the Germany-Turkey Transnational Social Field appears in Rottmann (2014). 21. A transnational social field is “a set of multiple, interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004: 1009). For more information about transnational social fields, see: Basch, Glick Schiller and Szanton Blanc (1994) and Faist (2004). 22. For more information, see: Elizabeth Collett, “The Paradox of the EU-Turkey Refugee Deal.” MPI. March 2016. www.migrationpolicy.org/news/paradox-euturkey-refugee-deal. 23. See: “Özil quits German national team after racial abuse.” Daily Sabah. 22 July 2018. www.dailysabah.com/football/2018/07/22/ozil-quits-german-nationalteam-after-racial-abuse.

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24. For example, “Milenyum kuşağına çifte vatandaşlık.” Milliyet. 28 November 2013. Accessed online 27 February 2014. 25. For example, “Almanya’nin Pegida ile imtihani.” Haber Turk. 18 January 2015. www .haberturk.com/yasam/haber/1031962-almanyanin-pegida-ile-imtihani. Accessed online 21 January 2015. 26. See: “Turks least integrated immigrant group in Germany.” Hürriyet Daily News. 26 January 2009. www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/10853018.asp?scr=1. Accessed 17 April 2012. 27. See, for example: “Almanya’da 10 Türk asıllı mecliste.” Ntvmsnbc. 23 September 2013. Accessed online 27 February 2014. 28. Turkey was officially recognized as a candidate country on 10 December 1999 at the Helsinki summit of the European Council. In November 2016, the European Parliament voted to suspend Turkey’s accession negotiations due to rule of law and humans rights concerns. 29. See: “Austrian stance ‘more hostile than oppositional,’ says Turkey’s EU minister.” Hürriyet Daily News. 4 April 2018. www.hurriyetdailynews.com/austrianstance-more-hostile-than-oppositional-says-turkeys-eu-minister-129788. 30. Eurobarometer 74 Public Opinion in the European Union. 2011. Brussels: European Commission. This document can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/ archives/eb/eb74/eb74_en.htm. Accessed 17 April 2012. 31. Eurobarometer 83 Public Opinion in the European Union. 2015. Brussels: European Commission. 32. For more on academic approaches to narrative, see Ochs and Capps (1996). 33. İlçe (a Turkish word that literally means “township” or “district”) is a pseudonym. 34. I conducted 32 formal interviews with German-Turks in Istanbul, 4 formal interviews with German-Turks in Tekirdağ, and 21 formal interviews with German-Turks in İlçe. Given that I was a foreigner, I was able to get access to men as interviewees without straining the bounds of what would normally be appropriate for interactions between men and women, however, it is safe to say that I formed more and closer relationships with returnee women than men. I was able to formally interview slightly more women than men—I interviewed 33 women and 24 men. As a fluent speaker of German and Turkish, I allowed interviewees to choose the language of our interviews. Ultimately, I conducted 90 percent of the interviews and conversations in Turkish, but some interviewees mixed in a bit of German, and others used our interviews or time together as an opportunity for them to practice their English. 35. Leyla is currently expanding the memoir. I have contacted a friend who is in touch with a local publisher, and when Leyla finishes writing, we will submit her manuscript. 36. These passages are denoted by a different font applied to the text.

CH A PTER

1 M A K I NG A LI V I NG I N I LLEG A L G E R M A N - T U R K I S H C A L L C E N TE R S

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ ILLEGAL CALL CENTERS Telemarketing! Do you speak German? Earn a lot of money. If you have German-speaking friends, give them our phone number.

T

he red-and-white sign sporting this advertisement flapped in the breeze along the side of a five-story building on Kadıköy’s busy main street. During the early period of my research (2008–2009), I was looking everywhere for return migrants who would agree to meet with me, and this looked like a lead. I was also intrigued by this sign because I had met a returnee who had told me about a vast world of illegal German-Turkish telemarketing, including his own story of impersonating a German man named “Hans.” I called one of the numbers listed, spoke briefly with the owner, Ufuk, who confirmed that he was running a call center and made an appointment to meet him at the office the next day. This chapter describes my meeting with Ufuk, my further investigation of illegal call centers, and how I came to meet Leyla in 2009. Migrants like Leyla get work at call centers because of their transnational background, and they build more transnational experiences through this work. Leyla, or “Claudia Schmidt” as she was known at her call centers, was able to work at call centers because of her native-level German language ability and first-

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FIGURE 1.1. A busy Istanbul street (Istiklal). Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

hand knowledge of German culture. She interacted with German customers and fellow return migrant bosses and coworkers on a daily basis. Major corporations, such as Lufthansa, Siemens, and Neckermann run respectable and legal call centers in Turkey. In contrast to illegal call centers, these corporations have rather stringent hiring procedures and usually expect employees to have some college education.1 To date, I am not aware of any comprehensive studies of illegal call centers, and the informal sector is notoriously difficult to investigate. But, a recent Spiegel (2013) newspaper article gives an idea of the size of the sector, citing German criminal statistics, which estimate that 100,000 Germans have been victimized by illegal Turkish call centers to a cost of 23 million euros. There are similarities in call-center work everywhere, which is a big industry in India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic. Scholars have found the work to be repetitive, stressful, lacking in autonomy, and precarious, although financially rewarding compared to other local work opportunities (Krishnamurthy 2004; Taqueban 2018). Numerous studies point out that workers must master particular accents (e.g. American English), and must show knowledge of the culture of whom they call, such as awareness of American holiday traditions or baseball season, in order to be successful. Call centers are frequently spaces where gender norms are transfigured as the work may require such things as night work for women, for example (Patel 2010).

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Those working in the illegal call centers like the ones I describe here face unique challenges. The illegal environment disturbs customary salesperson-customer and employer-employee ethical norms. It led to several dilemmas for Leyla: is it acceptable to associate with convicted criminal coworkers, to lie to Germans, and to cheat rascally employers to support one’s family? Is it possible to be a good Muslim, even if one’s work is what Leyla calls “haram” (religiously proscribed)? How does one maintain a sense of personal honor in the call center environment where norms of male-female interaction include unconventional friendships and frequent romances? Ethical principles such as openness, honesty, and fairness are centrally important in daily life and part of being a practicing Muslim, according to Leyla, but in illegal call centers, lying is literally part of the job. In short, Leyla struggled with the disconnects between her ethical principles for work, womanhood, and religiosity, and the imperative to literally feed her family. This chapter examines how Leyla came to terms with the challenges that this transnational workspace posed. It examines how she drew on experience gleaned through living in Germany and Turkey and on a number of ethical perspectives (Muslim, Turkish, European) to reimagine work and womanhood. In tracing Leyla’s journey through three call centers, we see her engaging in an open-ended struggle to determine what is ethical. Her perceptions of the characteristics of a good worker, woman, and Muslim evolve as she moves among workplaces; interacts with bosses, coworkers, and German customers; and as her financial conditions change over time. For example, she hates misleading customers and develops small but significant ways to treat them ethically even under unethical conditions. The shame she feels about lying to customers contradicts the pride she feels about supporting her family. Over time, her guilt eventually becomes unbearable. The next section begins with a description of the first illegal call center I visited and highlights how such call centers refigure social relationships, creating ethical dilemmas for workers. CRIMINALS: BOSSES, WORKERS, AND WORKPLACE NORMS When I arrived at my appointment at the call center in Kadıköy, I began to have second thoughts about entering the office. It was an apartment on the third floor of the building sporting the advertisement. Although the building was located on one of the most central and busy streets of Kadıköy, it was surrounded by several erotic stores, bars, and cheap hotels. The hall and the stairs of the building were very dirty, littered with crumbling newspapers, plastic cups, and cigarette butts. It was so dark I could hardly see up the stairs. The business on the second floor was a distributor of condoms, and

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when I reached my destination on the floor above, there was no sign on the door and no name on the mailbox of the apartment that I was supposed to enter. Was it possible that this was a front for another business even shadier than illegal telemarketing? Eventually I decided that curiosity and a dissertation were worth any danger to life and limb. When I entered the office, I was pleasantly surprised. It was tidy and consisted of three big rooms with white walls and light pink wainscoting. In a room overlooking a major busy street with the Bosphorus and ferry docks behind it, two women were sitting in front of computers. The room itself had one long table with ten computers equipped with headsets in two rows of five computers each. Ufuk led me into his office, a large room in the back. I was relieved to see it looked like a typical office, dominated by a large desk with a phone, computer, and neatly stacked papers. Behind the desk, a small flag on the wall proclaimed Ufuk’s support for one of Turkey’s major soccer teams, Beşiktaş. Shelves held trade magazines on marketing and folders with expected labels, such as Rechnung (“bills” in German). Ufuk was a friendly man in his 50s with bushy gray hair around a bald spot on the top of his head. A clean white button-down shirt stretched over his large potbelly, and he seemed to have a permanent slouch. He offered me tea and, while a friend’s warning not to eat or drink anything echoed in my mind, I found I could not refuse tea in Turkey. I could see that he was about to start eating an enormous lunch of Iskender kebap (thinly sliced lamb served over bread and covered in yoghurt) out of a Styrofoam package and told him to please eat while we talked. Eating did not slow him down at all. He launched into an account of his past, his personal life, and his business. He explained that he played basketball and used to be involved in theatre— rather unusual pursuits in Turkey, I thought, but possibly indicative of middle- or even upper-class origins. He also related that he always wanted to go to graduate school, but his English was never good enough. When he had the chance to improve his English—for example, when he worked at a hotel briefly—he would speak a little, but, unfortunately, would soon forget what he had learned. He spoke about a daughter but never a wife, and as he finished recounting his interests, he invited me to attend a play with him. At the time, this didn’t strike me as odd, but I later realized it was an unusual proposition from a married Turkish man. Eventually, we turned to the topic of his business, which he said involved selling cell phone packages for a German company to clients in Germany. He had agreements with various companies, but currently was working on a contract with a company called Klarmobil. As I expected, he indicated that his employees pretended to be Germans and used fake German names like “Gerhard.” They say they are calling from Germany and must have perfect accents in order to work for him. The structure of the business was simple,

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he explained. You make a contact with a German telemarketing company, telling them that you have a call center. They send you an FTP (file transfer protocol) server for free and pay you based on how much you sell. His workweek was six days, Monday through Saturday, with employees calling Germany between 10:00 am and 7:00 pm (9:00 am and 6 pm in Germany, which is one time zone earlier than Turkey). The goal was to reach retirees in the morning or people coming home from work around 3:00 or 4:00 pm in Germany. Leyla (who was one of the women in the adjoining room) later explained that they do not call people in the evenings because Germans get very angry about this. “It is against the law to call them in the evening as a telemarketer. Germans will directly call the police if you do so,” she added. According to Ufuk, while setting up a call center is easy, running it profitably is very difficult. Sometimes the German company does not pay, or the call center doesn’t sell enough packages to pay the salaries of its employees. “Since the business is somewhat illegal, I cannot take the company to court in Germany or Turkey when they do not pay,” he said. He didn’t specify how or why it was illegal, and I did not probe this point. Likely, his business was not registered with the Turkish authorities, and he did not pay taxes in either country. Klarmobil was not an illegal product, although many products sold through these call centers are, such as lottery enrollments from which customers cannot withdraw (described below). Telemarketing is not entirely illegal in Germany, but the strict Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz) passed in 2009 does require that companies receive customer consent before calling or meet other conditions that Ufuk’s business did not.2 These businesses are thus illegal in Turkey and Germany. Another factor that makes running such a business difficult, according to Ufuk, is having to employ primarily “criminals,” as he referred to his employees. “I hate my job,” he said. “My employees always try to steal from me! While you can make good money in telemarketing, it is hard to find reliable employees, and I am always looking for new employees. If you know any German-Turks looking for work, Susan, can you please send them to me?” I had told Ufuk that I was conducting research on German-Turkish return migration—hence my interest in a business that employed them—so he logically concluded that I could help recruit employees for him. He went on to explain that most of his employees were convicts forcibly sent back to Turkey from Germany. Indeed, if a Turk is convicted of a crime in Germany, he or she is given the option of escaping jail time by being deported to Turkey. I recalled the character of Ali in the Fatih Akin movie, The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite; Yaşamın Kıyısında), which won the Prix du Scenario at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. After accidentally killing his prostitute girlfriend, Ali is forcibly deported to Turkey to avoid jail time.

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Ufuk went on to relate that he does not speak a word of German. I immediately wondered how he monitored his employees, and it quickly became clear that he was not able to supervise them well. He told me a rather convoluted story about an employee named Cevdet who “was just working here to steal from me.” Within his first week on the job, Cevdet managed to get a loan from Ufuk, saying he had a debt to pay and hadn’t been paid at his previous job. This money could take the place of his first month’s salary, Cevdet had said, and Ufuk gave it to him. However, after working only a short time, Cevdet stole the FTP system codes from Ufuk and opened his own call center just two buildings away. Two of Ufuk’s employees left him to work for Cevdet. And, now Ufuk is in a bind, he explained, because his remaining employees are not able to make any calls without the codes for the system that only Cevdet has. He concluded, “A general characteristic of my employees is that they never feel they are earning enough money.” Leyla later told me the following story about Cevdet’s criminality and theft: first, she re-enacted how Cevdet came into the office to apply for a job. She found his body language rude and arrogant. He lounged on a chair with his legs spread apart, slouching unnaturally, and leaning on his arm. “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “We’re bringing a girl named Sibel here, so you won’t be alone.” Leyla wondered what right he had to speak to her—an older person and a woman—in this disrespectful way. Cevdet seemed to imply that with a woman coworker, Leyla would not be in danger, whereas, on her own in an all-male environment, she was in danger. Leyla said she didn’t like his attitude from the start. “He spoke nicely, but you could get the feeling that he was a criminal from Germany and seemed to have children with more than one woman. Since he was young and had children, why didn’t he go back to Germany?” she questioned. Leyla had also been suspicious of Cevdet’s request to move his computer to a back room shortly after beginning work. “He didn’t want me to overhear him,” Leyla believed. As a German speaker, Leyla would be able to understand him when he spoke German, unlike Ufuk. Apparently, Ufuk went along with Cevdet’s request, although Leyla had warned him several times not to allow it. Ufuk told Leyla that he didn’t take her concerns seriously because he thought she just hadn’t adjusted to having Cevdet work there. Later, according to Leyla, Ufuk’s wife thanked her for the text message warnings she had sent to Ufuk. When Ufuk told me his side of the story about Cevdet, I hadn’t yet met Leyla or her coworker Sibel, who were sitting at the computers in the front room, but it was (and is) hard to imagine they were criminals. Indeed, Ufuk related that he was pleased with his remaining two female employees. “It is a hard job, since Germans are rude sometimes and will hang up on you a lot,” he said. “Older people cannot do the job because you have to have a

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sharp mind.” After I finished speaking with Ufuk, I asked to speak with his employees and he readily agreed. He said they were unable to work at the time anyway, because of Cevdet having taken the required codes for their FTP program. Before I went to talk with his employees, Ufuk handed me a business card for a credit card debt management company. “This card is for my real business,” he said, explaining that he made deals with banks so people in debt could pay lower rates. The company had helped him with his own credit card debt, and he then became involved in the business. According to several of my Turkish friends, such businesses are usually run by organized crime syndicates in Turkey, which pay off the bank and then take “any action necessary” to ensure customers pay on time. I don’t know whether Ufuk’s “real business” involved a criminal element or not, as I decided for a variety of reasons (my own safety primarily) not to investigate this further. At any rate, Ufuk then introduced me to Leyla. More than anything about her, I remember her cheerfulness, reflected in a large and unwavering smile, and her ability to see the silver lining. She said she liked working there, since there was “a nice view of the Bosphorus out of the windows and every job has a pink side.” (In this case, pink means an upside.) She was dressed casually in loose-fitting brown pants, a pale pink shirt, and sensible sneakers. Glasses mostly concealed a scar over her left eyebrow that traveled down her nose, but they did not conceal her bright, clever gaze. Despite meeting a perfect stranger and her first American, Leyla was confident and garrulous. She launched into her life story, the first of many accounts I would hear in the years to come. She didn’t shy away from relating painful incidents from her past, such as her father’s violence, which gave her the scar on her face, and her present difficulties, such as her struggle to make sure that her teenage daughter dressed each morning for school in modest clothing. Leyla was a palpable force in the room, so self-assured, so forthright, and so articulate that it was impossible not to feel drawn to her. This was Leyla’s first call center job and her first employment in nearly 20 years. As a “working woman,” Leyla distinguished herself from her female neighbors, who did not work outside the home, challenging customary gender roles for her class and community. During the time that I knew her, Leyla transitioned from lower class to lower-middle class, but she was firmly lower class at this time, her family struggling severely to meet their basic needs. Scholars do not agree about measures of social class, and generalizations about social class perspectives can be misleading as they overlook cleavages within social classes themselves (Hazir 2014). Yet, some comments can be made about social class in Turkey. People who are considered lower and lower-middle class tend to have only a high school education and are unlikely to be familiar with other cultures or to know foreign languages. They

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also tend to be religious and socially and politically conservative. Some key differences between lower classes and lower-middle classes are the stability of their access to recourses (e.g. food, electricity, heating) and the overall quality of their housing and furnishings (e.g. their appearance and safety). Lower-class families may not be able to properly feed and clothe their members and live in substandard, insecure housing. Middle classes can increasingly expect to own a car and a small summer house, and they aspire to send a child to university, although spots in Turkey’s universities are limited so that many families are unable to achieve this goal. Since the late 1990s, middle classes in urban areas have sought to live in faraway suburbs where they are not confronted with dirty streets and overcrowded, unattractive housing—in other words, with lower classes (Ayata 2002; Öncü 1999). In the 1990s and early 2000s, scholars characterized middle classes as similar to lower classes in terms of their religiosity and socially and politically conservative outlook, while upper-middle classes and upper classes were typically characterized as less religious and more socially and politically liberal. But Turkish society has changed rapidly. People with religious and conservative perspectives are now a significant portion of uppermiddle and upper classes, making such generalizations about class and identity quite difficult.3 Gender norms do not differ significantly between lower and lower-middle class. Most of Leyla’s female neighbors spent their days managing their households, caring for children, cooking, cleaning, attending to the needs of their husband and in-laws, and hosting neighbors. At most, they earned money by sewing piecework at home or by selling products, such as cosmetics or clothing, to other women through multilevel marketing. In Leyla’s neighborhood, a woman working outside the home demonstrated her husband’s failure to provide sufficiently for his family and potentially his laziness, and also brought her own honor into question, since interaction with the opposite sex would be required in most workplaces. Incidentally, although gender norms were challenged at the call centers, they were considered more socially acceptable workplaces than house or hotel cleaning, which would have also been an employment alternative for a woman of Leyla’s class. Most people saw call centers as white collar, respectable jobs and were unaware of many of the questionable practices at the illegal call centers. Leyla began working at call centers only when her family’s financial situation became desperate, but working was not entirely unusual for Leyla. Like many return migrants she had already worked: in Germany, she worked in housekeeping in a hotel, and when she first returned to Turkey she found employment as an executive secretary for a shipping company. “It was a great job. I was a great typist. I also made appointments over the phone in Turkish and German,” she explained. Her employment in her youth was short-lived

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because, after she married, her husband, Selim, forbid her to continue working, believing that it was not proper for a married woman to work. He only gave his permission when they became so poor that they struggled to feed their children. Leyla’s desire to work and her self-image as a working woman stayed with her over the years. Like many migrants, Leyla claimed to enjoy working very much and to feel sad about giving up career aspirations after returning to Turkey. (I discuss this further in Chapter 3.) In addition to seeing herself comfortably and even eagerly as a worker, Leyla was able to work for Ufuk because she could speak German perfectly and knew how to schmooze her customers. Working in the call center required a transnational background and also augmented her existing transnational knowledge—she interacted with German customers and return migrant coworkers and bosses. These ongoing transnational experiences contributed to the evolution of her personal constructs for what it meant to her to be a good woman worker, mother, and Muslim. Leyla’s co-worker, Sibel, a tall 19-year-old, had caramel-colored skin and hair. Sibel was trying to make it as a model while studying English at School of London English, a private language school in Kadıköy. Her mother was German and her father was Turkish, and they didn’t actually know that she wanted (and had already started) to model. I’m not sure she would have chosen to tell me about her modeling either, but Ufuk mentioned it when we were introduced. He then apologized to her for telling me, but explained that he didn’t think it would matter, since I didn’t know her family. He elaborated, “For Turks honor is important, and she shouldn’t model in a bathing suit. That is why her parents don’t want her to be a model.” With a frankly lecherous smile, he continued, “But we know that you wouldn’t be a bad model and model in a bathing suit, Sibel.” Sibel shyly affirmed that she would not. Ufuk’s behavior towards Sibel—his appraising gaze and his discussion of her modeling, which clearly discomfited her—was my first indication that boss-employee and male-female relationships at call centers might differ from the formal, respectful distance expected in other workplaces in Turkey. When Ufuk told Leyla and Sibel about my research on return migration, they seemed very welcoming and happy to talk with me. Leyla readily answered my questions about the work. At this time, she did not express concern about the deceit involved and said she liked working in telemarketing. She explained that she was able to sell a lot of packages “because for just 10 euros, Germans get something worthwhile, so many agree to buy it. I sold 120 packages in just one month,” she noted proudly. Sibel was much less talkative. She said, “It is funny (komik) to call people in Germany,” but since she had only been working there for three days, she couldn’t really say anything else.

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I asked them how they were feeling about not working after the codes were stolen. Leyla explained that they would have an emergency meeting the next day with her son to fix the codes and hopefully to get the system up and running again. Later, I learned from Leyla that her 19-year-old son, Recep, did come to help Ufuk and asked for 400 TL (~200 USD) for his time and effort. But Ufuk said, “Since you are only a student, I will only pay you 200 TL (~100 USD).” As a result, Recep wouldn’t help him, and for several days they weren’t able to work at all. Another time, Leyla told me that her son helped Cevdet (the thief of Ufuk’s codes) to set up his FTP system. I found this surprising, and it must have shown on my face, since Leyla quickly added, rather sheepishly, “Just because I’m his mother, doesn’t mean I’m going to get involved with his business.” As our conversations came to a close at Ufuk’s call center, Leyla and Sibel began to gather their belongings in preparation for leaving. It seemed like the right time for me to leave as well, but Ufuk called out, “Wait Susan, I want to ask you something.” I walked into his office, but before he could ask me anything, the two women poked their heads in and said, “We are leaving,” and paused. Were they worried about leaving me alone with Ufuk? I wondered. He said, “I need to talk to Susan for a few minutes. You go.” I don’t know if it was something in his tone, but I immediately felt that I should leave with the women and not be alone with him as the sun set outside. As we walked out, I remember Leyla telling me that she would like to invite me over for börek (a savory pastry) and kısır (bulgur salad), her face eager as she boarded her bus for her long trip home. Indeed, she did call me a week later, and this was the beginning of many weekly meetings, overnight stays, and an enduring friendship. Leyla eventually worked for Ufuk for two months without pay, despite a strong sales record. At first she gave Ufuk the benefit of the doubt, assuming that the problem resulted from low profits due to a lack of employees. She once explained, “Ufuk just needs to find three or four people with good German and computer skills. If you know of anyone looking for a job, please let me know, Susan.” She related that she wanted to work there because she found her wage of 1,200 TL (~600 USD) to be a generous one, and she liked that she was able to sell a lot. Eventually, when she still hadn’t been paid a few weeks later, she told me, “I threatened to bring a gun and demand my money.” How did Ufuk respond to her threat? “He said, ‘But I thought you were so nice and soft, Leyla, and that you wouldn’t do something like that.’” She had responded, “I will if I have to!” But, as far as I know, this was an idle threat. Leyla told me that she was outraged by Ufuk’s treatment of her, because she knew that his wife and daughter were planning to go on umre (a second pilgrimage to Mecca that brings religious merits for Muslims but is not re-

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quired like the initial hajj). “This is not a religious requirement, but just a vacation. It is very expensive, so Ufuk shouldn’t complain about not having the money to pay me,” she said. She viewed this behavior as inconsistent with a person who was a good Muslim. In the end, she never received any money from Ufuk. Leyla’s experience working for Ufuk demonstrates how illegal call centers are an environment where standard workplace norms do not apply: employees were understood to be criminal and likely to steal from their employers; a female employee’s modeling career was secret from her parents, but not her boss; a worker’s son could help a competitor; and sometimes employees were not paid for their work. What is ethical in such a situation? Why was Leyla participating in this strange and difficult work environment? I found out in the weeks to come that Leyla was trying to make a living for herself as a virtually single mother raising five children in dire poverty. As Leyla subsequently worked for three additional telemarketing companies, her negotiations of ethical relationships with bosses, coworkers, and German customers were tempered by her struggles to be a worthy mother and Muslim. GETTING PAID: DESPERATION, OPPORTUNITY, AND EXPLOITATION Leyla’s experience of not getting paid by telemarketing employers did not end with Ufuk; it continued throughout her journey of working for three additional companies. Her next employer was a small, newly opened center, Horizonte Telekom, located in Ümraniye. I first learned about her work there as we shared a breakfast of eggs, fried hotdogs, black olives, white cheese (beyaz peynir), tomatoes, and cucumbers during the first day of the Ramadan Holiday (Ramazan Bayramı or Eid al-Fitr). Her new boss, Erol, called her during our breakfast to say “Ramazan Bayramınız mübarek olsun,” the traditional well wishes exchanged on the holiday throughout Turkey. This gesture really impressed Leyla who immediately related that she liked Erol very much. “He even told me, ‘Don’t call me boss (patron), call me Erol.’ So far things are good. Our office is small, but I like it there.” Leyla shared other reasons for liking Erol: when she started working for him, she requested part of her paycheck in cash and he immediately agreed. He also allowed her to have the following Monday off to prepare her children for school. She went on to explain that she worked six days a week but finished early at 4:00 pm on Saturdays. She was currently selling three products, including the Klarmobil packages, which she had sold when working for Ufuk, a lottery game, and magazine subscriptions. There were four employees, she said, and they would like to hire one more. “If you can help to find German-

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Turkish employees, that would be great,” she told me. A few days later, I accompanied her to the call center. After a 90-minute bus ride, we arrived at Horizonte Telekom on the bottom floor of a new-ish apartment building. In contrast to Ufuk’s call center on one of the busiest streets in Kadıköy, Horizonte Telekom was located on a sleepy side street of three-story apartment buildings. Although there was no sign advertising the business and it was much farther out from central Istanbul, the location seemed nicer than Ufuk’s. The workplace had four small yellow-ish white rooms, and it smelled of fresh paint. In the main room, two very small individual desks held basic computers, headphones, and notepads. There was also a low coffee table for drinking tea and a single-burner gas stove. In another room, there were two more desks with computers. A third room was empty and the fourth was Erol’s office. I shared a strong pot of tea with Leyla, Erol, his nephew Akif, and another coworker, Atilla. Erol was a 38-year-old returned German-Turk. Slight of build, he was wearing a fashionable blue-on-blue striped sweater and jeans. In general, I found him to be friendly with almost gentle mannerisms. However, his gaze often seemed serious and even sad, and he talked slowly and deliberately, as though sick or drugged. His sunken, red-rimmed eyes, greasy hair, and a big herpes sore on his lip contributed to this impression. Akif, a 20 year old with short tan hair spiked with gel, was not a return migrant and could not make calls, but he helped with the computers. Smiling at Leyla, Akif commented, “I listen to her all day and understand nothing.” Atilla was a first-generation return migrant in his 50s who resembled a used car salesman with gelled-back thinning black hair, a mustache, and a ready smile. Our initial conversations were all about me: where was I from? Where was I studying? How had I learned Turkish? How would my research help America? (Several people I spoke to while conducting research thought that academic research had a political aim, so my study must somehow benefit my country). At this point, I was accustomed to such questions and had ready answers. Upon hearing that I was studying German-Turkish return migration, Erol immediately said, “Returning is very difficult because you cannot trust people in Turkey. Everybody tries to use you. They promise things and don’t do what they say. From the minute they meet you, they begin to think about how you might be useful to them.” Leyla interjected, “They think that if they marry a German-Turk, it is like they are marrying the prime minister’s son. They are so proud and excited.” Erol responded, “Of course German-Turks contribute to this by returning to Turkey and spending all of their money or getting a loan from a bank to buy a Mercedes to show off (hava atıyor), when, in fact, they don’t have money. They spend the following years in Germany paying off the money they spent in Turkey.” We all chuckled at this classic image of first-generation migrant

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wealth, which was even the subject of a well-known movie about return migrants called Yellow Mercedes (1987). The movie depicts a pathetic returnee who parades his yellow Mercedes, which he dubs “honey girl,” through Turkey. German-Turks’ conspicuous consumption and “showing off ” is a pervasive stereotype in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field. I found it surprising that these generalizations were even shared and accepted among German-Turks, who might also have taken offense at such characterizations. Soon the conversation turned to politics, and a tense interaction between Leyla and Erol abruptly ended our friendly chat. “Turkey is being taken over by Islamic extremists—the AK party—and they even tried to change the law so that girls could wear headscarves in schools. Isn’t this terrible?” Erol said. (The law was finally changed in 2014.) “No, it is not terrible,” Leyla replied. “Women should be able to wear what they want on their heads. It’s what’s inside, not outside that is important. That’s my view.” This very brief exchange demonstrated the tense political environment in Turkey at this time (discussed further in Chapters 4 and 5). Leyla returned to her computer and began opening screen windows to make sales calls. Letting the matter drop, Erol asked if I wanted to talk with him about return migration and call centers in his office. I did, of course. Erol readily told me his personal migration story and how he started his call center. He had been born five weeks premature, while his mother was on a train in Yugoslavia on her way to Germany. He grew up near Essen and spent 35 years in Germany before returning to Turkey three years ago. Why did he return? He was married and divorced twice, and after his second divorce, he lost all of his friends who sided with his wife, he said. His mother wanted to return to Turkey after her retirement, and all his other relatives lived in Turkey as well. He also needed to complete his mandatory military service, although he was able to avoid it in the end, because the military doctors discovered he had a medical condition. When he first came to Turkey, he worked in the construction business with some distant relatives in Bolu (a small city a few hours’ drive from Istanbul). He was working 14 to 16 hours per day for 600 TL (~300 USD) per week. He considered this good money, but he had no days off and no social life. Then he hurt his finger badly, almost losing it. He followed his doctor’s orders not to work for a week, but within a few days of his return, the wound on his finger split open. He decided to move back to Istanbul and find another job. Looking in the newspaper, he saw advertisements for German speakers to work in call centers. Some promised as much 2,500 TL (~1,250 USD) per month plus bonuses, which would be a very good paycheck in Turkey. “In reality, they never give that much,” he said. He eventually began working for two partners who didn’t know German. “I was doing everything for them, even making the contracts with the German companies,” he said.

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Similar to Leyla’s experience with Ufuk, the owners paid him irregularly and often much less than was promised. And, as with Ufuk’s experience with Cevdet, Erol eventually opened his own call center. To get his call center started, Erol asked his cousin for money. Initially his cousin refused, but eventually agreed to lend him 5,000 TL on the condition that he be made a partner. Erol believed that this was unfair because his cousin did not do anything to help run the business. He noted that this is what he meant when he referred earlier to people taking advantage of each other in Turkey. To find employees, he placed an advertisement in the large newspaper Hürriyet and immediately got 15 responses. Most people who responded were unwilling to work in Ümraniye, so he was planning to move his office to Kadıköy soon. He had four employees (two weren’t at work that day) and wanted to have one additional person working by the next month. Erol never mentioned the illegality of the products his employee sold. In fact, he said that if the German companies did not pay him, he had the right to sue them, because he had signed contracts with them. However, he noted that, from a practical standpoint, a lawsuit would be prohibitively costly. He said he could make decent money at the business. “I only need to sell seven or eight packages per day to make a profit. But then, there is the problem that some Germans will cancel their enrollments later.” He doesn’t get paid for cancellations. He often made calls himself and said he found it enjoyable, because he got to talk to many different types of people. He noted that many of those he talked to were elderly. “It is illegal to sell things to people born before 1939 over the phone, because the authorities worry that they will be taken advantage of. But I enjoy talking to older people. They tell me stories about how their kids don’t visit, about their illnesses. And, they say that if I lived nearby, they would want to meet me.” He found this very “cute” and “funny,” and seemed to have no qualms about selling them his products regardless of their age. Like Ufuk, he felt his business was difficult because finding employees was hard. But he did not mention employees’ criminality. Instead, he related, “The workers all say they want to work for a place that pays 2,000-plus TL (~1,000 USD) when they show up. But they find out this is a lie and come back to me later.” (He only pays 1200 TL, approximately 600 USD). Unlike Ufuk, Erol did not believe employees needed perfect German accents. In fact, Atilla did not have a perfect accent, he said. “They just have to be talkative, and even if they are old, it is no problem. Leyla does a really good job.” Before I left, I observed Leyla for a few minutes. She was sitting in front of a computer screen with a list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers. There was a little phone pad floating on the screen that she used to place the calls over the Internet. If a person picked up, she offered them the opportunity to participate in a lottery game and rapidly read off a list of

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rules and conditions. She seemed to speak confidently, with a quick, flowing smoothness and without stumbling. She proudly told me that she had sold four packages while I was talking to Erol. “Sometimes I have no luck, but other times, like today, I have a lot of luck,” she said. As I left, Erol offered to walk me to the bus stop and said he wanted to treat his employees well. Presumably, like Ufuk, he was hoping I could find him some additional employees. “I want to pay them what they deserve, not try to take all the money for myself like Ufuk did. I understand how my employees feel because I was one,” he explained. I felt happy for Leyla that day. Erol seemed like a nice person, and I felt she had brought me there because she was proud of her new position. She was good at the job, and she was proud she could help her family by working. By the time she started working for Erol, I knew that Leyla’s financial situation was desperate, having visited her at home several times since she left Ufuk’s employment. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, her husband didn’t work for six months, and they paid their bills with credit cards. Leyla also told me that they had accepted a loan from “someone” and were being pressured to pay it back. She alluded to this vaguely and with what seemed like fear, and I later learned that the source of the loan was not a friend but a criminal organization. She also wanted a job that would enable her to enroll in a health insurance plan, so she could pay for her disabled daughter Hande’s cochlear implant operation, which could help her hearing. The operation was scheduled for next summer and Erol had promised to provide her with health insurance benefits. After not being paid by Ufuk, she was even more desperate for money. Yet, a little over a month later, right before the Feast of the Sacrifice Holiday (Kurban Bayramı or Eid al-Adha), Leyla called me unhappily and told me that Erol could not pay her because of a problem with the money transfer from Germany. She said she and Atilla had been really mad and were not going back to work until they were paid. I suggested that she find more “official” work, such as for a German company like Lufthansa. I had seen a documentary (Based Down South, in German: Wir Sitzen im Süden [2010]) about inbound German-Turkish call centers in Turkey and knew they were more reputable than the outbound sales operations like those of Ufuk and Erol. She agreed that she really wanted to work for such a company, and we made plans for me to help her create a CV, teach her how to use e-mail and Microsoft Word, and apply for jobs online. She did not have a computer at home at the time, but her son worked at a computer repair shop and could help her with all of this as well. The next week I created a CV for her and was able to help her to post it on an employment listings website. Afterwards, when walking back to her house, she told me that she was expecting to get her earnings transferred

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from Erol that day. However, when she called Erol a short time later, it became clear that he wouldn’t be paying her at all. While leaning forward on a bowed plastic chair in her kitchen, sweating and talking rapidly, she pleaded, “But you have to. You promised. I have bills to pay. Don’t do this to me, Erol.” Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, and she frequently sighed loudly and scrunched up her eyes in frustration. Her hands shook while she puffed on a cigarette as if for oxygen. In addition to anger, there was a note of real fear in her voice during the 20 minutes in which she tried to get the money she was owed from Erol. Her usually placid four-year-old, Mert, immediately started wailing loudly and pushing at her side, demanding hugs from her. I never saw him act this way before or since. A few hours later, Leyla’s mother showed up with a bag of food. Would the family not have had anything to eat otherwise? I realized that my very presence was possibly a strain on her resources—I always brought a small food treat when I came, but maybe the börek she made this morning should have gone to her children, not into my stomach. Indeed, she later told me that her mother and other relatives were helping her out with food. I had never seen her as upset as she was on that day. A few days later she called me frantically to see if there was any response to her applications on the employment listings website. Eventually, she was called for a job interview with Siemens. She made it past the first phone interview in German and was called in for a reading and writing test but was not offered a job. Erol never paid her and went out of business. Later, referring to her experiences with Ufuk and Erol, Leyla exclaimed, “Christians live more honestly than many Muslims.” She explained, “I can’t exactly count Erol, I suppose, since he was an atheist and against religion, but Ufuk was supposed to be a good Muslim—he prayed five times a day, even in the workplace, and went on the hajj [the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is required for Muslims] not once but twice. But he was a swindler and liar.” I often heard return migrants like Leyla claim that Christians were “more honest” than Muslims. Comparing Christians and Muslims in this way might seem surprising given that most migrants are religious Muslims who are not planning to convert to Christianity. But such statements make sense when viewed in the context of Turkey’s historical relationship with Europe. Honesty is one of the most highly valued Muslim ethical principles. Turks believe that Europeans (and especially Germans) are extremely honest. Stereotypes in Turkey about the honesty of Europeans are a disturbing legacy of Orientalist modes of interaction between Europe and the Middle East that circulate in and through the Germany-Turkey transnational social field.4 Unfortunately, most citizens in Turkey lack an awareness of how this history shapes their ideas about themselves and Europeans. Orientalism, first discussed by Edward Said (1978), refers to a system of stereotypes about

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“The West” and “The East” that have been developed historically through European imperialism, scholarship, and art. In Orientalist texts, “The West” was depicted as modern, civilized, secular, and rational, while “The East” was depicted as traditional, uncivilized, religious, and irrational. “Westerners” were said to be honest and honorable, while “Easterners” were said to be dishonest and conniving. 5 As discussed in the introduction (and in Chapter 5), Turkey’s founders sought to “modernize” the country through reforms they labeled “European” in the early twentieth century. Turkish citizens often adopt Orientalist modes of categorization as a way of criticizing one another. Migrants draw on their transnational experience with Christians to insert themselves into their social milieus as “good Muslims” and “good European-Turks.” Returnees like Leyla bring discourses about Turkey’s place in Europe and Muslim and Christian ethics together in surprising ways. There is no objective analytical basis for claims that Christians are more honest than Muslims, and Leyla does not wish to claim that Christianity is a better religion than Islam. Rather, she is seeking to shame Ufuk where she thinks it will count: she asserts that he is neither an honorable Muslim nor a good Turk. After Leyla’s bad experiences with these employers, she decided to work as a house cleaner. “At least, I can collect 70 TL at the end of every day,” she said. The downside of such work, however, was that it was difficult to find many customers, she had chronic arm and back pain that was exacerbated by physical work, and house cleaning did not provide any insurance for her disabled daughter. Not surprisingly, just a few months later, she was back working in the call center industry, for a third call center. Interestingly, neither Leyla nor her bosses or coworkers seemed particularly concerned about the illegality of the work itself—Ufuk and Erol were not shy about telling me what they were doing, nor did employees express any fear of getting caught by authorities themselves. Turkey has a large informal employment sector, and the state seems to have neither the resources nor the will to investigate and penalize such operations.6 Thus, citizens are not overly concerned about illegal employment. The transnational work environment further contributes to the sense that rules can be broken or that no rules apply. It was not considered inherently unethical or even dangerous to work illegally. But employees had significant problems getting their wages. For Leyla, this resulted in a desperate situation—the possibility that she would not be able to feed her children. The market need for employees with transnational skills creates opportunities for people like Leyla to provide for her family, but also brings dangers involving the potential for exploitation. Working at call centers, return migrants create new social relationships with other return migrants and with the people they call. In many cases, coworkers form close personal friendships. However, such interactions can

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also raise issues regarding workplace gender norms. The next section focuses on social relationships at call centers, examining Leyla’s third call center job and interactions with her bosses, German customers, and returnee coworkers. “WE WANT TO BE EUROPEAN . . .” “Hello Herr Mueller, this is Claudia Schmidt. I hope you are well today,” Leyla chirped cheerfully through the phone from behind the desk of her third call center job at CRM Telemarketing in Maltepe. “I am calling about your enrollment in a Gewinnspiel (competition or lottery) called Eurowinnport. Are you aware that you are enrolled in this lottery? Ok, since you never cancelled your subscription, you have been enrolled for one year and I’m calling to offer you the opportunity to reduce your enrollment to just three months at a cost of just 50 euros per month. In order to reduce your enrollment, I need to check your name and address, and I need your bank code.” After reading off Herr Mueller’s phone and address information, Claudia/ Leyla asks for his bank code and pauses with her hand poised over the number pad of her keyboard. “Thank you. And now the account number: 705 956 080. Is this correct? Ok, now your data has been noted, but it will take at least a day for our system to update, so please don’t try to reach us with queries regarding your account before tomorrow. Okay, Herr Mueller?” A brief pause and she noted something in a notebook. “Now, do you have any questions for me, Herr Mueller? Yes, I have completed the enrollment, but you will receive a call in half an hour from Frau Mayer asking you to confirm the information you’ve given me and to give final approval for your new enrollment. So, please keep your line open. I wish you a very nice day Herr Mueller.” A pause. “Claudia Schmidt, yes, I thank you Herr Mueller, a nice day to you, tschüss.” Success! Another customer enrolled in the lottery. Leyla began her third job with high hopes. She told me excitedly that a lot of people worked there, many for a year or more, clearly showing that employees must be well treated. Other perks included: a weekly rather than monthly salary, not working weekends, and having lunch provided. Overall, it seemed like it would surely be a better experience than working for Ufuk or Erol, we agreed. She also told me about the two sales campaigns the company was running. One involved the call I described above for the same lottery scam she had sold when working for Erol. The other involved selling private insurance. When she first told me about her new job, she proudly explained that she was only working for the private insurance campaign. “I am happy about this because the lottery is sinful (günah). They cheat people. They enroll them in

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a lottery for 50 euros per month and continuously tell them that they have won 1, 2, or 5 euros. But obviously the people are losing much more than they pay in. When they want to remove themselves from the game, they cannot, because the money is automatically withdrawn from their bank accounts,” she said. “Especially older people are taken advantage of through this scam. And, they are people too, even if they are Germans. This shouldn’t happen to them.” This was the first, but not the last, time that I heard Leyla discuss the ethics of her work. Other call-center workers with whom I spoke seemed to have negative feelings about Germans, but Leyla seemed to have only positive things to say about them and usually claimed to feel really bad about cheating them. Although she was glad not to be selling the lottery enrollments at this time, she explained that insurance sales are hard. She had to call workplaces, which had to be a certain type and size, and to have employees who did not have any chronic illnesses. Additionally, they had to agree to set up an appointment with a private insurance representative who would come to their workplace and give them more information about the insurance plans. She explained that it was difficult to arrange the appointments because people just hung up on telemarketers and didn’t want to talk to them. “They might be a busy pizza place and they just want to throw the pizza in the oven, not talk on the phone,” she explained. In order to make sure that she had successful sales calls, she came up with the idea of using her half-sister, Miray, who owns a döner kebabı restaurant in Germany, to make the appointments. In fact, while we were chatting, Miray called from Germany and I watched Leyla hatch her plans. She explained that Miray should find workplaces that would agree to have the insurance representative visit. (They would not be forced to buy the insurance. They just needed to agree to the appointment for Leyla to get credit for a sale.) Then, these workplaces should wait for a call from “Gunda.” When they received the call, they should agree to have the appointment made. If she makes five appointments per day, Gunda/ Leyla would be paid between 400 and 500 TL (200–250 USD) a week. In her first week, she could only achieve this number of appointments once, showing just how difficult the work was. “The important thing is to call continuously,” she said. She invited me to come and observe her, which I was able to do a few months later. CRM Telemarketing was located in a large office space on the top two floors of a six-story building above a small medical center on the main thoroughfare in Maltepe, a busy district just outside central Istanbul. Upon entering, I could tell immediately that it was different from Ufuk and Erol’s small operations. It was disorienting: “Frau Koch? This is Herr Adler.” “Güten Tag Herr Fried” (Good day Mr. Fried in German). “Kaç tane satin?” (How many did you sell?” in Turkish). “Aieee!” A squeal! “Ich danke Ihnen Frau Lang,

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have a nice day” (Thank you Mrs. Lang in German). “Dur, lan!” (Wait, damn it! in Turkish). “What happened to your computer screen?” A mixture of Turkish and German and German names and places wafted through the air. And there was a certain ebb and flow, tension and release of energy: tension as workers in headsets spoke swift and serious German over the phone and then release after a sale was completed as workers stretched, stood, and sought coworkers’ eye contact. The fifth floor held two enormous rooms, one with around 40 to 50 computers and another with around 20 computers. It reminded me of a survey center I worked at as an undergraduate—everything seemed clean, wellorganized, and professional. Leyla explained that the small room was for the insurance and magazine subscription sales, and the large room was for the lottery sales. Ten employees were hard at work in the lottery sale section, amidst many empty stations, while just one woman attempted to sell insurance in the mostly empty smaller room. When I commented that the place was oddly empty, Leyla told me that the German police had come and arrested some people last week, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me more. On the sixth floor were a cafeteria and more offices. Unlike Ufuk and Erol, who were eager to share their stories with me and ask me to recruit workers for them, the boss of CRM Telemarketing, Yiğit, was reticent to talk with me. He was a short, bulky man with bushy eyebrows and mustache and jet-black hair covered his head and body, protruding wildly from his shirt’s neck and wrist openings. He seemed surly. After a very gruff introduction, he urged Leyla to get to work. We drank a quick tea with Yiğit’s nephew, Caner, and it was time to work. I was initially confused because Leyla proceeded to the lottery sales section, and indeed she began selling lottery subscriptions. I asked her why she was selling the lottery enrollments, not the insurance or magazine subscriptions, recalling that she had told me she considered it “sinful.” She said she had to. “I need money and selling insurance, which is the other campaign they have going, is too difficult. People just hang up on you.” She told me again about the loan she had to repay. Her husband’s salary paid their rent and household expenses, but it was not sufficient for anything else, including school expenses and the loan, she explained sadly. The lottery sales were easier than the insurance sales because the list of customers included people who had played the lottery before, so it was likely that they would re-enroll, and she was relatively successful at selling enrollments. To make the calls, it was only necessary for her to sign into the system. The computer automatically dialed numbers, and when someone picked up the phone, Leyla began her sales pitch. Behind the banks of computers was a large white board with a written incentive that the first person to reach 200 sales would get 30 TL (~15 USD) as a bonus. Additionally, the

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workers’ names and their number of daily sales were listed on the board. Leyla became concerned at one point because she had sold nine enrollments that morning, but the board only showed three. However, a manager reassured her that it takes time for the board to be updated. Leyla was able to complete about three to five sales in one hour. She needed to sell 25 enrollments per day to get her standard wage of 450 TL (~225 USD) per week, and for any enrollments she sold above that amount, she would get 12 TL (~6 USD) per sale. She said Yiğit made 60 TL (~30 USD) per sale. At this point, she whispered to me that she was stealing the information on her screen and planning to make sales calls on her own from her home. Besides the information, she said she just needed a computer and the FTP system. “It will be easier to make calls from my home, because it will be less noisy.” Pointing to a list of names and addresses that she had listed in her notebook, she chanted happily: “60, 120, 180, 240.” By calling these numbers from home, Leyla would be able to pocket the entire 60 lira per sale, rather than just 12 lira per sale. Her plan to steal from her employer (just like Cevdet had stolen from Ufuk) seemed more justifiable to me when, yet again, a few weeks later she began to have trouble collecting her paychecks. “It is a very basic thing, you should be able to collect the money that you earn,” she said. I had been having similar problems collecting money from my part-time English teaching job and was able to commiserate with her. “You can’t trust anyone in the workplace,” she said. “We want to be European, but we can’t employ people and pay them the money they’re owed. Bosses are immoral (ahlaksız).” Once again, Leyla drew upon common stereotypes in the transnational social field linking fair treatment in a workplace to being “European” and “moral” as a way to address the ethical dilemma of not being paid and being forced to steal from her employer. MAKING FRIENDS: SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COWORKERS AT CALL CENTERS The employees of CRM Telemarketing were a lively and diverse group who seemed at times carefree, frustrated, and bored. They ranged in age from 20 to 50, with Leyla being one of the eldest. Leyla told me criminality was an issue at CRM Telemarketing, as it had been at Ufuk’s center. “Most of the men were going to be imprisoned in Germany for fighting and were forcibly sent back to Turkey,” she explained. She pointed to Güven, a nearby man with wild eyes and two sea-monster tentacle tattoos traveling up his neck to his shaved head, as an example. “He looks scary, and the police are always stopping him on the street. But, he is a good guy,” she said.

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Most of the women were dressed casually in pants and shirts, but one woman, Beyza, was dressed extremely provocatively in a low-cut, skintight red-and-white dress that ended just below her hips. Leyla pointed out a woman named Güzin to me, describing her as “a 46-year-old woman who never married and talks very openly (açık konuşuyor) and swears.” Leyla found her behavior not fitting for a woman her age. Another coworker, Caner, borrowed some thread from Leyla while we talked and asked for her help in repairing his ripped pants. “See, I am like the mother here,” Leyla remarked to me, exhibiting some pride in being seen as a mother, which is a highly valued status in Turkish society. The call center environment opened up new and often challenging social horizons for women like Leyla. Compared to other workplaces in Turkey where women and men are unlikely to associate so closely with each other, colleagues openly mingled and flirted at CRM Telemarketing. One of Leyla’s closest friends, Tuğçe, sat next to her boyfriend, Selman, while working. Selman seemed to be an angry man who complained loudly that not enough calls were coming in, so he didn’t “feel like he was working” (calışma havası). At one point, he stormed around the room throwing pens down around the computers, breathing heavily and looking decidedly mean. The couple sat at a table separate from everyone else during the shared lunch and frequently exchanged intimate glances. I observed that provocatively dressed Beyza made no calls and spent the whole morning in Yiğit’s office, standing very close to him, often flipping her bright blond hair and laughing. Men and women spend time together, speak intimately, flirt, and date in call centers in ways that would not be possible in most other workplaces. Just as labor laws were pushed to the limits and beyond in the call centers, social norms for men and women were also being tested and renegotiated. Though she was proud of being able to support her family, Leyla was somewhat uncomfortable with modifications of standard gender norms. For example, she criticized an older woman for swearing and expressed pleasure with being called “mother” by her coworkers, seeing it as a respectable and honorable role. She defied conventional gender norms in her neighborhood by working, and she was tolerant of coworkers who further pushed gender boundaries, but she also affirmed ideas about honorable behavior for Turkish women that distinguished her from them. Leyla made several friends at work. One day, she gathered her children and me for a picnic along the Marmara Sea with Beyza, Tuğçe, and Tuğçe’s mother and Tuğçe’s daughter. Beyza was a slim, carefree return migrant in her early 20s, with big expressive eyes and a quick laugh. As in the workplace, she wore heavy makeup, ostentatious jewelry, and tight-fitting clothing in her free time. When not at work, she tried to spend as much time as possible with her very jealous boyfriend, who called continuously during her time with us. Tuğçe, also a returnee, was divorced and lived with her

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parents and four-year-old daughter. She was tall with several broken teeth and an unobtrusive tattoo of a flower on her wrist. She dressed practically and plainly like Leyla and kept her curly brown hair cut short. Within 10 minutes of our arrival for the picnic, menacing clouds appeared overhead and strong winds kicked up, followed by enormous, freezing raindrops. The water suddenly came alive with five-foot waves that broke over the adjoining sidewalk, making it clear that we needed to seek shelter immediately. Tuğçe called her father to come pick us up in his Kia, which became our clown car—we squeezed 12 people into it. Crushed against the door with three people on my lap, I lost all feeling in my arms and legs. Afterwards, Leyla said this was the most scared she had ever been, saying the sea looked like a tsunami she’d seen in a movie. I agreed that I was pretty scared too. It still turned out to be the beginning of a lovely day. We went to Tuğçe’s house, where we changed clothes and continued our picnic: tuna pasta salad (“American style,” according to Beyza who made it), börek made by Leyla, potato salad with parsley and herbs made by Tuğçe, fruit that I brought, and soda and tea. After lunch, Leyla’s daughter, Sanem, played slow mournful songs on her guitar, and Leyla and her friends shared personal stories. Leyla told everyone about her time in Germany and her return to Turkey. Beyza told us that her father had gone bankrupt in Germany, and now both of her parents would be returning to Turkey like her. Tuğçe said she had no regrets about returning to Turkey, because she didn’t think she would be able to find a job in Germany today. “Germany is finished,” her mother added, saying that she did not believe the country had any more opportunities for Turks. Eventually, CRM Telemarketing came up in the conversation and they all began complaining about not being paid. Beyza exclaimed that she was sick of “this call center Sheisse!” (“shit”—she used the German word here). She had car payments to make, and since her father went bankrupt, no one else could help her. Leyla asked Tuğçe why she had worked for CRM Telemarketing for so long—two years—and Tuğçe responded that she had always gotten her money in the past; she hadn’t encountered this problem before. She added that their workplace was also very close to her home and making 1800 TL (~900 USD) a month was good money to her. “But why don’t you want to work from home?” Leyla asked. Tuğçe responded that she couldn’t do the work with her young daughter at home. “I would not be disciplined. I like going to a workplace. Perhaps it is just a temporary problem with Yiğit not paying us. He recently bought 100 new computers, so that might be the reason.” I wondered if Tuğçe’s boyfriend, Selman, working at CRM Telemarketing might also be a factor in her desire to stay there. Beyza announced that she was very angry with Yiğit. “I am going to yell at him, that jerk,” she exclaimed fearlessly. Leyla’s friendships were clearly a meaningful part of her working at CRM Telemarketing, even though she did not always approve of coworkers’ actions or feel good about the job itself.

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MAKING ETHICAL CHOICES: “DO NOT CALL” One day, as I watched Leyla work, she explained to me the options she had for ending each call. The four choices were: sale, answering machine, not interested, and do not call. She thought “do not call” was the kindest designation she could give to people. “I feel like I am saving them,” she said. “I do this if I find out that the person is under a doctor or psychologist’s care. One time, there was an old man whose children had taken control of his bank accounts. The poor old man wanted to play the lottery but he couldn’t for this reason, and I put him on the ‘do not call’ list, because his children were worried about him.” While watching her field calls, I felt sad. She talked to a potential customer in the cheerful voice I had come to know, but introduced herself as a stranger, Claudia Schmidt. She wished those she called a good day with her customary warmth and sincerity, repeating their name respectfully in smooth confident German, but her face fell between calls and she gave me an almost apologetic smile. I knew she was unhappy about lying and selling lottery enrollments, which she had even called a “sin.” Her only way to be kind to a customer was to put him or her on the “do not call” list. She was proud to be working to help support her family, but she was not proud of the work itself. Her feelings about the ethics of the work—about having to lie to do her job, selling a disreputable product and having to deal with dishonest and undependable bosses—had clearly changed between when she worked for Ufuk, Erol, and now Yiğit. Later, at lunch, I observed a discussion between Leyla and five of her coworkers about the ethical treatment of those they called. A chubby woman named Ebru spoke about a woman she had called whose husband was dying of cancer. The woman was crying, saying that she “had no money” and begging Ebru for help. Leyla said that when things like that happen, she puts them on the “do not call” list immediately. However, she asked the group, “Is the person definitely taken out of the system when they are put on that list?” There was silence. Nobody knew. “But other people still sell to people who are sick and suffering,” another coworker said. “Who does that?” Leyla asked. After a brief discussion, several people concluded that someone nicknamed “Tasmanian” is known to do this. “We have to be careful about putting people on the ‘do not call’ list too often,” Ebru warned. “Yiğit can listen in on all of our calls.” Several people nodded and sighed heavily. “But, he cannot always listen in to every call, just to some of them,” Leyla said hopefully. Conversation also jokingly revolved around how best to make sales. A woman selling magazine subscriptions said she was having a lot of difficulties. “Flirt with the customers,” another advised, and everyone laughed. Another woman said, “I never do that, I always talk seriously,” and she imitated a serious voice on the phone.

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Several months later, when two of Leyla’s coworkers, a married couple named Pelin and Önder, came over to her house for tea, the topic of sales and ethics came up again. Pelin and Önder had recently been married after a tumultuous period. Önder was a telemarketer like Leyla, while Pelin was Yiğit’s niece and worked in accounting. Önder was gregarious, but you got the sense that he was tough, too, and he told us he had been skinny as a child but in adolescence learned how to box and beat up German boys who pushed him around. When I asked, Leyla claimed not to know the circumstances of Önder’s return to Turkey. “When a family is divided like that, he must have just returned on his own,” she explained. “But I don’t know if he has a criminal past or anything like that. I don’t think so.” She said this almost tentatively and too quickly, making me wonder if she did actually suspect that Önder’s return might be linked to trouble with the law. At the time of their visit, Leyla was working at her fourth call center in Göztepe, which was not a sales center but a company that conducted surveys. She explained she had switched jobs because Yiğit did not pay transportation or food costs and the new place did. Also, she preferred calling Austria and conducting surveys, without selling anything. She told me that Yiğit was not mad that she left. He just said, “Try it there. I consider you on vacation; you can always come back.” She had found the job through her friend, Ayfer, who had previously left Yiğit’s call center. An informal network of call-center workers rotates among companies and shares information. Indeed, while visiting with Pelin and Önder, Leyla received a call from another worker who told her that he was working at a new place and inquired if she might be looking for work. The conversation between Leyla, Önder. and Pelin eventually turned to call-center work and Yiğit’s operation. I asked Önder why he doesn’t want to switch to a different company like Leyla. He said the money was better or the same as at his current workplace, and he was “comfortable” there. He didn’t care that the companies operated in Turkey to escape taxes, that he had to lie to do his job, or that the lottery sales were illegal in Germany. He could easily sell 8 to 10 packages per day, he bragged. “My alter ego is Andreas Königer. I am the king!” he joked. (König means “king” in German.) Önder explained how he makes his sales: “I play a role” (rol oynuyorum). For example, one time an elderly man answered the phone, and Andreas/Önder could hear the man’s wife in the background saying, “Hang up the phone! Hang up!” So, he asked the man: “Are you the man of the house?” When he said he was, Andreas/Önder asked, “Are you going to let your wife talk to you that way?” Eventually, the man yelled at his wife and said, “Let me have a magazine subscription you witch!” Another time, Andreas/Önder told a woman he called that he was missing an arm and very poor. In a weak, high-pitched voice, he begged her to buy just one magazine subscription. “I try to find their weak spots,” he said.

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Leyla said, “I can’t do this. Young people can, but I can’t take it.” She related that one time she called someone who said, “I have cancer and won’t live that much longer. Sign me up for a magazine subscription if you want to.” Leyla felt ashamed and said, “No, I won’t do this to you.” Önder joked that Leyla was like Greenpeace, presumably implying that she tries to “save” people, just as Greenpeace tries to save the environment. By the time she was working at the third and fourth call centers, the ethical dilemmas of the work—lying and selling a product that cheated people—was increasingly a struggle for Leyla. Her sense of Muslim ethics was challenged by the need to sell lottery subscriptions, which she considered “sinful” and “haram,” and by having to work under bosses that she considered to be immoral and bad Muslims: Erol was an atheist in her view, and Ufuk’s family trip to Mecca at the expense of paying his employees made him a bad Muslim in her eyes. While she was tolerant and sometimes accepting of the unconventional behaviors of her coworkers and bosses, she did not necessarily endorse or approve of them for herself. She affirmed her adherence to Muslim values, but ultimately had to balance the Muslim imperative not to lie (a sin) with the basic necessity of meeting the needs of food and shelter for her five children. Though she desperately needed the money, Leyla actively sought ways to do an essentially unethical job as ethically as she could—to not take advantage of people and to place customers on the “do not call” list whenever she could. While it is always true that perceptions affect what is considered criminal, the illegal call center environment clearly challenges standard notions of right and wrong. Failure to get paid for work completed at call centers leads employees eventually to feel justified in stealing from employers if they can. At first, Leyla recounted Cevdet’s theft from Ufuk in a negative way, describing him as a disrespectful, sneaky criminal. But, by the time she was at her third call center, she was hatching plans with her sister, Miray, to set up fake appointments and eventually to steal data that would allow her to make calls from home as part of her own “center.” Her path roughly parallels Cevdet’s and Erol’s, both of whom also set up their own call centers after working for someone else, although hers remained a small-scale, informal operation. Experiences in the transnational call center environment eventually reorientated Leyla’s ethical compass. LEAVING THE CALL CENTERS A few months after Önder and Pelin’s visit, Leyla lost her new job at the survey center because Yiğit demanded that she come back to his workplace and he threatened her new boss. She refused to return to Yiğit but could not con-

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tinue at the survey center and told me that she would be cleaning houses instead. She complained of her arms hurting but said, “At least I get the money on the same day I work.” I asked her why she didn’t work as a housekeeper in a hotel. “You have to be careful about such jobs because loose women work in some hotels. They will be too friendly and the customers get the wrong idea. Turkish men always think with what is below their waist,” she explained. As I discussed, ideas about women’s honor frequently constrain their options for work. Two months later, Leyla returned to work for Yiğit. She worked for him for one month and ultimately quit again. For a short time, she did try to sell lottery enrollments from home with a computer her son set up, but she eventually stopped this as well. When I asked her why, she said: “It is haram (religiously prohibited). I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie to people and sell them something that would take their money away. People like Önder are very good at that type of job, but I am not good at selling such things.” This marked her last call center job. At this point, the family’s finances had gradually improved. The loan was paid off and her oldest son, Recep, left university after one semester to work and help support the family. A few months later, Leyla bought new living room furniture and a year later the family moved into a new apartment. These were clear signs of the family’s improved material conditions. After leaving call-center work, Leyla hatched other employment plans, including becoming a shopping inspector (I never quite understood this short-lived job) and a swimming teacher. “You can make a lot of money. At a sports center in Bostancı, they pay instructors 350 to 500 lira ($175–$250) per week. I already know how to swim.” She also began selling Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetics line similar to Avon that is sold through multilevel marketing. In fact, Oriflame seemed to sweep through Leyla’s social group. At one point, four women who attended her weekly gün (women’s visiting day) were selling Oriflame. Since their primary customers were each other, I didn’t see how they could make very much money at this. Needless to say, I have all of the hand cream I could ever want. Many return migrants—men and women—are proud of their work in Germany and Turkey and, in fact, German-Turkish migration is centrally a labor migration in the minds of Turks as well as Germans. The impacts of transnational experience are enduring and evolving. Being a German-Turk takes on various meanings as migrants encounter new situations, but labor is an essential part of German-Turkish return migrant identity. Leyla’s experiences in call centers show how the meaning of being a working return migrant may evolve over time. Leyla was able to get the call center jobs because of her transnational experiences. Her pride at supporting her family through a job she performed well gave way to concerns about deceit and harm to

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customers. Her initial appreciation of her bosses gave way to frustration and distrust. As she became less financially desperate, she gradually became less willing to break her own ethical rules regarding honesty and selling a disreputable product. Unfortunately, Leyla had neither the education nor the skills necessary to secure employment at a more reputable company’s inbound call center, where she would provide help to customers, rather than enroll them in scams. As long as her family faced hard times, she had to work in the illegal or semi-legal outbound sector. As soon as she could stop, she did. Ethics are conflictual for Leyla. As Michael Jackson writes in his account of migration and ethics, people “often struggle less with aligning their lives with given moral or legal norms than with finding ways of negotiating the ethical space between external constraints and personal imperatives” ( Jackson 2013: 202). Leyla uses her transnational habitus to confront a wide variety of ethical dilemmas—she draws on discourses about Europe and Islam as well as on the independence and resourcefulness she developed navigating transnational spaces her whole life. Yet, she is clearly on shifting ground. Call-center work changes her ethical habitus just as her ethical habitus changes her approach to call-center work over time. Another key area in which Leyla experiences both ethical predicaments and also opportunities to reshape community relationships and gender norms is motherhood. The next chapter explores what being a mother means to Leyla and also helps to explicate why she was so willing to work at these call centers, despite the difficulties she faced. notes 1. For more information on legal German-Turkish call centers, see Neitzart (2010) and Yucesan-Ozdemir (2014). 2. For more information, see: www.bfdi.bund.de/EN/DataProtectionActs/Artikel/ BDSG_idFv01092009.pdf?__blob=publicationFile. Accessed March 19, 2014. 3. Cihan Tugal’s (2009) Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism is an excellent introduction to changing class and political identities in the 2000s in Turkey. 4. See for example, Ewing, Katherine Pratt. 2008. Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin. Stanford: Stanford University Press, Chapter 1. 5. Beginning with European imperialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such thinking justified colonialism and other forms of economic, political, and social domination. 6. A recent OECD survey shows a high rate of informality as compared to OECD countries. See: www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Upgrading-business-investment-Turk ey-OECD-economic-survey-July-2018.pdf.

CH A PTER

2 TH E CI RCU M CISION CELEBR ATION Motherhood and Ethical Transformations

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ CIRCUMCISION CELEBRATION

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xcitement is in the air! The day of Mert’s circumcision celebration has finally arrived. Long before the hundred or so guests arrive, Leyla’s youngest son, Mert, is dressed in the traditional circumcision outfit: a white cape with a white, feathered fringe worn over a gold embroidered vest. He has a sword around his waist and an adorable pointed hat on his head. He appears to be dressed as a miniature Ottoman prince, prompting family and friends to declare him a “Little Sultan.” Mert starts the evening in good spirits but gets crankier as he is the center of attention—frequently photographed and admired—and has nothing to do and is allowed to do nothing. He is scolded if he plays violently with his sword or engages in any activity that is likely to dirty his clothes. (This includes running, eating, climbing, and being Mert, among other things). Most male children in Turkey are circumcised between the ages of 3 and 12, and families publicly mark the occasion with a community celebration comparable to a wedding for a married couple. The event is even literally called a “circumcision wedding” (sünnet düğün) in Turkish. Six-year-old Mert was circumcised in a hospital five days prior to his celebration and had largely recovered by the time of his “wedding.” Traditionally, a religious official performed the operation, but these days, as with Mert, doctors often do so.

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FIGURE 2.1. Traditional Turkish circumcision outfits for sale in a store window in Istanbul. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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Preparations for the big day began several days previously. As is traditional for circumcision celebrations in Turkey, a decorative bed was set up in the living room. It was covered with white polyester silk sheets and a white gauze curtain. Under the gauze, royal blue, gold and silver plastic stars were hung. Sparkling silver and green banners were draped around the outside. Above and below the gauze, a Galatasaray soccer team scarf in orange and red and two cheerful flower-print headscarves were carefully draped. These latter decorations were personal family touches, not part of the traditional decorations. For two days before and after the festivities, Mert slept in this special bed. On either side of the bed new living room furniture was set up. The yellow couch with a broken arm and the stained maroon foam sofa that had faced each other previously, were replaced with matching white and brown sofas that reflected the latest style. On the coffee table a sterling silver tray was placed under the television remote control. New artificial roses were placed atop a small buffet to the left of the television. The new furnishings showed relatives and neighbors that the family is now doing better financially. When we first met, Leyla and her family were very poor. To give just one example, the family could not afford to heat their house, so Leyla and all of her children slept together in their living room for warmth. During that time, Leyla worked in the series of illegal call centers that I described in the previous chapter. But, by the time of Mert’s circumcision, their economic conditions had improved because the family’s eldest son, Recep, had now dropped out of university to work full-time. They could now buy new furniture and pay for the circumcision celebration itself. At the time of the circumcision, the family’s apartment was on the first floor of a three-story gray building built in the 1980s. It had five large rooms: a kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, one living room (described above), and a smaller sitting room furnished with wooden framed couches, a coffee table, and a large cabinet filled with knickknacks and glassware. Small touches made the apartment homey: houseplants creeping wildly over the bookcase, an encyclopedia set inside, framed photos of the youngest children and Leyla’s deceased stepfather on one wall, and small plastic cars that Mert had left in a corner even after being told several times to put them away. The constantly running television, the round metal oven for making börek (a Turkish savory pastry) on the floor of the kitchen, and the tile coffee table on wheels, which was also the only dining table, marked this as a typical lower middle-class Turkish house in my eyes. Normally, as Mert’s father, it would be Leyla’s husband, Selim’s, responsibility to organize the event and to likewise act as host. But Selim was not involved in the planning and did not attend Mert’s circumcision celebration. As a long-haul truck driver in Europe, Selim was often away. He was typ-

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ically gone for three months at a time and home for just a week, meaning he was home for just four weeks a year in total. His absence from his son’s circumcision celebration was very unusual and not actually due to his work, although this is what guests were told. (I discuss his absence further in the following chapter.) Because he was away, it fell to Leyla to organize the entire event on her own: to invite relatives and neighbors, to order chairs, lights and musicians, to purchase special outfits for each family member, to prepare the circumcision bed, the traditional henna tray, and the favors for guests, to clean the house and cook food, and many other tasks. Why did Leyla put so much effort into Mert’s circumcision celebration? What did the event mean to her and her family? Mert became a man and a Muslim in the eyes of his family and neighbors. The planned celebration formally marked this important change of status for Mert. Along with compulsory military service, circumcision is one of the most important events in a young man’s life in Turkey. There is no broadly corresponding ritual for young women.1 Public rituals for circumcisions are an opportunity to demonstrate wealth through the quality of the venue, the amount spent on the decorations and entertainment, and, if the celebration is near the family’s home, the quality of furnishings on view for guests. Most importantly, families gain honor through life-cycle rituals like circumcisions with a wellattended event signifying that neighbors accept the family. This chapter describes Mert’s circumcision celebration as a means of examining the family’s community belonging, Leyla’s parenting aims, and how migration affects motherhood. It looks at family roles at Mert’s celebration and examines Leyla’s mothering goals with respect to each child, beginning with oldest son, Recep, continuing with middle daughter, Ceren, youngest daughter, Hande, and oldest daughter, Sanem. Mert’s circumcision celebration must be understood as part of a suite of ethical efforts surrounding motherhood that return migrants like Leyla undertake. The chapter shows how return migrants mobilize ideas of German and Turkish hard work, education, and honor, combining national, transnational, and class discourses into a type of “European-Turkish parenting” ethics. Motherhood is one of the most celebrated ethical projects for Turkish women who gain respect as “honorable women” through mothering (Önder 2007; White 2004). German-Turks are often viewed as corrupted Turks, who have lost their ethnic and religious identities in Germany. Community members are apt to view returnee women as neglectful “working mothers.” Return migrant mothers like Leyla thus see raising respectable children and cultivating educated maternal selves as a critical way to combat such stigmas. The circumcision celebration—ethical motherhood—is important for all return migrants, but especially for Leyla who must deal with feelings of shame for having given birth to a disabled daughter, Hande, and for being

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a sexual abuse victim as well as a return migrant and a working woman. Disabled children are a source of shame for mothers in Turkey who are viewed by many as responsible for their children’s health. Leyla utilizes discourses on educated motherhood to effectuate a transformation of feelings of shame into feelings of pride for being a caring mother. Victims of sexual abuse in Turkey are often blamed for inviting the abuse, and, consequently, internalize feelings of guilt.2 The final section of the chapter analyzes Leyla’s reflections on growing up in Germany and shows how the circumcision celebration signifies a personal triumph over her very painful childhood. Leyla’s work on her children’s happiness is also work on her self—an ethical transformation that attempts to redeem her own sad childhood by shaping a happy one for her children. While not all return migrants share all of Leyla’s experiences, her story illustrates how migrants can develop new ideas through transnational experience to challenge and transform the ethical norms they confront in particular situations. Leyla’s awareness of multiple lifeworlds—specifically, ideas about women’s roles in Germany and Turkey, notions of maternal education in Europe, and understandings of honor, family, and community in Turkey—is a resource that she draws on in formulating her parenting aims and when confronting shame. As the circumcision celebration for Mert shows, she brings about personal and social transformations: she exchanges her personal shame for maternal pride and creates a family that is accepted by neighbors in Huzurköy. The next sections continue to describe Mert’s circumcision celebration, focusing on the roles of each of Leyla’s children. As the man of the house in Selim’s absence, Leyla’s eldest son, Recep, was responsible for much of the organization and setup. Her eldest daughters, Ceren and Sanem, greeted guests, distributed favors, encouraged dancing, and showed their modesty and helpfulness throughout the evening. Leyla’s youngest daughter, Hande, didn’t have a precise duty, but was present throughout, noteworthy especially because many Turkish families exclude their disabled children from such public events. RESPONSIBLE RECEP: DISCOURSES OF HARD WORK IN GERMANY AND TURKEY Recep is chubby with a mercurial disposition—by turns gruff, by turns joking—and Mert and I cannot always tell the difference. For the circumcision celebration, 21-year-old Recep dressed in a blue-and-black striped button-down shirt and tan pants that hid his large girth well. During Selim’s frequent absences, Recep had to take charge, and on the day of Mert’s cir-

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cumcision celebration, this involved several tasks in addition to financial contributions. First, Recep helped to set up for the celebration. With several friends, he arranged simple brown and black chairs to seat 50 to 60 people in a semi-circle on the street by the house. The circle of chairs demarcated the space for dancing. Closing off part of their street was not a problem, as their house was on a quiet street where only residents and a few cars passed regularly. A singer and DJ arrived at sundown, and Recep helped to set up speakers and lights between the side of the house and nearby streetlights. Neighbors and relatives arrived in trickles. When no more seats were available, people stood and watched the singer and dancers. The singer was a middleaged man, with dark skin, protruding puff y eyebrows, and salt-and-pepper hair, who moved seamlessly through songs that everyone knew, backed by a catchy rhythm. He could transition from smiling to frowning rapidly depending on the lyrics. Though many people sung along or clapped with the songs, dancing was circumspect, reserved mostly for young, unmarried people, joined occasionally by a married woman taken with the mood. The unmarried girls and boys danced in either two separate semi-circular groups or formed a type of conga line, holding hands above their shoulders while moving in patterned, hesitant stutter-steps. This style of dancing looks easy, but the dancers somehow bring a grace to it I have never been able to replicate. Everyone was surprised when Recep danced a little towards the end of the night, as he was not believed to be the “dancing type.” Despite not receiving any formal computer repair education, Recep has been working at a small local computer repair shop since he left high school with only a brief hiatus to attend a semester of university. One night I observed Recep telling Leyla that many of his customers were demanding that he serve them, as opposed to one of his coworkers, and that the coworker was becoming jealous. “I am proud of you,” she commented. “You must be patient (sabretmek) with coworkers who are know-it-alls or who don’t work hard.” In stressing patience, Leyla is drawing on an Islamic discourse: through practicing patience, Muslims believe that they demonstrate perseverance and belief in Allah (Işik 2008). Turning to me, Leyla added, “I am so glad that I raised Recep in Turkey, not Germany, because he is very hardworking and responsible. The second generation in Germany is not like this.” Such sentiments are widely shared by migrants and non-migrants. While it is said that first generation German-Turks worked hard in Germany, the second and third generations are thought to be lacking in ambition. For instance, Esra, a returnee to Ilçe claimed, “The third generation of migrants to Germany are lazy and do not want to work if they do not feel that the job is good enough or pays enough money. They prefer to live in houses their parents built for them and drive their parents’ cars, but do not work!” Many

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Turks are familiar with stereotypes in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field that depict Germany as a place where people work hard. People even think that hard work defines the “German character.” Many Turks believe that first generation Turks were hardworking in Germany and, in fact, did nothing except work, but post-guest-worker generations have not adopted the positive traits of Germans or guest workers. And, thus, some migrants assert that it is only through returning to Turkey that their children became hardworking supporters of their families. In fact, high unemployment stemming from an influx of workers after the reunification of Germany and broader scales of financial crisis in Europe have contributed to a real shortage of jobs for many second and third generation Turks looking for work in Germany today. Through his involvement in the circumcision celebration for Mert, Recep demonstrated that he is responsible and helpful, which reflected well on him and on Leyla as his mother. Recep’s work ethic is also important because the family desperately needs his income. Leyla is proud of Recep’s hard work, but she also insists that he will return to university eventually. In fact, her children’s education is one of Leyla’s highest priorities, and she is very proud of Ceren, who is known as “the smart one” in the family. CEREN, “THE SMART ONE”: ETHICAL PARENTING THROUGH CHILDREN’S EDUCATION For Mert’s big event, Leyla’s daughters are dressed in what look like prom dresses. Somewhere between peach and pink, 15-year-old Ceren’s gown is demure. It flows all the way to the floor and is accented by a silk flower at her waist. Her hair is pulled back into an elegant bun and just a touch of blush highlights her plump cheeks. Throughout the night, she shyly greets guests and occasionally grabs the hands of classmates who she urges to dance. She dances a lot, taking small steps, while always looking serenely at the ground. Ceren also keeps a constant eye on her younger siblings, Mert and Hande, who are overwhelmed by all of the festivities and need help keeping their appearance tidy. Ceren is gentle and helpful, but her academic accomplishments are what she is known for in the family. Leyla is very pleased by Ceren’s academic success and takes more than a little credit for this. One day, she told me a story about Ceren calling to ask her a question about homework while she was studying at a friend’s house. “My children know where information comes from. I know a lot of academic subjects, like science and history. The only thing I don’t know anything about is politics,” she chuckled. “Ceren could have asked her friends. But, no, she asked me. This makes me very proud

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(gurur).” Like many return migrants, Leyla constantly worked to ensure that her children were well educated, from helping them with their homework to fighting with school officials when necessary. I describe her fights with school officials in more detail in Chapter 4. For German-Turks, children’s educational success is a way of justifying their migration to Germany and combating the stereotype that migrants are low-class laborers with little formal education (Ewing 2008: 140; Rottmann 2015; Wolbert 1991). Migrant women often face the accusation of neglecting their children because many have worked outside the home in Germany, compared to only one in four women who do so in Turkey.3 Combating these negative discourses is a major reason that many migrants cite their children’s education as vitally important to them. But education is also an ethical project in its own right. Leyla claims that she has observed that Germans place a great emphasis on being educated parents and on parents assuring a good education for their children and that her decision to do likewise is a trait that makes her a good mother. Education has many meanings for Leyla, which I discuss throughout this book, but here I am referring to the classical idea of schooling (eğitim), studying or even reading books. With her expression of pride in her ability to assist Ceren and her other children academically, Leyla is referring to ethical discourses of education that unite Germany and Turkey. Education is highly valued in Germany, and many people in Germany and Turkey believe that Germans are more educated than Turks. As with other stereotypes about Germany that are commonly discussed in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field, notions of German educational superiority are often Orientalist formulations that place Europe in a superior position to Turkey. Education is equally valued in Turkey, particularly for Turkish middle classes who seek a prestigious formal education for their children, often paying large sums to send their children to private schools or for after-school supplemental academic programs (dershane). Discourses on education in Turkey emerged from early leaders’ calls for Turks to shed traditional knowledge and “to modernize,”4 and are linked to contemporary state efforts to “civilize” citizens through education (Altınay 2004: 70–71; Kaplan 2006). Returnees like Leyla weave together German and Turkish discourses on education, thereby negotiating a sense of self-esteem as good mothers. Leyla firmly believes that the importance she places on education makes her a superior mother and comparable to European parents. One evening, she explained, “I get out books and sit down with my children and study with them. But other parents don’t do this. In Europe and America, people place importance on education (eğitim önemsiyorlar). In Europe, order (düzen) comes from education—parents mean what they say, like ‘no’ means ‘no’ for a child. And they can tell their children to go to their room as a punishment.

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However, in Turkey, the children do not even have their own rooms.” She laughed, but added soberly, “I try to raise my children to have good manners (terbiye).” Indeed, I often noticed that she carefully instructed her children to say, “excuse me,” “thank you,” and “sorry” to do their homework, to help around the house, and to assist with big events like Mert’s circumcision. On the day of Mert’s celebration, Ceren was appreciated more for her helpfulness than her academic abilities, but for Leyla, these were not separate projects. Manners and formal education are interlinked projects that eventually lead to a desirable “European” order in families and communities. Leyla mobilizes this discourse on children’s education, which is shared among migrants, to address an experience of motherhood that many migrants do not share: mothering her mentally and physically disabled daughter, Hande. The next section examines how Leyla shifts discourses of maternal shame into pride, expressing a notion of educated parenting gleaned through her transnational experience as she confronts the unique situation of parenting a special needs child. TRANSFORMING SHAME INTO PRIDE: BECOMING EDUCATED WITH HANDE For 12-year-old Hande, Leyla’s youngest daughter, Mert’s circumcision celebration was a happy opportunity to don a bright, silk dress, but it was also a chaotic, scary event filled with too many unknown visitors. She stayed close to Leyla throughout the evening and sometimes hid in the living room. Leyla claims that giving birth to and raising a physically and mentally disabled child taught her a lot about how to be a good mother. Hande has Waardenburg Type 1 Syndrome, a very rare genetic defect that means that even though she is 12 years old, she is developmentally a 3 year-old. She is also deaf and cannot talk, although she can understand very basic sign language. The syndrome means that her head and body are out of proportion, her ears are large and oddly shaped, she has one blue and one brown eye, and her teeth are coming in wrong—on top of each other and in the wrong places. “After I became the mother of a handicapped child, I learned about what it means to be an educated mother,” Leyla explained as we shared tea one day. “In Europe, women are educated about how to be mothers, but here there is usually no education. I was able to go to a class about how to care for this child, and I was educated.” Like many migrants, Leyla related that teachers in Germany explain to parents how to help their children in school, but no instruction is given to mothers in Turkey, except in rare cases—as in Leyla’s—where a handicapped child is concerned. Hande’s disability meant that Leyla was able to enroll in a state-run course on caring for disabled chil-

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dren. Leyla is very proud of her efforts to educate Hande, an ethical effort that she believes sets her apart from other mothers in Turkey. It is impossible to appreciate the significance of Leyla’s actions without observing the very deep shame and sadness that mothers in Turkey feel regarding their disabled children—the furtive looks to a child locked in the back room when visitors are present and the public embarrassment on buses when fellow passengers look on judgmentally.5 Among most Turks, disabled children are by definition incapable of being a source of pride, as they signify that something is “wrong” with their mothers; families often refuse to educate these children and keep them hidden in their houses, invisible and away from their community. However, Leyla claims, “In my classes about caring for Hande, I was shocked to hear the other mothers talking about the shame they feel about their children.” When Hande was first diagnosed, Leyla immediately began learning sign language and applied for a scholarship to send Hande to a school for special-needs children. Mothers in her neighborhood at first questioned why she was sending Hande to school at all. In her memoir,6 she writes that she was surprised at first by similar questions from doctors, but eventually explained, “I want my child to be able to support herself if I were to pass away.” I noticed that Leyla spent an enormous amount of time researching how best to care for Hande through the Internet and by consulting with various doctors. At one point, she determined that Hande needed cochlear implants in order to be able to hear, but two doctors she consulted said the operation was very risky and could cause brain damage. She wondered whether or not the operation would help Hande to speak. As it is, Hande can only moan and sniff or use a little sign language to express her feelings. Leyla decided to enlist me to help her e-mail her question to doctors at a hospital she had heard of in America. After gathering information from a number of sources, she decided against any operation. Leyla’s dedicated care for Hande is all the more meaningful when one takes into account how emotionally painful this care can be for everyone. For instance, one day we took Hande to the dentist together. The procedure was horrible, because she had to have two teeth removed, and we could not tell her what was happening or why. No local anesthesia could be administered, because the dentist said that it wouldn’t be effective in the places where the teeth were located and putting Hande to sleep with stronger anesthesia would be dangerous for her health—she has asthma and weak lungs. I came to support Leyla during the ordeal of traveling two and a half hours to the state-run dental clinic in the central neighborhood of Nişantaşı and watching her daughter endure the painful and, to Hande, inexplicable procedure. Hande was amazingly stoic—she trusted us apparently—and never resisted. During the removal of teeth, Leyla and I stood on either side of

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her and each held a hand. The dentist, a young woman still in dental school, fastened large pliers to the first tooth that would be extracted. When Hande felt the pliers, she tightened her grip on our hands, rhythmically squeezing and beginning to moan. She was finally scared. Luckily, it was quickly over; followed by streams of blood, crimson cotton balls, sticky red globules of saliva, and big, big tears. The tears were not just Hande’s. Leyla and I were crying too. Then, the second tooth. . . . Aside from such direct care for her children’s health and safety, Leyla’s view of ethical parenting requires that she be educated as a mother. She insists that her life experiences—mothering Hande—as much as her migration background affects her parenting. Her story challenges simplistic discourses on migration that link all experiences to the migrant experience, that stress places, not life events as determining factors (Olwig 2003). However, the emphasis that Leyla places on education and the links that she draws to parenting in Germany when discussing Ceren and Hande stem from her experiences as a German-Turk as well as the views of education incorporated in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field. Her transnational experiences open up unique resources for her that she uses to addresses her personal circumstances in raising Ceren, Hande, and her other children. Responsible, hardworking, academically successful, educated—Recep, Ceren, and Hande are very different from their sister, 19-year-old Sanem, who is known as the “wild one” in the family. The next section explores Leyla’s struggles in raising her eldest daughter. In Leyla’s neighborhood, pre-marital sex and dating are acceptable for sons, but not daughters, and Leyla is concerned about protecting Sanem’s honor—about protecting her from physical danger and the danger of gossip. She ultimately decides to maintain tight control over Sanem’s actions and appreciates Recep’s help in doing so. But she is uncomfortable with the prevailing norms for women in her community. Her awareness of double standards for boys and girls in Turkey and of alternative gender roles in Germany, as well as her own personal experiences with abuse, lead her to question the discourses of female honor that she encounters in her community. SANEM, “THE WILD ONE”: HONOR AND SAFETY IN GERMANY AND TURKEY As the hosts of the circumcision celebration, Leyla and her daughters have a particular responsibility to dance and to encourage others to join them. Sanem jumps to the challenge most eagerly. I can tell that Sanem, who is almost of marriageable age, is excited about the opportunity to be on public display at the circumcision celebration. Dancing at circumcision celebrations and

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weddings are, in fact, among the key moments where young people in Turkey can openly look at one another and assess the attractiveness and decorum of potential marriage partners. Kimberly Hart (2013) aptly compares circumcisions to rites of passages as theorized by Arnold van Gennep and notes that, for participants, dancing at these events can be considered a period of liminality where unusual gaiety and a relaxation of social strictures are allowed (66). Several return migrants told me that they secured their marriage partners during their summer vacations from Germany, visiting Turkish villages where there were marriages and circumcision celebrations with opportunities for surreptitious flirting while dancing. Sanem’s dress at Mert’s celebration was teal, very short and very tight, with a belt of fake diamond stones that showed off her slim waist. Before the event, there had been some discussion about whether or not her father would allow Sanem to wear this revealing outfit, but apparently his absence settled the matter. Her hair was curled into tight ringlets and cascaded across her shoulders. With the heavy makeup she was wearing, she looked closer to 30 years old than 19 to me. To everyone’s relief, Sanem was well behaved throughout the evening. She showed off spirited dance steps, jerking her fellow dancers along with her at times, but also helped Leyla when asked. Leyla refers to Sanem as her “atak” (audacious or reckless) daughter. I’ve observed many times when Sanem has pleaded to be allowed to do something that troubled Leyla, such as to wear revealing clothing or to spend time with friends who Leyla doesn’t know or approve of. For instance, one night Sanem begged to go to a friend’s house in Beyazköy,7 a nearby district. Leyla refused, and Sanem looked briefly to me in appeal, but I naturally had to take Leyla’s side. Sanem stormed out of the living room and slammed her bedroom door. “I don’t know the family, and there may be some not so good people there. That’s why I don’t want to let her go,” Leyla explained. “I don’t care if Sanem is mad now. Later, she will understand that I am only doing this to protect her.” Leyla has found parenting Sanem a challenge, especially where the issue of her honor is concerned. One evening, for example, Leyla and Recep discussed their mutual concern about Sanem. “Walking down the street yesterday, I saw Sanem in a miniskirt, and her face was all made up,” Recep told Leyla. “Yeah, I saw that too,” Leyla responded, “And I didn’t like it either.” Recep and Leyla are concerned that by showing her legs in a miniskirt and wearing makeup, Sanem may appear to be sexually available. Sanem’s actions can hurt her marriage prospects and reflect negatively on the whole family’s honor, in particular, on her brother’s honor. Her dress at Mert’s circumcision celebration was right on the line between acceptable and unacceptable. “Honor” is a complex, multifaceted concept in Turkey (Ewing 2008; Kogacioglu 2004; Parla 2001; Wikan 2008) and other societies (Abu-Lughod

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1986; Baxter 2007).8 Honor is associated with such values as self-regard, self-esteem, honesty, generosity, respect, dignity, pride, prestige, reputation, and responsibility and is linked to a wide variety of cultural practices. The opposite or counterpart to honor is shame, which is both a very negative feeling of embarrassment or guilt and an existential state of being dishonored and, consequently, not a respectable member of the community. Among the many facets to honor, “namus,” or sexual honor is very important for both men and women and can be interpreted as the way individuals meet standards for masculinity and femininity. However, it is conceptualized differently for each gender. An honorable man is trustworthy and able to control his own sexuality and the sexuality of any women for whom he is responsible (i.e. his mother, wife, or sisters) (Sirman 2004: 44). A woman’s honor is based on being a virgin until marriage and only engaging in sex in the context of marriage (Parla 2001; Sanli 2011). While “the rules” of namus vary according to class and social location, in general, a woman demonstrates that she has namus by dressing and acting modestly and by not associating with unrelated men. The appearance of maintaining honor is of utmost importance. It is critical that community members believe a woman is honorable, which is only possible if she has committed no actions that bring her honor into question. The discourse of honor enhances male control of women in Turkey, where the idea that women need male protection can be used as a means of asserting male authority in families and circumscribing women’s actions. A woman’s sexual honor reflects on her family’s honor, and in many social groups, it is perceived to be a brother’s responsibility to safeguard his sister’s honor. In Leyla’s family, Recep was seen as responsible for preventing any rumors about Sanem resulting from her immodest dress or association with unrelated men. I often saw Recep yell at Sanem and tell her what she was allowed to do, just like Leyla or Selim would. I never saw him hurt her physically, but I noticed that Sanem sullenly obeyed Recep every time. Given Selim’s frequent absences, it seems probable that Recep felt an even stronger burden to police Sanem’s actions than an ordinary brother might feel towards his sister. In some cases, brothers are expected to address the “stain of dishonor” on the family from a sister’s dishonorable actions through murder, what are sometimes called honor killings. Many commentators believe that honor killings stem from patriarchal, “Eastern” cultural traditions that have not yet died out. However, scholars have shown that discourses of honor are as much institutional and modern developments as they are remnants of traditional culture (Koğacıoğlu 2004: 4).9 Through its civil code of 1926 and accompanying laws, the Turkish state enshrined men as the head of their families and confined women to the private sphere. This arrangement aug-

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mented previously existing cultural notions of family honor and corresponding gender relations (Sirman 2004). Even today, the state enforces traditional conceptions of honor by giving reduced sentences to perpetrators of honor killings, by not collecting statistics on honor killings, and by allowing state hospitals to perform virginity exams, where women’s honor is directly surveilled (Koğacıoğlu 2004: 125). The discourse of family honor in Turkey is not a traditional cultural remnant, but a modern development intimately connected to nation-state building in the twentieth century. Though widely reported in Western media, honor killings are rare in Turkey and would be very unlikely for someone of Leyla’s social background.10 However, if Sanem was known as an “easy” or dishonored woman, Recep and Leyla would likely feel significant shame, as would the whole family. In contrast to Leyla’s willingness to challenge prevailing community norms when it comes to parenting her disabled child, Hande, when it comes to the question of Sanem’s honor, she is much more responsive to neighbors’ potential disapproval and possible sanctions. At the same time, Leyla disagrees with certain aspects of gender-based sexual norms in Turkey. For example, at this point during her conversation with Recep and me, Leyla turned to me and added: “Boys are taught that they can have sex with whomever they want without consequences, but what happens to the girl if she is left pregnant and the child has no father? I saw this so often with German-Turks. The guys are told they can do what they want with German girls, but they should find a virgin Turkish girl in Turkey to marry. This is wrong.” Her sentiments exactly parallel a scene in the Fatih Akin movie Kebap Connection (2004), when a young Turkish man’s father tells him that he should have “fun” with German girls but not get them pregnant. The movie, however, shows what happens when a Turkish boy does get a German girl pregnant, much to his family’s dismay. Leyla’s impressions are also supported by research on German-Turks’ preferences for marriage partners from Turkey, because they are believed to be more innocent and unsullied (Straussburger 2004: 227). Though Leyla sought to protect Sanem’s honor by controlling her clothing and actions, one day I observed her discussing with two female German-Turkish returnee friends what she considered the unfairness of the different roles ascribed to men and women in Turkey. “It’s not fair. It’s a double standard,” she exclaimed. “Girls are bad if they go around with guys. But guys are encouraged to have sex before marriage.” Leyla’s friend Beyza replied, “In Germany, I played outside on the street and could come and go freely and just leave my door open. But, in Turkey, if you leave your door open you don’t know what will happen.” Migrants feel that women have to be more careful about their behavior in Turkey in order to avoid rape. Recently, rape and the murder of women in Turkey have garnered public at-

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tention and outcry with media outlets increasingly reporting the crimes.11 However, legal punishments unfortunately remain extremely mild, and often women are blamed for inviting unwanted attention and any ensuing attack as a result of their dress or behavior. Although returnees describe a sense of danger in Turkey, they also credit strong familial structures and close-knit neighbors in Turkey with keeping girls respectable and respectful of their family’s wishes. Stereotypes about the sexual immorality of Germans and the sexual honor of Turks and thus the dangers of living in Germany are widespread images in the GermanyTurkey transnational social field (cf. Ewing 2008: 78). Migrants complain that women are sexualized in German society. In an interview, Selin, a returnee to Tekirdağ, explained that her daughter experienced difficulties in Germany because, “The life there is more free (serbest), and women are under pressure to wear miniskirts and makeup, and if they don’t do so, other kids call them ugly. I wanted my daughter to return to Turkey and marry a Turkish man who she might meet in school.” Like Selin who returned to Turkey for her daughter, Leyla had also told me once, “I’m glad I’m raising my children in Turkey. My sister [who is still in Germany] has so much trouble with her daughter. She moved out recently and doesn’t speak to her mother. Her daughter goes around and does whatever she wants with boys and doesn’t appreciate how hard her mother works.” Firsthand knowledge of second- and third-generation Turkish migrants’ actions and media images of sexual freedom are important factors influencing return decisions and feelings about parenting in Turkey. When considering both Recep and Sanem’s upbringing, Leyla feels thankful that she could raise them in Turkey: Recep has become respectful and hardworking, and Sanem has kept her honor. Migrants fear not only that their children will lose their cultural values by dressing differently, doing “what they want” with boys, and embracing “freedom” as Selin and Leyla describe in Germany, but also that the German state may interfere in Turkish families. Migrants think that the German state often takes Turkish children who officials fear are being abused away from their families. Migrants frequently shared apocryphal stories of such occurrences. For instance, Ipek, who returned in the 1980s, explained that, “German youth are freer than Turkish youth,” causing her to fear that her children might run away. “Our neighbors had a daughter who went to the police and said, ‘My mom and dad will kill me.’ So, the police hid her and changed her name. The parents called and called, and they couldn’t find her. They searched for months. The police never showed her family where she was. They only believed the daughter. She was 18-years-old. Over there, she is not a child, like she would be here in Turkey. I was scared of losing my children.” Anthropological research with Turks in Germany has shown that fear of the police removing children from families is widespread. “These stories

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have an almost iconic quality to them, as parents believe they illustrate German hostility toward family life and efforts by the German state to break up the Turkish family” (White 1997: 759). In fact, German social workers have historically been concerned about Turkish familial structures and what they perceive as the oppression of women in families. In the name of “saving girls” who might be the victims of honor killings or forced into marriages against their will, German social workers have been eager to remove children from Turkish families and to place them in shelters (Ewing 2008: 7). While justified in some real cases of abuse, other cases are likely influenced by anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim prejudice. But, migrants’ fears of the state removing their children from their families far outweigh the reality in terms of numbers of children removed. When evaluating perceptions of women’s position in Germany and Turkey, it is possible to observe conflicting notions of women as bearers of rights or bearers of their family’s honor. In Germany, people generally believe that individual women’s rights must be protected even at the expense of her family’s wishes if these are in conflict, while in Turkey a woman’s honor and how this reflects on her social group is perceived by many to be more important than any individual rights she may have. Like everyone, women need both rights and esteem in their communities. Many feminists and others in Turkey have challenged the paradigm of honor and are actively struggling to increase women’s rights in the country. At the same time, it is apparent that subtler negotiations of individual rights and community norms could be possible in Germany so that Turkish parents need not fear that the state will literally snatch and hide their children. Returnees, with their unique perspectives are well positioned to both adopt and also to question German and Turkish gender paradigms. With regards to Sanem’s upbringing, Leyla conforms to the commonly accepted discourses about women’s sexuality and honor in her community. Leyla’s reason for returning to Turkey was not to distance her children from German cultural values or the German state, but she does use the very same discourse of “dangerous freedom” that other migrants use when she claims that it is easier to raise girl children in Turkey. She is critical of Sanem’s “reckless” behavior, which she fears could ultimately endanger her. Leyla’s key struggle with Sanem is to keep her safe—safe from the influence of Germany as well as safe from the attention of men in their community. With regard to Mert, she is also upholding traditional male gender norms by holding a very public circumcision celebration. Leyla is performing a religious practice that only men undergo and that brings them honor. However, her experience in Germany allows her to sometimes appreciate that there is a gender double standard at work in Turkey. Ultimately, like other returnees, Leyla accommodates a wider range of ethical perspectives. She questions the discourses

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on gender that many non-migrants accept as given, even though she also reinforces traditional norms much of the time. Leyla’s struggle to protect her daughter’s honor is a struggle that she shares with many mothers in Turkey. But, this is also a very personal struggle for Leyla who had to overcome several sources of “female shame” in her own life. Leyla’s experience of physical and sexual abuse while in Germany means that motherhood is not simply a way she becomes a “good woman.” She also transforms her own painful childhood through raising successful, happy children and creating a family that is accepted and respected in their community. A TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD “When I hear my children laugh, it makes me so happy. I know they are having the childhood that I never had,” she explained one day. For Leyla, being a competent mother and raising successful children means much more than only a justification of her migration and a means of combating the stereotype of lazy second and third generation German-Turks. She sees her success as a parent as an embodiment of her ability to overcome her own starkly painful childhood of neglect and abuse. Mert’s circumcision event, which most of her children seemed to enjoy greatly, was one way that she created a happy childhood for them and in a small way erased some of the pain of her own childhood. Leyla’s parents were living in a small Black Sea village when they divorced in 1973. She was three years old at the time, and she remembers being neglected afterwards. She related that under Turkish law, it is the father’s right to take the children after a divorce. In fact, legally men and women have equal custody rights, but tradition holds that children should stay with their fathers in cases of divorce (Delaney 1991: 53). “Anyway, my mother was in a mental institution,” Leyla reported. After having known her for several years at this point, she didn’t need to tell me the reason for her mother’s hospitalization—it was at least partially due to her father’s violence. Her mother quite literally fled for her life. Sadly, these events are not even close to the worst of what Leyla had to endure. Immediately after the divorce, Leyla and her brother lived with an older relative of their father who treated them like dogs—also, unfortunately, a literal comparison. “He just put us in a garden and would only put out bread for us,” she said. “We were covered in sores and sickly when my aunt finally took care of us.” Shortly thereafter, when Leyla was four years old, her father remarried, and she and her brother travelled with him and his new wife to Germany. They moved to a small town near Cologne, Germany, where Leyla’s half-

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sister, Miray, and stepmother, Havva, still live today. Leyla described her father as “a sadist,” and the next 10 years were filled with torture and sexual abuse. In her words, “Who could understand us? What did ‘father’ mean to us? Look at the father! Look at the father we had! Inflicting unimaginable suffering on his children.” In middle school, her father beat her brother

severely and the police were called. It became young Leyla’s job to tell the police what happened to her brother, because her father could not speak German. The police decided to take her brother away from the family and to place him in a children’s home. They also gave Leyla the choice to leave if she wished. She considered the offer, but, looking into her stepmother’s eyes (as she writes in her memoir), she decided she could not leave her alone with her father. Many migrants fear that the German state will be only too ready to remove children from loving families, but here it is clear that the state missed an opportunity to protect Leyla from a horrible family situation. Reflecting on her childhood one day, Leyla exclaimed, “The Turkish families where we lived in Germany were so uncaring that I hated Turkish culture at one point.” Why did Turkish families in Germany not intervene to help Leyla and stop the abuse? The neighbors may have been unaware of the family’s situation as they themselves worked long hours in factories, and it is possible that some tried to help her and were rebuffed by her father or stepmother. But, the most likely explanation is that any issues that came to light were considered an internal “family problem” and not the business of neighbors. In Turkey, many police officers still treat domestic abuse as a private family issue, and many Turks agree that the state should not be involved in what they also see as a private matter. Leyla does not blame her stepmother for not protecting her from her father, as she sees her as a fellow abuse victim, but she does blame her birth mother, who she feels abandoned her to abuse, and she blames her Turkish neighbors in Germany who didn’t help her in even a small way. She often expressed anger that it was Germans, not Turks, who helped her family when they needed financial help. During her childhood, Leyla’s father was often unemployed, drunk, or gambling his earnings away, so Leyla was forced to work during high school, cleaning rooms in a hotel to earn money for the family. Regarding her schooling, she almost always spoke positively. “There were two classes of Turks in my school, and the school principal treated them very respectfully,” she explained. “For example, he respected how we celebrate our holidays. We could celebrate everything.” She related a few incidents of racism from German students but seems to see these as unimportant. Young Leyla learned fluent German and Turkish. She was selected by her teachers to attend some classes with German students due to her academic aptitude. But, she was also able to learn Turkish with her Turkish classmates and the encouragement of her stepmother. She remembers that when she came home

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from school, her stepmother would admonish her: “Speak Turkish! Speak Turkish!” Other migrants discuss German schools much more negatively than Leyla, describing racism, cruel teachers, loneliness, and disregard for Turkish customs. For example, Meral, who attended school near Berlin between 1983 and 1997, said, “When you are in Germany, you learn about their culture. You learn about Santa Claus in school, and from childhood you do not know as much about your own culture.” Presumably, Leyla’s unhappy home life made school a relative safe haven for her. Overall, studies show that Turkish children are disadvantaged in the German school system in which native language education is not emphasized and children are tracked into relatively inflexible higher and lower curriculum levels from early ages (Kristin and Granato 2007; Mandel 2008: 164–165; Sohn and Ozcan 2006). Leyla’s experience of bilingual education is unusual. The result of the early tracking of students in Germany is that students who perform behind their peers at young ages, for example due to language difficulties, are put into schools where they will not have access to university education even if they later show aptitude. “The hierarchical structure of the German educational system, in a way, tends to imprison the children of immigrants who are in rather disadvantageous positions” (Kaya 2001: 133). Additionally, the parents of German-Turkish children are typically themselves uneducated and have little knowledge of the German education system, meaning that they are unable to support or advocate for their children with their teachers who play a key role in helping children attain higher levels of education. Finally, social stigma should not be underestimated in negatively impacting the educational attainment of Turkish children in Germany. “YOU CANNOT TELL PEOPLE ABOUT BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO YOU” “Susan, I have experienced so many painful things,” Leyla explained one day. “I was a little child and my mother separated from my father. He did horrible things to my mother. But, why did she let me go to Germany with him? How could she? Why didn’t she protect me? I had to pay the whole bill. I was the one who suffered. She escaped. . . .” She described her father’s torture and rape of her and her stepmother. At this point, she showed me a large scar traveling down her nose from her left eyebrow, a mark from a time when her father cut her with a knife. “I have often felt sad over the years and still do. Many times in my life I have felt like I was going crazy,” Leyla told me. At this point, tears were streaming down her face: “The worst feeling is that . . . I have felt that I might torture my own kids. In the past, when this

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happened, I went to my mother and my aunt, and I said that I felt sad. They just said, ‘You are crazy; don’t talk to us about this.’” Her mother told her, “This is not Europe, you cannot cry like that.” Finding no sympathy from her mother, she went to her aunt. But, instead of compassion, her aunt admonished, “This is not a Turkish movie, you cannot cry like that.” Leyla continued, “My mother’s older sister is married to my father’s brother, and I expected him to help me or to say something at least. But, nothing. There is no one in my family that I can talk with about these things. I have no true friends.” I assured her that I would try to be a true friend to her. I cried with her. I researched women’s shelters and low-cost psychological counseling centers for her, but I think that what she appreciated most was someone simply accepting her despite her psychological wounds. She explained that her family blames her for any lingering bad feelings about her experiences. “If I say I want to go to a psychologist, they call me crazy.” But, Leyla has found a way to make herself feel better: when she feels especially bad, she writes a letter to herself and mails it. When she first returned to Turkey, she would mail it to her workplace so that nobody would find it, she explained. But, now she just mails it to herself, and when it comes she rips it up and throws it out. More recently, she has found some peace through writing her life story. Leyla returned to Turkey in her youth not once, but two times. The first time, in 1978, she was eight years old. In her memoir, she describes how her stepmother, Havva, was preparing for the family’s summer vacation in Turkey. She sat Leyla and her brother down at the kitchen table and showed them a picture of a couple. Who were they? Leyla wondered, thinking that she had never seen them before. Havva told Leyla that she would meet her “real” mother for the first time. But, Leyla must be very careful to keep the impending visit a secret from her father. If he found out he would punish all of them. But who was that in the picture? It was Leyla’s mother and stepfather. Leyla was very excited! Havva allowed Leyla to keep the picture, which she hid under her pillow. Every night for a week Leyla looked at the picture and imagined her mother before she fell asleep. . . . Then, her father found the picture and beat her stepmother. When the appointed meeting between Leyla and her mother arrived, Leyla had mixed feelings. She wrote in her memoir: “My stepmother got us into clean clothes and took us there. When the door opened, all I remember is my biological mother’s cry. ‘My children!’ she cried in a highpitched voice. Is that right or is that what was supposed to happen? We didn’t understand anything.” Her memory seems fragmented. She goes on to explain that she was confused and scared. “Words like ‘mother’ and ‘father,’ and the concept of ‘family’ meant nothing to me. Did I have emotions? Was I able to feel? Both my brother and I were overtaken by

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emptiness. That’s the way we felt—everything seemed meaningless. At that point, we realized how difficult it was to figure some things out— even by thinking very long and hard. All of a sudden the idea of being beaten popped into my mind. We left the house, thinking about the possibility of getting caught and punished by my father.” This was Leyla’s first

return to Turkey. Her second and permanent return came when she was 18 years old and about to finish high school. Her stepmother asked her if she was curious about her family in Turkey and if she would want to visit them. “You can always come back and will always be my daughter,” Havva said. Leyla was suspicious of her stepmother’s intentions: why did this urging to go to Turkey come at this time before she could finish high school and get her diploma? She explained that it was very difficult for her to trust anyone, even Havva who had always treated her well and whom she called “mother.” Leyla later learned that her relatives in Turkey had pressured Havva to send her back, making her feel as though she was keeping Leyla away from her “real” family. Leyla eventually agreed to return to Turkey and to meet her birth family at Havva’s urging. This familial pressure to return Leyla to Turkey could not have come at a worse time, as it meant that she did not receive her high school diploma. While 18 year olds are considered autonomous adults in many countries, in Turkey, unmarried women remain firmly under their natal family members’ control, and thus it is not surprising that Leyla’s family’s demand for her return was obeyed. Leyla would be returning to the Black Sea village of her birth, though in just a few years she and her family would join the streams of migrants relocating from Turkey’s rural areas to Istanbul. Before leaving, she spent time with her younger half-brother and half-sister, crying and hugging them. The day of departure arrived a week later. “The three-and-a-half-hour flight felt like a century as there was a lot to ponder. Who or what awaited me? I now had a stepfather. What was I going to say to him? I landed in Turkey, but I was scared.” she wrote. At the airport, Leyla was met by her mother, two uncles, and her stepfather. She related, “I claimed my luggage and headed towards the exit with fear. What if my so-called father found out about my arrival in Turkey? What if he came to harm me? . . . It was sort of a reunion scene from a Turkish soap opera of the 1980s full of tears and sentimentality”—a televised reality where inner pain can be expressed

outwardly. To Leyla, her experiences evidence a broader societal problem regarding violence against women, disdain for mental health care, and an overriding concern about maintaining honorable appearances in front of neighbors: “My own brother married a Turkish woman who was raised in Germany. And he started gambling and beating her, but she is ashamed to tell anyone.

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She doesn’t want people to think badly of her and her family. Our society is like this. You cannot tell people about bad things that happen to you.” In Leyla’s experience, if you do speak of painful experiences, you are described as being either “European” or “overly dramatic,” like a character in popular Turkish movies. “Everyone is worried about what people (millet) will say. I have seen this so many times. In Germany, you live for yourself. Here we live for society.” As I discussed, in Turkey, the appearance of public propriety and honor may be considered more important than individual safety. One returnee, Cimen, explained the importance of appearances as follows. She said that her husband never told her what to do, but he said, “There is a line you cannot cross: I don’t want to hear anything bad about you from our neighbors.” She related that she was careful to make sure that he never did hear anything bad. Her husband perceived his own honor to be linked to her actions, and he was less concerned about what she did than about how it would be perceived by others. Naturally, the importance of public perceptions can lead to severe trauma in cases of rape or sexual abuse in which victims keep their experiences secret so as not to shame their families and ruin their own prospects for marriage. Tragically, in Turkey, known victims of rape and sexual abuse often become social pariahs, considered to have lost their honor. It is even possible that a court will absolve a man of the crime of rape if the women’s family forces the couple to marry, which they may do to protect their daughter’s honor as well as their own. Intervention by the state or even families may be inhibited if preserving honor is seen as more important than an individual’s health and safety. In such a context, it is not surprising that Leyla finds it vitally important to protect Sanem from neighborhood gossip and from the more concrete danger of men who might try to rape a woman who is seen as unprotected by her family. But, Leyla strongly condemns this system. One night Leyla related that her neighbor, Necla, a young woman with a two-year-old son, recently confided in Leyla that she had been raped by an uncle during high school and that she had never told anyone. But now she is having bad dreams every night and cannot stand to be near her husband. Returning to the topic of her own abuse, Leyla asked: “Whom should we blame—the 10-year-old girl or the 40-year-old man? Everyone blames the girl. They blamed me for everything that happened to me. But what about my grandparents who gave my mother to my father? His own family warned them to break off the engagement. They knew what he was like. But, my grandfather said, ‘What will people think if we break off the engagement? They will think there is something wrong with our daughter.’ And, look what happened—divorce and a broken family.” Leyla does not completely adopt the prevailing view of women’s shame about sexual violence. She is disappointed that neighbors and relatives failed

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to protect her and were more concerned about family honor. Leyla feels that men, not women, should shoulder much more—if not all—of the blame for domestic violence and the consequent break-up of families. In contrast to many women in Turkey who acquiesce to the prevailing discourses of women’s sexual shame and, in some cases, even perpetuate these discourses by gossiping about dishonored women, many return migrants challenge these discourses. Leyla became Necla’s confidante and told her that none of what happened to her was her fault; she condemned her brother’s abuse and his wife’s enforced silence and criticized her family members who upheld a standard of honor that protected the image of the family, not an individual girl (her mother); and she discussed with other return migrants the troubling double standards for men and women in Turkey. Leyla marshals a unique ethical perspective and challenges prevailing discourses of honor and shame with regard to women and families. While her personal experience of extraordinary abuse and neglect is not widely shared among migrants, she draws on a critique of discourses of honor and shame as well as double standards for men and women that many returnees do share. Mert’s circumcision celebration is a vivid demonstration of Leyla’s desire to create a happy family that belongs in their community, which is a stark contrast to her own childhood experiences. The next section continues to describe Leyla’s celebration for Mert and elaborates on how she strives to transform her own trauma through ensuring her children’s happiness. ESTABLISHING COMMUNITY: MOTHERHOOD AND BELONGING IN TURKEY Leyla was more plainly dressed than her daughters at the circumcision celebration. Even Hande, in a flowing yellow dress with a gauze sequined black scarf over it, seemed more dressed up. Leyla wore black pants and a flowing tan shirt with black dashes on it, an outfit that suited her generous curves, but which made her blend into the background. Though not showy, she told me that these clothes were new, worn for the first time for this occasion, and, indeed, they were more formal than the practical knit clothes she normally wore. Her hair was cut short, almost masculine. She applied a very small amount of eye makeup, almost unnoticeable, but her skin glowed. I felt that her inner warmth triumphed over the otherwise immense stress she must have felt on that night. Throughout the evening, Leyla rushed around coordinating her children’s dressing, cleaning the house, fielding phone calls, and greeting guests. At the appointed hour, around 9:30 pm, a chair was brought out in the dancing area along with a large tray. The tray was lined with red ruffles and

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had a large bowl of wet henna in the center, which was surrounded by little packages of henna tied shut and garnished with plastic flowers (the party favors). Mert sat down in the chair, and one of Leyla’s aunts and a neighbor applied henna, a sticky green paste, to the palms of his hands from the central bowl. Afterwards, cloth gloves were put over his hands so the henna could dry without ruining his clothes. On the following day, he washed off the henna and had faint greenish-brown stains on his palms—a tattoo that would last for a few weeks. Applying henna to hands or fingernails is a traditional practice also performed at weddings and is believed to bring good fortune. Everyone looked on avidly as the henna was applied, Recep seeming to stand proprietarily over Mert. Afterwards, Sanem and Ceren distributed the little packages of henna as party favors to guests who wished to take some home. I was up close, taking photographs, when suddenly there seemed to be a crisis. One of Selim’s sisters, an elderly woman with a pointy nose and piercing eyes, looked at me and began shouting “Kurdele! Kurdele!” What did this mean? I’d never heard this word before, or, if I had, at that moment, I could not recall what it meant. What could she possibly need? It seemed important, so I ran into the house, where Leyla had been attending to Hande, and told her what was wanted. It turned out that a “kurdele” was a ribbon, but she didn’t have one. She did have pins, which people could use to pin small gold coins and money to Mert’s outfit instead of a ribbon, and we brought them downstairs. Mert was made to stand on the chair as relatives and neighbors paraded by and pinned gold and money to him. The singer became a master of ceremonies, asking people’s names and then announcing who was pinning something onto Mert. At this point, Mert seemed to be in a daze, bored, but frozen like a deer in headlights. This marked the end of the official celebration, but people stayed to dance until around midnight. The next day, Leyla hosted a mevlut as part of Mert’s celebration for approximately 30 guests. A mevlut is a recital of a traditional poem in honor of the prophet Muhammad, a non-canonical, but common Muslim practice in Turkey.12 Seating was awkward; men and women sat in different parts of Leyla’s house, and it was difficult to hear the recitation in the back room where the women were seated. After the recitation, guests were given rice, boiled chicken, and Coke, and chatted quietly while eating. It was a sober religious ceremony that further signified that Mert had fully become Muslim and that his family were themselves good Muslims. Both the joyful dancing of the previous night and this somber religious ritual could not be more different from Leyla’s own childhood experiences. Leyla’s childhood was more painful than most migrants’ childhoods. But, there are some shared patterns: financial hardship; migration to Germany

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emerging in the wake of or resulting in divorce; children neglected while their parents work long hours or children who are sent to live with distant and sometimes neglectful extended family. In Leyla’s case, isolation in Germany likely allowed the abuse she experienced to continue longer than it might have if she had lived in Turkey where a caring relative might have intervened. But migration also creates opportunities to reimagine family values, prompting alternate understandings of mothering and gender norms. Leyla’s story is ultimately about how she transforms shame—the shame of abuse and of needing to mother a disabled daughter—into pride; how happiness is attainable despite enormous pain. Her ability to turn shame into pride stems from her experience of having lived in two countries and the consequent exposure to differing ways of being a woman and a family member. She is able to see possibilities that those around her do not—to appreciate the value of psychological help and education, to be a confidant to other abuse victims, to be open and willing to confide in an anthropologist about her life, to write about her experiences in letters to herself, and to be willing to share them in a memoir with the world. By organizing the large circumcision celebration for Mert, Leyla displays to all that she has created a happy, caring family for her children, much different from her own childhood family experiences. A smoothly run celebration like the one Leyla organized shows that her family is capable, honorable, and caring. Migration provides Leyla with an expanded range of ideas to draw upon in deciding how to be a good parent and enables her to create novel combinations of German and Turkish ideas on hard work, education, and norms for interactions between men and women. Leyla’s ethical work on herself comes about through her work on others. Leyla becomes a good woman and mother by shaping respectable children. She becomes the “moral subject” of her actions, as Foucault (1997) puts it, by fostering her children’s happiness. Mert and her children’s belonging in their community is also her belonging because she esteems the “other as a oneself ” and “oneself as another” (Ricoeur 1992: 194). Leyla’s story illustrates the gradual, incremental process of changing ethical ideas. The circumcision celebration is a striking example of ethical parenting—a concrete event. But, Leyla’s struggle to transform her childhood and to create happy childhoods for her children is an incremental process evolving over years. The ethical changes wrought do not come through “ethical breakdowns” (Zigon 2007) as much as through daily efforts to educate, to care, and to keep safe. Leyla’s story also shows that life experiences and needs, not simply migration, lead to new ideas about motherhood and influence migrants’ interactions. Leyla develops opinions about parenting through personal experiences with bad parenting examples, during the

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course of observing Germans, through parenting classes organized by the state in Turkey, in conversation with return migrants and neighbors and her own reflections on all of these. Although Leyla challenges many of the ideas of relatives and neighbors, she remains committed to belonging in an extended family and community. Through Mert’s sünnet, Leyla shows that she and her children are a connected, loving, and accomplished family worthy of acceptance in their neighborhood. The successful circumcision celebration is an event that each family member can recall with pride, as everyone gained something. Even Leyla’s husband, Selim, gained respect through the event. He showed that he was a good provider for the family—he was wealthy enough to afford the celebration and the family’s material wealth was on display to guests who visited their house during the event. But, why was Selim absent? How did Leyla feel about his absence? The next chapter answers these questions and shows that forging a loving marriage is yet another way that Leyla transforms shame into pride. notes 1. Kimberly Hart (2013) describes a henna celebration for six-month-old girls recently introduced in the Yuntdağ mountain region in northwestern Turkey that could be considered comparable in some respects (57–63). 2. For more information about sexual abuse discourses in Turkey, see Aydin et al. (2015); Ozbaran (2009). In the wake of several shocking child murders, the Turkish government drafted new laws against child sexual abuse in April 2014. (For more information, see: www.aa.com.tr/en/news/320729-turkey-drafts-new-laws-against-sexchild-abuse.) 3. I discuss women and work in more detail in the following chapter. For more information about Turkish women’s labor market participation, see: www.oecd-ili brary.org/sites/factbook-2011-en/07/01/01/index.html?contentType=&itemId=/ content/chapter/factbook-2011-58-en&containerItemId=/content/serial/18147 364&accessItemIds=&mimeType=text/h. 4. Early leaders even set up national schools to educate Turkish villagers in the 1930s and 1940s. For more information about these “Village Institutes,” see: Karaomerlio glu (1998). 5. For more information about societal views of disabled people in Turkey, see: www .ozida.gov.tr/ENG/data_bank/projects/HowSocietyPerceivesPersonswithDisabil ities.pdf 6. In the Introduction, I discuss that Leyla is writing a memoir, which we are working together to have published. 7. A pseudonym. 8. Sev’er and Yurdakal (2001) explain that in contrast to a Western understanding of honor as “moral integrity,” the “depth and breadth of an Eastern understanding of honor is very different” (971). While we should be cautious not to reify “Western”

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and “Eastern,” Sev’er and Yurdakal usefully outline how honor in Turkish culture can be described by referring to at least ten different words (e.g. şeref, onur, namus, etc.) (2001: 972). Kogacioglu (2004) follows third-world feminists in calling for a shift in the “focus on ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ to an examination of the effects of various institutional structures” to understand honor (1). Honor killings most often occur in the southeastern part of Turkey among very poor, underprivileged, ethnically Kurdish social groups (Sev’er and Yurdakal 2001). Such killings are illegal, but courts do not always uphold these laws and, unfortunately, families sometimes arrange for minor brothers to undertake the murders, because they will receive lighter sentences due to their age. For more information on honor killing in Turkey, see: Ewing (2008), Kogacioglu (2004), Sev’er and Yurdakal (2001). See for example, http://kadincinayetleri.org/, www.sabah.com.tr/galeri/turkiye/ ozgecan-aslan-icin-tum-yurtta-protesto, or www.hurriyetdailynews.com/409-wom en-killed-387-children-sexually-abused-in-turkey-2017-report-125099. For more information on mevluts, see Hart (2013). She points out that mevluts are particularly important religious occasions for women in Turkey who rarely attend mosques, unlike men.

CH A PTER

3 A “ M A N FROM A V I LL AGE” A N D A “ EU R OPE A N GI R L” Love and a Life Together

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ A GOOD HUSBAND

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elim is sitting on the sofa in the back room, chain smoking, eating homemade börek (a Turkish savory pastry) and drinking glass after glass of tea. A short, thin man with dark coloring, he always seemed to be frowning during the brief times we spent together. “Why didn’t you make it with spinach?” he asks Leyla gruffly. Otherwise, he is quiet while Leyla and I carry on a conversation about the last few weeks. Leyla is a master when it comes to foods made with dough like börek. Not only does she make delicious fillings with just the right spices, she also makes the dough from scratch, rolling out very thin circles by hand over the course of several hours, then layering them with filling. Selim’s question, coming with neither appreciation nor compliments on the meat-and-cheese-filled börek she has made, seems thankless to me. When Selim’s tea is finished, Leyla immediately jumps up to pour him a fresh glass from the pot, which is warming on the wood-fired stove across the room. This happens more than once before Selim finishes a final glass of tea and announces that he is going out to look at a car he is thinking of buying. After he leaves, Leyla rolls her eyes and says, “It’s always cars. Cars! Cars! We hate cars in this family. . . .” She explains that Selim often buys and sells used cars, which the family rarely uses and cannot afford. Only Selim

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FIGURE 3.1. Typical Turkish tea glasses. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

has a driver’s license, and due to his job driving delivery trucks in Europe, he is rarely home. After Selim leaves, Leyla runs between her normal duties of caring for their five children and the temporary additional tasks of washing Selim’s clothes and preparing a travel bag for his imminent departure. I often wondered about Selim and Leyla’s relationship. They seemed to have such contrasting temperaments to me: where she is cheerful and warm, he seems grouchy and remote. She is talkative; he is taciturn. Leyla shines like a light, and Selim seems to dampen all light in a room. Leyla’s open-mindedness, attributable in large part to her extended experience living in another country and her passion for self-cultivation (reading books, visiting museums, etc.), seemed to set her apart from Selim. She had often described her marriage as an alliance between a “man from a village” and a “European girl.” Although it is not unusual in Turkey for wives to receive little verbal appreciation for food cooked, to refill tea glasses incessantly, to undertake all housecleaning, and to have sole responsibility for their children’s daily needs, it still seemed to me that Selim could have helped Leyla more. Leyla never mentioned Selim acting violently toward her, but she did describe him as bad tempered (huysuz) and intensely jealous when they were first married, which would make domestic violence a distinct possibility. Turkey’s domestic violence rate is at least 35 percent for married couples and probably higher due to under-reporting (Altınay and Arat 2009: 39).

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A husband hitting or even beating his wife is perceived as neither abnormal nor criminal in most social groups and is rarely investigated by police or prosecuted in the courts (Sev’er and Yurdakal 2001).1 Whether or not Selim was overtly abusive, Leyla frequently described him as irritable, and it was hard for me to imagine being happy with an irritable person. But, Leyla insisted she was happily married. “I don’t need a rich husband,” she explained once. “For me being respectful (effendi) is important. I am happy with my marriage.” It was not until I read her own words in her memoir and reflected on other moments when Leyla had described their relationship that I finally understood her happiness, even her gratefulness, in being married to Selim. I began to see that Leyla’s is a marriage of love to a man that she considers a caring family man and even a good husband. This chapter continues to examine ethical conflict, ethical change, and processes of personal transformation, this time through telling Leyla and Selim’s love story, showing how Leyla is able once again to transform her troubled past—her sad childhood—into familial happiness and community belonging. It delves into how migration and return can affect marriage relationships. Marriage is one of the most important events in a Turkish woman’s life. Marrying Selim enables Leyla to literally become “an adult woman,” a householder equal to her neighbors. Departing from simplistic dichotomies of arranged or love marriages in literature on Turkey, the chapter shows that courtship decisions are both personal and familial projects. This challenges accepted notions about stark differences in marriages between first- and second-generation migrants in literature on migration. In addition, the chapter examines a second kind of transformation involving changes to traditional gender norms in marriage for return migrants. Many women change their husbands’ expectations for wives and gradually negotiate more equal relationships—what scholars call companionate marriages. For example, Leyla draws on her upbringing in Germany to introduce new notions of women’s dress and women’s work to Selim, fighting with him over the years to slowly change his ideas. While migration and transnational experience affect returnees’ understandings of gender roles, their changing ideas are not simply a matter of adopting German over Turkish ideas. Leyla and other migrants creatively manipulate norms for ethical womanhood common in Germany and Turkey, drawing on their transnational knowledge of diverse discourses of working women, women’s independence, equality, and care in marriage. Working with a plurality of ethical discourses, migrants negotiate gradual relationship changes with their husbands. A third transformation involves Leyla’s management of gossip and rumors about Selim’s frequent absences from home. Selim’s work travel creates difficulties for Leyla, who says she often feels like a “single mother.” Neighbors

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gossip that Leyla is too independent, a “manly woman.” They even spread rumors about Selim’s possible dalliances. Leyla combats gossip by claiming pride for being an independent woman and successful mother. As in so many areas of her life, she addresses critiques and condemnation with poise and confidence, using her transnational perspective to challenge neighbors who challenge her. In fact, being a “single mother” is positive in several ways for Leyla—it pushes her to act as her children’s advocate, allows her to make decisions fully in line with her own personal convictions, and enables her to manage her own schedule in ways that might not be possible if Selim were at her side more often. She claims that her greatest success is that her children “turned out well,” despite the fact that she had to do almost everything on her own. Not every return migrant faces such issues but, observing how Leyla deals with Selim’s absences and concomitant community censure through discourses about independence and self-reliance, shows how migrants may use widely shared ethical discourses to address unique circumstances. Finally, the chapter examines how ethical relationships are negotiated in response to ongoing life experiences: Selim becomes the husband Leyla appreciates, not only because of her influence on him, but also because of his own transnational experiences as a truck driver in Europe. Their relationship is also affected by their experiences as parents. Leyla explicitly states that Selim is a good husband because he is a loving father. Leyla and Selim share the joys of their children’s successes and comfort each other during family tragedies. Raising successful children is among the most valued ethical projects for most people in Turkey and sharing this goal binds Leyla and Selim together as much as their romance and the gender roles they work out in their marriage. In the next section, I describe Selim’s marriage proposal and how it enabled Leyla to overcome her shame about the physical and sexual abuse she experienced in her childhood. There are many reasons why Leyla loves Selim, but paramount among them is his romantic, passionate love for her, which helped to heal her emotional injuries. Marrying Selim was also important for Leyla’s belonging in a Turkish community. In agreeing to marry her, Selim enabled Leyla to become a respectable adult woman in her own and in other’s eyes. THE PROPOSAL In her memoir, Leyla relates that when she was growing up, she swore that she would never marry because of her terrible experiences with neglect and sadism at the hands of her father. But that was before she met Selim. It was

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shortly after she had returned to Turkey. According to Leyla, Selim liked her but he didn’t immediately express his feelings. Then, one day, she was walking to her job as a secretary and he was driving his truck to work. Passing by, he rolled down the window of his truck and asked her to get in. She accepted, but something seemed strange to her when she was in the truck. She writes, “He was quite nervous, but he finally started talking. He said ‘I don’t know how to start, really. You have met my father. You have let us into your home. My father liked you. When I first saw you, I had a funny feeling in my stomach, but I was cautious because I didn’t know what my parents would say. Now that my parents have given their blessing, will you marry me?’” As Selim’s proposal indicates, his family’s approval, partic-

ularly his father’s approval, is important to him, even though he is proposing based on his own feelings. Leyla continues: I was flabbergasted as marriage was the last thing on my mind. In fact, I never wanted to get married, especially with the bleeding wounds inside my soul. Starting my own family, having a husband and home were just a dream for me. I really struggled a lot to make it to the good days I am living now. Pain, beatings, lovelessness, agony . . . if you can imagine it, I lived it. Who would want to marry a person crying on the inside, but smiling on the outside? There he was. It was him. I was running late for work. I looked at Selim and said to him ‘You have seen me multiple times; I don’t wear a headscarf, I put on makeup and I can’t live without working. I don’t like monotony. Your father is a haji [someone who completed the required pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims], and I can’t cover my head with a scarf or something like that. Village work is not my cup of tea. They call me “Almancı” since the day I came back. Think long and hard. Take a week to consider everything. On the weekend, we can go to a tea house and talk things through.’ Then we parted. That week wasn’t easy for me.

Leyla was concerned that Selim would not truly accept unconventional gender roles in their social milieu at the time. Within moments of their first real conversation, Leyla emphasizes that being a return migrant means that she is different from other women and that Selim must accept this to accept her: her religiosity, appearance, and migration background set her apart. Will Selim accept her? Can he? After she left Selim, Leyla was wracked by hope and anxiety. In her memoir, she relates, “Marriage and me! As I said, marriage was just a dream for me. How would my spouse treat me? Would he beat me? Swear in the house? And the biggest question of all: how would he treat his children if he were to become a father? Would he torture them? Was he going to understand me? Or would he run off without listening to my painful memories?” The week passed slowly, but eventually Leyla found herself

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sitting in a teahouse by the sea with Selim as she had planned. Selim began their conversation: “‘My father liked you a lot. My sister has seen you and she is fond of you as well. But most importantly, I like you the way you are. Yes! I want to marry you no matter what!’” How did this make Leyla feel? She writes: “My hands started to tremble. There were butterflies in my stomach. I was at a loss for words.” But yet, she clearly feels compelled to speak. She claims, “I took a sip from my tea and turned my head to the sea. I said, ‘Please listen to what I have to say without interrupting.’ I let him in on what I went through in my past and told him about my expectations.” She doesn’t write this in her memoir, but another time she had told

me that this was the moment when she told Selim about her father’s sexual abuse and not being a virgin. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to tell someone secrets she had kept for most of her life. Would Selim blame her for the abuse she suffered, as many girls in Turkey are blamed for being the victims of abuse? Would he reject her as a wife, crushing her dreams of marriage? She relates: He listened to me patiently. We lost track of time. While I was talking, I didn’t look at his face, not even once, because I was embarrassed. That day was a first for me. I realized that I had feelings, too. For the first time in my life, I was able to share how I felt with someone. It felt like pulling out a dagger that had been stuck in my chest for a very long time. I was surprised to see that I was capable of sharing my emotions. We couldn’t stay any longer and decided to walk around. One moment he put his arm around my shoulders, and my body shook, showing that I still had some fear of being beaten. It was all momentary, and I relaxed shortly thereafter. He gave me a sense of trust. I don’t know what he was thinking, but in about 20 minutes, he said, ‘I can’t give you everything you ask for, but I love you so much!’

Leyla changed her mind about marriage: “It’s funny that someone like me who had already made up her mind about not getting married, changed her mind and decided to get married.”

Marriage is extremely important for most Turks and especially for women, who literally become adults through marriage (White 2004; Hart 2007). Unmarried women are referred to with the negative label “left at home” (evde kalmış), alluding to the belief that no one was willing to take them in marriage from their parents’ home. Having children is also very highly valued. People who do not marry or start families, and specifically women who do not marry by age 30 (such as the anthropologist writing this text), or couples with no children are likely to face severe stigma or at least to find themselves the object of pity. Thus, the significance of this moment—when marriage became a viable option for Leyla—is quite clear. More than 20 years later, Leyla claims that despite a few difficulties, she is happily married, and even if given a choice to marry someone else, she

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would choose to marry Selim a second time. She once laughed uproariously at the fact that he first proposed to her in a truck. But I find her description of her courtship to be very romantic—a shared tea by the sea, confessions, shivering, fear, an arm over a shoulder, passionate declarations. This moment is also a healing one for Leyla. The previous chapter described Leyla’s struggle to transform shame into pride through educated mothering. Here we see that Selim helps her to overcome her “embarrassment” about her past, as she puts it, with his passionate declaration of love. Finding acceptance after sharing her painful past, Leyla feels that she is in fact lovable and is finally able to overcome some of her fears. In sharing her story, she removes “a knife.” Selim helps to heal the wound. When Leyla spoke about her marriage at other times, she described her desire to please her family through marrying Selim. She once explained, “My stepfather was very nice and accepting of me and better than my own father, so when I returned to Turkey, I said, ‘I will marry whoever you give me to father.’ And, he said, ‘Selim is hardworking. He is a good man.’” Selim, likewise, confessed his feelings for Leyla only after assuring that his father approved of her. In fact, their story problematizes neat dichotomies between love marriages and arranged marriages (cf. Hart 2007). While several prominent anthropologists describe Turkish marriage relationships as grounded in only economic cooperation and sexual intimacy (Delaney 1991; Stirling 1965), Kimberly Hart (2007) argues, “Researchers in Turkey have not paid attention to how rural people are agents of their intimate and emotional lives” (350). Actually, marriages are rarely “arranged marriages” strictly speaking in Turkey, though parents and other relatives will often play a significant role in finding suitable spouses for their children and will pressure their children to marry particular individuals. Most people prefer their children to marry the children of family friends or people they know from their natal village. But, this does not mean that youth do not hope for and seek out romantic love. Many marriages approximate Leyla and Selim’s: they make the decision that pleases their parents. Yet, clearly their decision is based on love as well. Marriage practices are historical developments, and it is possible to trace a dichotomy between arranged and love marriages across migrant generations. During the course of researching return migration, most firstgeneration migrants described marriages that closely approximate arranged marriages, while most second-generation migrants emphasized the importance of a search for love. For example, Derya grew up in the 1950s in a poor family in İlçe, one of five children. She was married young to an almost complete stranger, Ali. Discussing her marriage as we sipped tea one day, she explained, “I was married within one week of Ali coming to my parents’ house to ask for my hand in marriage, because he had received permission to go to

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Germany. My family was poor and knew that Ali could provide for the family.” When I asked her how she felt about her marriage, she said, “I was 17. I did not think anything. I did what my parents told me to do.” Some women describe their early marriage and their family’s sending them to Germany as familial “sacrifice.” Putting it bluntly, another return migrant told me, “We were sacrificed (kurban olduk) . . . You are working for the whole family in Germany.” Second-generation migrants are more likely to discuss the necessity of love. Comparing her own desires and her parents’ relationship in an interview, Ömür explained, “I am looking for my equal, someone I love, not someone who wants to control me.” She told me that her boyfriend is German and related this example of her independence: she tells her boyfriend that she is going to a movie by herself, and he says, “Ok.” She observes, “He does not care if I do things alone, unlike Turkish guys who try to control their girlfriends.” Ömür’s parents have met her boyfriend and approve of him, but they did not choose him and are in no way involved in her relationship, she explained. Ömür is drawing on stereotypes about individuality and equality in relationships in Germany and control and inequality in relationships in Turkey, which are widely discussed in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field.2 Leyla’s account of her marriage to Selim is somewhere in-between a love marriage and an arranged marriage. In addition, her story also problematizes neat distinctions between first and second generations of migrants (cf. Mandel 2008: 19; Soysal 2002). She is a second-generation migrant, but her courtship parallels patterns commonly discussed by both first- and second-generation migrants. Love and her family’s approval matter to her. Their happy courtship is clearly a high point in Leyla and Selim’s relationship. But they have experienced low points too, years filled with conflicts. In the next section, I examine Leyla’s novel expectations for gender roles— specifically, for the appearance and actions of women—and her struggle to change Selim’s expectations for a wife. Migrants like Leyla draw on their transnational experiences to combine diverse discourses on respectable womanhood and to innovate new ways of being married. A “MAN FROM A VILLAGE” AND A “EUROPEAN GIRL” Leyla warned Selim that she would wear makeup, would not wear a headscarf, and would continue working after they were married. Although he seemed to agree on that day in the tea garden by the sea, it soon became clear that he did not accept Leyla’s conditions. Within a few months of marrying, Selim told her, “Women don’t work. Stay at home.” Leyla had been working

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as an executive secretary for two years and was very well liked at her workplace. Her boss tried to reassure Selim that she would be in no danger from him at work, but Selim insisted that she stop working and she acquiesced. As in many societies in the world, Turkish family relationships can generally be described as patriarchal (Abadan-Unat 1982a; 1982b; Beller-Hann and Hann 2001; Kandiyoti 1987; Önder 2007; White 2004). Women and men have different, strictly defined roles in their families. Women are responsible for caring for the children and the household—cooking, cleaning, and hosting—while men are responsible for providing material support and security for their wives and children. This is gradually changing as more and more women are working outside the home and improved economic conditions enable women in cities to hire people to help them with housework. For the most part, however, Turkish women are saddled with a double burden— even if they work, they are still expected to take on the majority of household responsibilities. In almost all circumstances, men provide the majority of material support and are the “head” of the family and the ultimate authority. This does not mean that there is no space for women to negotiate active roles in their families. Some women, as they age, become matriarchs, making significant choices about family activities and household purchases. But, male authority does mean that men have the ability and the cultural sanction to control their wives’ actions, using force if necessary. Leyla related once, “I wish that I had had a career. I was 20 years old when I married—that’s not too early for marriage and not too late either—but that was the time for my career. . . .” While she doesn’t regret marrying Selim, she regrets that she exchanged working womanhood for being a housewife. Leyla’s experience is analogous to that of many first-generation migrant women who are forced to stop working in Turkey. When German-Turks first went to Germany in the 1950–70s, it was uncommon for women in Turkey to work, and in many cases morally unacceptable (Magnarella 1998). As one first-generation returnee, Berrin, told me, when she went to Germany in 1969, “There was no work for women in Turkey besides in the fields. Then, when I had a child, my father-in-law said, ‘You cannot work.’ As it is, I had no friends who worked. It would have been embarrassing. Therefore, the thought of working in Germany was good.” Many women told me that their husbands or fathers did not want them to go to Germany, because they did not want them to work. Families were concerned that migration would result in a potentially dangerous cultural corruption that could negatively impact a woman’s image and honor. Unfortunately, the prevalence (and the perception) of working women in Turkey today is only slightly improved in recent years. Just 27 percent of women worked in Turkey in 2014.3 For many social groups, the rules of honor and

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modesty still do not accommodate women working outside of the home (Bolak 1997; Işik 2008; White 2004). In her work with Bulgarian-Turks who returned to Turkey, Ayşe Parla (2005) found that women and work become contentious markers of difference between non-migrants and return migrants. I found that GermanTurkish return migrants likewise confront disapproval from relatives and neighbors for having worked in Germany. For some non-migrants, the fact that women worked in Germany provides an explanation for returnees’ perceived excessive displays of wealth. For example, when I told one man about my research, he said, “People went to Germany to earn money, and the difference there is that everyone in the family worked—even the women and children—which is taboo in Turkey. But, no one could see them there, so the whole family could earn money.” Women by and large expressed overwhelming enjoyment of working in Germany, and dismay with the need to stop after returning to Turkey. For example, one returnee to Istanbul, Filiz, explained, “I have been so bored since returning to Turkey. I got used to working, but there is nothing I can do here. My husband doesn’t want me to work.” Berrin related, “GermanTurkish women do not want to return to their villages, because they have to work very hard cleaning their houses, making food, and taking care of the gardens and fields.” She claimed that women’s work in Turkey is more difficult and less enjoyable than factory work in Germany. Working represents a reimagination of women’s roles as “women workers,” rather than as housewives with familial labor duties. In Berrin’s case, she returned to Turkey in her retirement, so working or not working was not a pressing issue, but Filiz, a relatively young returnee, faced a husband who simply refused to allow her to work in Turkey. When Leyla was working again in 2009, she seemed quite happy about it, though she always ultimately justified it as a financial necessity. In Turkey, it is a widely accepted patriarchal prerogative for men to forbid their wives from working if they wish to do so. While men are upholding well-accepted community norms, many migrant women are upset at losing their status as working women when they return to Turkey. Transnational experiences have changed their expectations of their roles in public and private spheres. In addition to conflict with Selim surrounding work, Leyla related that Selim asked her to wear a headscarf and skirt (instead of pants) and to walk a few feet behind him when they walked in public in his village. These requests reflect customary gender norms in small villages in the 1990s and in many small villages today. A number of return migrants told me that the first time they ever walked side-by-side holding hands with their husbands was in Germany. Several women from Ilçe who do not wear skirts and headscarves in

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their daily life told me they would don a skirt and headscarf when they visit relatives in distant small villages. One returnee, Yasemin, showed me pictures of her mother when she was in Germany and after she returned to Turkey. I noticed aloud that she was not wearing a headscarf in the picture from Germany but was in the picture from Turkey. “She has to wear a headscarf when in her village in Turkey,” Yasemin said. (I discuss headscarf practices in more detail in Chapter 5). Leyla chose her battles with Selim carefully. She could accept wearing a skirt and a headscarf to please him when they were first married, but she pointedly noted her small acts of resistance: “my headscarf was loosely tied and my hair was showing.” However, Leyla put her foot down when it came to walking behind Selim and simply refused. In the end, he accepted this. She gradually eased Selim into accepting some differences in dress and behavior and was able to negotiate a gendered habitus that they could both accept. In Turkey, love is sometimes demonstrated through jealousy, anger, and even violence.4 The logic at play is if you didn’t love someone, you wouldn’t be jealous or angry about his or her actions. Because men are believed to be responsible for “their women’s” safety and honor, their jealous anger is perceived as righteous because their job to protect has been made more difficult. Ultimately, a wife’s honor reflects on her husband, his status in their community is directly affected if she is dishonored. Thus, in protecting her honor, he protects his own as well. In practice, these values can pave the way for marital conflict at the least and domestic violence at the worst. As I described in the previous chapter, the importance placed on honor should not be seen as the remnant of patriarchal traditions, but the result of modern processes. Once when discussing our marriages, I asked Leyla what her relationship with Selim was like when she was first married. “My husband was from a village. And, I was a girl from Europe (Avrupa kızı),” Leyla explained. “This was very difficult. He was very jealous and wouldn’t let me leave the house without him. Oh, what I went through . . . Oh, what I went through . . .” Was she referring to domestic violence? I don’t know. Leyla related that when she first married, Selim would not allow strangers to talk to her in public. If they were riding a minibus together, she would sit and he would stand guard over her, with his legs splayed and his hands clutching the poles on either side of the bench in order to keep people away from her. When Leyla had female friends over to the house, he wouldn’t greet them or speak to them at all, which she found frustrating. Today, Selim greets Leyla’s friends more openly and is less jealous than he used to be. But, even now, after knowing him for eight years, Selim greets me very conservatively—I am never sure if I should speak to him or even look

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at him. Presumably, he feels the same? As an American, I am not like other women in many Turkish men’s eyes, so many feel able to talk with me more openly than they would with other unrelated women in their community. While I conducted research, I was able to learn about male return migrant experiences through interviews, which involved more conversations than would normally take place between men and women. But, some men interpreted my status to mean I was sexually available and perhaps even an “easy” woman and they would ask me out on dates, which often made me uncomfortable. However, for Selim, no matter how much time passed, I seemed to remain an unrelated woman towards whom he should not show too much interest or attention. At times, his ignoring me made me uncomfortable, but it could be interpreted as a way that he showed me respect. When I consider his actions in hindsight, I feel quite thankful. Overall, the early period of Leyla’s marriage to Selim was difficult. He could not accept her style of dress, public behavior, or working life, what Leyla describes as her being a “European girl.” He was jealous and controlling, and Leyla could only resist him in subtle, indirect ways. While Selim’s enforcement of his wishes and her acquiescence are clear evidence of the patriarchal nature of their relationship, their relationship is not unusual for their social location in Turkey, and, from one perspective actually indicates their care and even love for one another. Many female migrants experience similar difficulties, complaining that their husbands do not appreciate or accept that migration to Germany has changed them from housewives into independent women workers. But, migration and transnational experiences do change gender roles within some marriages leading to increasingly companionate relationships. NEGOTIATING A COMPANIONATE MARRIAGE Despite difficulties Leyla faced in her relationship with Selim, she repeatedly insisted that she was happily married. What made Leyla happy with Selim? First, Selim changed over the years, and she has been able to negotiate a relationship that suits her. For example, when they first married, she tried to please Selim by wearing skirts. But, she related, “When Hande got sick frequently, I was running around a lot and got a rash between my legs. I decided that pants are more comfortable and insisted on wearing them. Selim saw me in pants and said, ‘It’s not so bad.’” She was also able to convince Selim that she did not have to wear a headscarf in his village. In fact, for a temporary period Leyla did wear a headscarf at all times, but never wears one today. Leyla also encouraged Selim to say “Hi, how are you?” to her female friends, and he began to do so. In recent years, she also convinced

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Selim to allow her to work outside the home. Basically, she explained that she fought for the type of relationship she wanted: insisting that he speak to her friends, that they walk side-by-side, that she can wear pants and not wear a headscarf. and that she can be an honorable, working woman. When I asked her how she convinced him, she claimed, “I educated him.” As I’ve noted in the previous chapter, German-Turkish return migrant discourses on the value of education can be traced to both Turkey and Germany. Turks respect educational credentials and generally believe that Germans are educated. German-Turks in particular view education as a way of combating stigmatizing discourses about migrants’ ignorance (Wolbert 1991). Leyla related that she educated Selim about the fact that a woman’s appearance and actions need not affect her honor, even if she appeared and acted differently from other women around her. But, Leyla does not only credit herself for Selim’s changing ideas. She also credits his own mobility and life experiences. She explained, “He went to Europe and saw different male-female relationships there. It was hard when Selim was driving his truck to Syria, which he was doing in the 1990s. They are Muslims, but they do not live like good Muslims there. They are not clean, and they are a different type of Muslim.5 But when he started driving a truck to Europe, his views changed.” Leyla implies that “good Muslims” would hold ideas about male-female relationships that are similar to European Christians. This statement makes sense in light of Turkish founders’ attempts to bring about their idea of modernization through changing gender roles, changes that they explicitly viewed as “Europeanization,” such as banning head scarves (cf. Kandiyoti 2010). While Leyla believes that she “educated him,” she admits that Selim was also changed through his own transnational experiences. Leyla also thinks that her half-sister, Miray, who grew up in Germany and still lives there, helped to bring about changes in Selim. She explained, “He would visit Miray and my stepmother when he was traveling through Germany in his truck. He would see how they are, and this changed his ideas.” Leyla is thankful for Miray’s influence. She believes Miray could never live in Turkey again. “Miray is too free (özgür)” she explained once. “She always wants to go around by herself, to stay out late at night. You can’t do that here, or something bad will happen to you.” These comments were similar to Leyla and her call center friends’ comments, which I related in Chapter 1. Again, I was surprised at first to hear Turkey described as a dangerous place for women when others assert precisely the opposite. Clearly, the discrepancy is based on whether or not a woman complies with appropriate gender strictures in certain communities; if one stays close to one’s family and male protection, performing only necessary daily tasks and not going out alone and late at night, then Turkey is perfectly safe. If one deviates from

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prescribed gender behaviors, all bets are off, according to these discourses. In referring to Miray as “free,” Leyla is drawing on well-known stereotypes in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field about the freedom and independence of European women. Selim’s changing attitudes could also be influenced by Leyla’s increasing age, which makes male attention less of a threat, the couple’s move from a small town to Istanbul, and somewhat liberalizing gender norms in Turkey in recent years. But Leyla credits her European upbringing and education of Selim and his experience in Europe for enabling her to negotiate greater autonomy and what scholars would call a more companionate marriage. “Companionate” refers to the idea of marriage as a partnership of equals who share a desired life together rather than the more patriarchal model where spouses spend the majority of their time with relatives or neighbors of the same gender. Companionate marriages are characterized by emotional intimacy, shared choices, and companionship as opposed to a primary emphasis on bonds between family lineages and economic cooperation.6 Leyla frequently discussed her desire to spend more time with Selim and often worried about him. Driving a truck through foreign countries can be dangerous. One time Selim was robbed in Spain. He was sleeping in the parking lot of a warehouse with his window cracked slightly for fresh air. The thief inserted a chemical smoke through a tube into the cab of his truck that made Selim pass out. The thieves emptied the truck, and in the morning Selim was groggy and sick. When the police came, he was a suspect! Had he been working with the thieves? Eventually, his name was cleared, but the incident brought home how dangerous his job was—he could just as easily have been killed during the theft. Another time, three of Selim’s truck driver friends were killed in floods near the Bulgarian-Turkish border. Selim wasn’t with them because a border guard had said that he was missing some necessary papers for international travel. “It was only because of Allah that he was not allowed to leave Turkey that night and sleep where they were sleeping,” Leyla related. “The next day he passed through the border gate with no problem. Thank god!” In 2013, Leyla began pressuring Selim to stop driving his truck internationally and to begin driving in Turkey, so he would be home more frequently. For two months, he did switch to domestic deliveries. “It’s wonderful,” she told me. “We are like a newly married couple. When we go out, he even holds my hand!” she giggled. She also related, “Now, he can see all that I do while he’s gone. And he can help me deal with Hande’s medical appointments and problems at Mert’s school.” But, her happiness was shortlived. One day, Selim suddenly decided that he couldn’t handle driving a truck in Turkey, where he complained the traffic was frustrating and drivers did not follow rules. Without consulting Leyla, he asked for a transfer back

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to long-distance trucking in Europe, to which his company agreed. “Oh . . . ,” I said vaguely when she told me this, trying to read if she might be happy to have the autonomy of single motherhood back. I always felt churlish Selim somehow diminished her strength. But, she said, “I’m sad, very sad.” A deep sigh. “He didn’t even ask my opinion. . . .” In fact, rather than his absence, Leyla really wanted more open-ness, companionship, and equality in their relationship. Many second-generation migrants who returned to Turkey like Leyla described struggles similar to hers to change their Turkish boyfriend’s or husband’s ideas about gender norms, to increase their closeness, equality, and autonomy. For example, Elif, a 33-year-old returnee to Istanbul, related that she gradually “trained” her boyfriends to expect to do things equally if they wanted to date her. She said. “The experience in Germany did influence my whole life. Even today, I don’t want a relationship limited to some man’s ego.” She explained that she does not want to be told by her boyfriend what length skirt she can wear or whether or not she is allowed to drink alcohol with her friends. According to Elif, “Still many young women give in to this, but I do not, because the roots are too deep. Living in Germany influenced the way I live my life.” Many first generation migrants also describe negotiating a companionate marriage characterized by increased closeness and more open communication (Wolbert 1996). For example, one day, Derya and Ali, a couple who returned to Ilçe, were complaining to me about their daughter’s conflict-filled marriage. They described themselves as a “husband-wife team,” working together for their family in Germany and expressed their wish that their daughter’s relationship might also be (re)shaped this way. Second- and third-generation migrants who marry non-migrants emphasize that they “educated” their partner, while first generation migrants’ marriages seem to change because of the circumstances of migration itself. The couple is separated from their extended family and their isolation in a foreign country fosters closeness as they share the struggle of making a living there. While migrants often point to Europe as a source of their changing ideas about gender roles, it is important to note that migrants shape happy marriages, not by adopting “European” gender paradigms, but because their transnational perspectives open up a space of freedom for negotiating novel relationships that please both spouses. The idea that Europe is a bastion of gender equality while the Middle East is the heartland of gender oppression is widespread in the West, even in scholarly discourses (Abu-Lughod 2009; Ahmed 1992; Charrad 2011; Weber 2013).7 While not discounting patriarchy globally, feminists have urged researchers to attend to the full complexity of Muslim women’s lives and to be mindful of the troubling power dynamics that can emerge when Middle

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Eastern women are represented as “oppressed” and European women as “liberated.” There is not one European or Middle Eastern woman, but vast differences in terms of women’s daily lives, beliefs, and cultural and religious practices. Unfortunately, such arguments are not widely known or appreciated in Turkey, where many citizens believe that European women are “free” and independent, while Turkish women are connected to their families and dependent. Women have long symbolized their nation’s European-ness and modernity—or lack thereof—in Turkey (Ewing 2008: 45–51; Kandiyoti 2010; Secor 2002). As Ayşe Kadıoğlu (1994) writes, “[Turkish] Women have been burdened with the difficult task of defining the boundaries between tradition and modernity since the initiation of modernization projects from above by the Ottoman bureaucrats at the turn of the nineteenth century” (646). Some returnees, along with German government and EU officials, believe that Turkish women may benefit from migration to Germany by becoming more aware of their rights—women’s rights—in Germany and, in so doing, becoming better able to combat unequal or abusive marriage relationships. Most scholars would likely agree that women have more legal rights in Germany than they do in Turkey. However, using Germany as a cultural or a legal-institutional symbol of women’s rights can be problematic for several reasons. First, there is not a single feminist understanding of gender equality. For instance, German and American feminists have different views. German feminists have negotiated a space of rights within German society based on the idea of women’s difference and unique needs as mothers. Their ideas are quite different from and even unacceptable to American feminists who stress women’s similarity to men (Ferree 2012).8 Thus, German feminist perspectives should not be seen as a universally applicable model for gender equality. Second, using Germany as a point of comparison may weaken the efforts of Turkish feminists who struggle to articulate their needs according to the Turkish social and political context.9 Women in Turkey are actively fighting for their rights, but this is rarely reported in Western media (Kandiyoti 2010). Finally, we cannot assume that Turkish migrants can or do adopt “German gender roles” and reject Turkish ones. Migrants do not make simplistic choices between one or the other country’s gender roles. Rather, migrants creatively combine cultural ideas and practices from multiple sources during ongoing negotiations of expectations of womanhood in different contexts. For example, Leyla negotiates gender roles with Selim, with her neighbors and with her coworkers differently at different times. At certain points she wears a headscarf, makeup, skirts or pants, drawing from a plurality of possibilities derived from her experiences in both countries. Additionally, it is not only Leyla who is redefining gender roles: Selim’s ideas are also changing as

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a result of his discussions with her and through his own life experiences—his interactions with Miray and Leyla’s mother and his observations of Syria, Europe and Turkey. Both first- and second-generation migrants describe negotiating marriages of greater equality and companionship. Leyla’s story differs from Derya and other first-generation migrant women in that she never lived in Europe with Selim and he is not a return migrant. Yet, in both cases, changes in women’s relationships are attributed to spending time in Europe, being exposed to difference, which enables a freedom to reflect on gender norms. Returnees like Derya negotiate marriage relationships consisting of closeness and significant time spent together with their spouse. In her marriage, Leyla strives for less jealousy, increased autonomy, and the freedom to dress and behave as she wishes. Whether they are first- or second-generation migrants, their relationships change not because the couple becomes “European,” but because they navigate diverse possibilities for marriage after time in multiple nations. Another key factor affecting Leyla and Selim’s relationship is his frequent extended absences from home because his job entails driving a truck for many months at a time. His absences give Leyla the freedom to make decisions on her own and to live as she wishes much of the time. But Leyla often faces difficulties because Selim is away. Not only does she need to handle many parenting problems on her own, she endures gossip about being a “single mother.” Once again, her transnational experience and unique ethical perspective enables her to meet her needs creatively, to feel pride in her accomplishments, and ultimately to find community belonging. MANAGING SINGLE MOTHERHOOD Leyla feels proud of being a successful “single mother.” “Look at how much work I do! And I do everything myself!” she exclaimed one night. Indeed, it was sometimes exhausting watching her run around her house: bathing Mert and Hande, putting them to bed, helping Sanem and Ceren with their homework, making three or four delicious entrées, wiping up spills, folding clothes, and carrying on a conversation with me, all without a pause. One of the clearest demonstrations of Leyla’s self-reliance was her ability to organize the circumcision celebration for Mert all on her own, which I described in the previous chapter. During the celebration, Leyla seemed tense at times, but overall in control. However, Selim’s absence from the circumcision celebration was very unusual. Fathers and sometimes older sons provide necessary financial support and are usually involved in arranging concrete details, such as hiring a

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singer and renting a space for the celebration. Circumcisions are also key bonding moments between fathers, sons, and other male relatives. For Leyla’s family, Recep had to fulfill this role. Although Selim’s frequent absences were the natural result of his job, his absence from Mert’s celebration could not be attributed to working. According to Leyla, Selim felt so ashamed of their furniture that he told Leyla not to invite his family (Mert’s paternal aunts and their families) and arranged not to be there for the celebration. “If I’m not there, they won’t come,” he told her. It was easy for him to arrange an excuse to avoid the celebrations because of his job as a long-distance truck driver. As the family’s provider, Selim would be judged for the quality and expense of the family’s possessions. But, pooling her earnings with her son, Recep’s earnings, Leyla bought new furniture in secret. Because she didn’t tell Selim, Selim contrived to have his truck “break down” and miss the event. Nevertheless, Leyla invited Selim’s two sisters who did come with their families, and she believes that they were impressed by what they saw of the family’s house. For example, Leyla heard one sister commenting positively on the family’s clothes dryer—a relative rarity in Turkey, where most people hang their cloths to air-dry. On the day of the celebration, Leyla told me simply that Selim was working and could not attend, which I found very strange given that circumcision celebrations are normally attended by all family members. When I asked Leyla about Selim’s absence two years later, she explained that Selim was now very regretful that he missed Mert’s important day, but he learned that he should trust her ability to ensure the family’s good reputation in their community. Also, “He shouldn’t feel ashamed about what we have.” Leyla was pleased that she could mitigate any shame that Selim might feel, while teaching him a lesson about marital trust and, no doubt, about her own ingenuity. She seemed to infer that she wants an even more companionate marriage with Selim. Later, I asked Leyla if she was happy with how everything turned out. Yes, she was happy, and she exclaimed, “I did everything myself!” Leyla often refers to being a competent “single” parent as a source of considerable pride and satisfaction for her. In her memoir, she writes, “It is challenging to raise my children as if their father is here. I guess that is my biggest accomplishment in life.” Mert’s circumcision celebration is vivid evidence

of Leyla’s care for her family. This successful event brought the family symbolic belonging in their community, which could help her children secure marriage partners and employers. She displayed a degree of wealth of which Selim could be proud, and the monetary gifts from relatives and neighbors provided needed income to the family and helped pay for the event itself. But, although she was proud of her independence, Leyla occasionally had to endure negative gossip directed at her concerning her husband’s absence.

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On one occasion, she became aware of a rumor that she and Selim were getting divorced. During her gün (her weekly gathering of 15 to 20 neighborhood women described in Chapter 4), she announced, “I know that there is a rumor going around that I am getting divorced. Someone asked me about this. I’m telling you now: no, we are not. This is just a rumor. Selim and I are not getting divorced.” Another time, I observed Leyla seeking to manage disapproval of Selim’s absence with relatives. During the Ramadan Holiday (Ramazan Bayramı or Eid al-Fitr), Selim was on a long-distance trip to Paris. At her uncle’s house, several relatives began joking that Selim “was living the good life in Paris and making ‘friends.’” “Making friends” seemed to imply that he was dating women while he was there. Without missing a beat, Leyla responded, “Actually, he called to say he was going to a mosque today. He never goes to a mosque in Turkey, he only goes in Europe!” Everyone laughed. Leyla deflected the mean-spirited joking about infidelity by highlighting her husband’s religiosity and added a joke to lighten the tension. Although Leyla felt that she managed single motherhood well, there were times when she had to deal with situations where an absent father was not the norm. One time while sharing a tea with her neighbor Şebnem and me, she explained that people view her as “manly.” She related, “I did so much for our children by myself, without Selim. People say that I am like a man (erkek gibisin). I walk like a man and sit like a man.” At this point, she splayed her legs wide and exaggeratedly flailed her arms. “I don’t care. I am a good mother.” Leyla cannot completely prevent neighbors from gossiping about her, but she does not let it stop her, nor does gossip diminish her personal pride. In this instance, her direct message to her neighbor Şebnem was that she overcomes the stigma of single motherhood and by extension manliness by being a “good mother.” While I don’t know if her feelings about being “like a man” are linked with experience in Germany, it is clear that Leyla has a strong sense of independence that other return migrants also share. Like other returnees, she was the subject of gossip, but was also able to forge friendships with neighbors like Şebnem, who respected or at least accepted her views. In some sense, Selim’s absence in and of itself contributes to Leyla’s happiness, increasing her autonomy and even the equality of their relationship. But, Leyla’s feelings about Selim extend beyond their own personal relationship to the shared project of parenting they undertake. Leyla appreciates that Selim is a caring father, which he has demonstrated on several dramatic occasions. As she put it once while we shared tea and freshly made börek, “He is bad tempered (huysuz), but at least he cares about making a family.” In the next section, I describe how Selim fulfills Leyla’s ideal for a good father.

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A CARING FATHER The most dramatic occasion when Selim demonstrated his love for his family was when Leyla gave birth for the fourth time to two twin girls, Hande and Biray. Both twins were sickly, but one of the twins, Biray, was very sick from birth and had to stay in the hospital. She came home for just a few days, but eventually had to go back into intensive care. In her memoir, Leyla describes a morning when she was making poğaça (a bun-like food usually eaten at breakfast) and straightening up her house. Selim was visiting Biray at the hospital and bringing clothing and other needed supplies. She writes: My aunt’s daughter-in-law walked in. Just as I was about to sit down, my neighbor and mother appeared one by one. My mother asked if I had already had tea and hastily said that we should all have tea together. In that moment, the idea of my daughter being dead came into my mind. I told them ‘Cut to the chase; tell me the truth!’ They all wanted to speak, but my mother started talking. She said ‘Look, my child! Everything is possible in this life. People go through a great deal of pain and misery. And it is our duty to be patient and calm. You too will remain patient.’

Acting patiently (with sabır) is an ethical practice through which people show their Muslim piety in Turkey (Işik 2008). Leyla could not be patient at that time and finally learned the bad news. “My mind stopped working. The whole world stopped turning. I was unable to think! When god created mankind, only one name was given to females and that was the name, ‘mother’. Humans, animals or plants are no exception to this. A mother’s heart feels everything. There was no describing how I felt when I had my first child and when I lost my baby. It was an unimaginable, unfathomable feeling. Deep down, I still cry to this day.” Indeed, on the rare occasions when the topic of Biray’s death comes

up, Leyla is soon crying. As I discussed in the previous chapter, motherhood is highly valued in Turkey, an experience that gives meaning to women’s lives and through which they gain respect in their communities. Beyond this, a mother’s love is one of the most profound emotions in Turkey, a bond that endures and transcends all others, the subject of innumerable songs and films. At this moment of losing her daughter, Selim immediately came to Leyla’s mind. She relates in her memoir, “What did he do? How did he take all of this? He was at the hospital, but he wasn’t expecting any of this. It turns out that our daughter had died the night before, but no one called us, despite our contact information being available at the hospital. No one bothered to notify us of this heartbreaking situation.” This lack of courtesy

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or care on the part of the hospital added to their pain and possibly contributed to Leyla’s negative feelings about Turkish doctors (discussed in the next chapter). “I spoke with my husband, and this was how he explained it, ‘I went to the hospital and looked for the nurse. She took me to the doctor’s room and they explained the situation. I got aggressive and knocked over some furniture. Security guards came and escorted me out. I got a bottle of water and that’s all I remember. I can’t tell you if I actually drank that water or just spilled it onto the ground.’” Selim is so distraught his

memories are fragments. Leyla next describes the events leading up to burying her daughter and how she and Selim felt the night Biray was buried. “That night was a sleepless night for me and my husband. We were both waiting for each other to fall asleep so that we could go and dig up our daughter’s grave and bring her home. We just couldn’t bear the idea of our daughter sleeping underground and getting wet in the rain. We are still grieving and our pain is still fresh.” Despite the enormous pain she feels, Leyla finds one consolation. “My dear baby, Biray, didn’t forget to leave her memory with us. Both of her eyes were blue and she left one with her twin, Hande. Hande’s one eye is blue and the other is brown. For that reason, we all think that the twins are now one and together. This helps us find consolation.” She adds, “Human beings must endure a great deal of pain and sadness. No matter what happens we must endure. The suffering I went through in my past was terrible, but nothing compared to this, the loss of my child. Regardless, life goes on. I have a husband and other children. My husband is a good father, and we are lucky to have him. You know how I was afraid to get married? I am glad I did. Now I realize that not everybody is the same.”

Leyla has also told me about other occasions when Selim displayed his anger or sadness in relation to his engagement with the children. During the semester when Recep was away at college, through a misunderstanding, they received the incorrect information that he had died in a car accident. Selim cried. Leyla related, “See, even though he is bad tempered, when there was this scare about Recep being dead, there were tears in his eyes.” Another time, during one of the weeks that Selim was in Turkey, Miray was visiting, and Sanem was on a four-day break from university. Sanem chose to go to the seaside with Miray without seeing her father, and Selim was very angry about this. Leyla explained, “When she came for just four days, she immediately went out (gezmeye). Sanem just spent time with Miray and didn’t even come home to see Selim, so Selim was very mad about this disrespect. We are both mad at Miray, but Miray realizes that she made a mistake. They both do.” This seems to be a prime example of Miray not acting appropriately

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and facilitating behavior that is perceived as disrespectful to family members—not realizing that a daughter should at least greet her father if possible. I don’t know whether she acts this way knowingly or out of ignorance, but it likely contributes to Leyla’s sense that Miray is so “German-ized” and “free” that she could never live in Turkey today. By expressing sadness, worry, anger, and a desire for respect from his children, Selim demonstrates that he is a caring family man. As with showing anger and jealousy towards a wife, anger at one’s children is also a way of showing love for them. Selim thus meets the standards that Leyla (and many others in Turkey) apply for an ideal husband and father. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that Leyla says he makes her happy. A HAPPY MARRIAGE Leyla’s struggle to achieve her ideal marriage is not finished, but she has shaped a marriage that she finds loving and deeply satisfying. Leyla and Selim’s personal romance, their family’s approval, and his being a good father make Leyla happy with Selim. She is glad that Selim supports their family financially and expresses his love clearly (though rarely) in highly emotional outbursts. To understand why Selim makes Leyla happy we need to understand the cultural contexts that Leyla knows, the meanings of marriage and gender for her, and her life experiences. This chapter analyzed Leyla’s marriage in relation to critical transformations: a transformation from youth to adulthood, a transformation from fear and embarrassment to love and acceptance, a transformation of conflict surrounding gender roles to a happy resolution, and a transformation of gossip about women’s independence to discourses about ethical motherhood. Some of these transformations are ones that all Turkish women experience through marriage (for example, a transition from youth to adulthood), some stem from specific life events (for example, Leyla’s experience of sexual abuse), and some are inflected by the effect of Leyla and Selim’s transnational movement (for example, renegotiation of gender roles in marriage). Regardless of what is unique or shared between Leyla and others—migrant or non-migrant—her transnational movements foster a sense of courage and self-reliance that helps her confront all of life’s junctures. Experiencing another country over a long period of time can foster a liberation from fixed gender norms—not an absence of norms, but a consciousness of alternatives. Leyla is aware of discourses about honor, motherhood, women’s care of households and husbands, and modest dress for married women in Turkey. And, she is also aware of discourses about education, independence, and working outside the home that are common in Germany

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(and among certain social groups in Turkey as well). Foucault (1997) points out that freedom is the starting point for ethical reflection. But, it is important to note that freedom does not imply an isolated work on the self as much as it does a wider worldview that becomes an impetus to also negotiate alternatives with others. Leyla does not simply decide how to be a woman by herself—she negotiates womanhood with Selim, her children, her neighbors, and her coworkers. The changing gender norms that she negotiates are not sudden but reflect gradual evolutions of her own and others’ ideas about what constitutes a “good woman.” Being ethical also involves being good with and for others. Like every marriage, Leyla’s is imperfect. Combating gossip about being a “single mother” and about many other topics is a constant battle for Leyla—a battle that is brought on by her migration background and that she addresses by drawing on her own ethical framework and discourses about German lifeworlds. The next chapter examines these battles with gossip further. It explores how Leyla and other migrants draw on transnational experiences as they negotiate belonging in communities.

notes 1. When discussing her childhood abuse, Leyla was always careful to distinguish the sexual abuse and sadism that she experienced from “normal” discipline meted out by fathers. 2. These views even extend beyond Germany and Turkey. For example, in her review of kinship studies, Janet Carsten (2004) notes that the individual has historically been seen as “quasi-sacred” in the West, while non-Western societies have been characterized by social bonds of “holism” (87). 3. This statistic comes from the Turkish government and may be reached here: www .turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=21519. Accessed 12 April 2017. 4. Jealousy and violence are also quite prevalent in marriage relationships in “the West.” Beverly Weber (2013) cites a study conducted by Muller et al (2008) that showed that the incidence of violence between German-Turks and ethnic Germans was not significantly different, although the experience of that violence was different (16). See also Sev’er 1998. 5. When Leyla claims that Syrians are a “different type of Muslim” and not “good Muslims” in her view, I presume that she means that they are ruled by a member of the Shi’ah and not Sunni Muslim sect. Importantly, these comments were made well before Syrians began migrating to Turkey in large numbers to escape war. 6. For discussions of companionate marriage, see: Hart (2007), Hirsch (2007), Hirsch and Wardlow (2006). 7. Muslim women have long been central to the modern-traditional binary in Orientalist literature and, historically, “became the focal point of the colonialist projects of Western powers” (Charrad 2011: 419). Even today, the supposed oppression of Afghani and Iraqi women has justified US military interventions in those countries.

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8. See Ferree (2012) for a comprehensive account of German feminism through history. 9. For more information on Turkish feminists’ struggles, see: Kandiyoti 1987; Sirman 1989; Tekeli 1988. In their analysis of honor killings in Turkey, Sev’er, and Yurdakal (2001) note that “effective women’s rights solutions must be developed within the social system of which they are a part.” They note it is “more constructive to creatively build on the positive aspects of the entrenched social system than to impose culturally irrelevant ideas or Eurocentric interventions” (993).

CH A PTER

4 S H A PI N G A COM M U N I T Y A Dream Comes True

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ “MY DREAM IS COMING TRUE”

“M

y dream is coming true!” Leyla whispered during our embrace after I walked in her front door. Proceeding to her living room, I see that about 20 women are sitting on her couches and listening to a lecture about parenting given to them by a psychologist. “If your child is not doing well in school, before you scold him or her, you should try to find out the reason,” the psychologist urges. “Is it possible that he or she has a learning disability? This means that special assistance is required at school. Is it possible that he or she has an attention disorder and cannot even sit still? If so, there is a medicine for this. Is there a problem with the teacher or their classmates? You have to investigate this.” The women are listening raptly, wide-eyed and with frozen, embarrassed smiles, as if she has seen through to their secrets. In contrast to the women who are wearing headscarves and modest floor length skirts, the psychologist is professionally dressed in a tight, plaid pantsuit. In her early 50s, she has bushy brown hair, glasses, and a serious, somewhat intimidating, demeanor that I recognize as a “Turkish teaching persona.” She passes out folders containing information about the special education center where she works. Her center provides support services for children with learning disabilities, mental and physical disabilities, and psychological issues. In addition to a brochure and a letter to parents, one handout explains how learning disabilities can be identified; for example, if

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a parent notices that her or her child used a finger during reading. Another pamphlet explains the normal stages of child development. The pamphlet informs, for example, that three year olds can say their last name and six year olds can distinguish their right and left hands. I later learn that Leyla met this psychologist at the center where her mentally disabled and hearingimpaired daughter, Hande, receives instruction. During the psychologists’ presentation, Leyla and her daughters serve tea and basic sugar cookies to the attendees. After the presentation, the women ask the psychologist questions. One asks: “My daughter won’t listen to me; she won’t help around the house. What do you recommend?” The psychologist smiles, “Yes, this is a problem. But, ladies, remember that your daughters need to do their homework. If they are constantly helping you with cooking or cleaning, how are they going to do well in school?” The next question is about a son who won’t listen to his mother and is constantly jumping on the furniture and running around the house. “He may be hyperactive. You should take him to a doctor to test this, or you can make an appointment with us,” the psychologist advises. After the presentation, the psychologist moves to Leyla’s back room where she can consult with women individually about issues in private. The attendees also ask to use Leyla’s computer to make doctor’s appointments. The Turkish state hospitals now accept appointments online, and Leyla’s is apparently one of the few homes that have a computer and Internet connection at this time. It seems that the psychol-

FIGURE 4.1. Scene of houses in an Istanbul neighborhood. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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ogist’s presentation prompted many to want to investigate possible medical issues immediately. The women in Leyla’s living room are the regular attendees of her gün (literally “day” in Turkish; also called kabul günü or women’s reception day). Güns are common social gatherings for female neighbors in Turkey. A typical gün involves shared food and conversation among 10 to 20 women and the orderly exchange of a set amount of money. At the time of the meeting with the psychologist, Leyla had been meeting for several months with these women who were all mothers of children in Mert’s first grade class. When the gün started, each woman drew a name out of a bowl to see what would be her “weeks” of receiving money and hosting the other women. Each week, the gün would move to a different woman’s house, and the host was responsible for preparing two savory and two sweet dishes to serve to the guests, such as meat and cheese börek, stuffed collard greens or grape leaves, bulgur salad, vanilla cake, and sugar cookies. No matter what food was on offer, tea was the main course and was often followed by Turkish coffee in the late afternoon. At Leyla’s gün, the agreed upon amount of money exchanged was 10 TL (~5 USD at that time) per person per week. This is the lowest amount that I have ever heard of as an amount of exchange at a gün, and clearly indicates the meager means of some of the attendees. In most cases exchanges are closer to 50 TL (~25 USD) or a piece of gold worth between 150–200 TL (~75–100 USD). All of the women were housewives with just a high school education and were married to low-skilled laborers—factory workers, construction workers, or maintenance workers at the nearby airport. They could be considered lower-middle class, and I could discern only very subtle distinctions in wealth among them. Most had a furniture set in their living room consisting of a couch and two chairs covered in a colorful block pattern and a tile coffee table on wheels (usually the only dining table). Hand-embroidered doilies and fake flowers lined buffets filled with dishes for special occasions. A large television was a universal focal point of their living rooms, although there was often a bookcase, which contained religious texts and family photographs. Attendees’ kitchens were undecorated and spotless, in other words, functional. Before Mert’s sünnet (his circumcision ceremony described in Chapter 2), Leyla’s furniture was among the shabbiest, but afterwards it was similar to that of the other women. Though their husbands’ professions carried a similar social and class status to Leyla’s, as a former (at the time of the gün) working woman and as a German-Turk, Leyla had been exposed to a different social circle with different opportunities and challenges than her neighbors. Inviting the psychologist to speak to her gün attendees is a clear example of Leyla’s difference from them. Typically, güns serve several purposes, but formal presentations— education—is generally not one of them.

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Güns are primarily social gatherings where friendships are forged. Women can discuss difficulties and support one another. For those in Leyla’s social circle, the gün fostered bonds among neighbors who shared the experience of mothering young children in an Istanbul suburb. At Leyla’s gün, the women also recited the Qur’an and prayed together, so their gün was an event that brought them religious merits as well. When one of the women celebrated a big event, such as a circumcision or a wedding, the gün attendees would also attend, and they would purchase a collective gift if someone moved into a new house. For example, most attended Mert’s circumcision celebration, participated in a kina gecesi (pre-wedding celebration) that Leyla organized for me, and purchased a set of dishes for me when I married. Another purpose of güns is to help women obtain needed money (beyond their usual allowance for household needs from their husbands) to assist them with savings or making large purchases. For example, the women at Leyla’s gün would receive 140 TL (~70 USD) on their “day” and could use this money to purchase new clothes for their children, a small kitchen appliance, or other household supplies. In general, Leyla’s gün seemed to be on the serious side of güns that I’ve observed—with the exception of a kina gecesi that they organized for me, I never saw raucous laughter, singing, or dancing or, for that matter, tears and arguments. One reason for the somber nature of Leyla’s gün may be that the women were not old friends but were simply parents of children in the same class, and many were getting to know each other for the first time through the gün. Another possible reason for the gün’s style could be the participants’ religiosity. In contrast to Leyla, all the attendees wore headscarves and most fastened them tightly with a pin indicating that they were adherents in some capacity to the Islamist movement. Although the attendees would loosen their headscarves or remove them after they arrived, they carefully refastened them before leaving the house and did not want to be photographed or seen by unrelated men without wearing their scarves. Only during the Qur’anic reading would Leyla and I put on headscarves. At some point during the gatherings, most of the women would go to another room to perform one of the five daily prayers required for Muslims. Although Leyla could also be considered a supporter of the Islamist movement, she held different ideas about Islamic dress and practice. (I discuss Leyla’s religiosity and what I mean by “Islamist” in the following chapter.) On the day the psychologist visited, Leyla seemed to be barely able to contain her satisfaction with the proceedings, and when I caught her for a minute alone in the kitchen, she gushed, “I can’t believe it! It’s really happened. I did it,” with a huge smile. She had a right to be proud—I am not aware of other home-based educational forums with such invited guests. I was particularly happy for Leyla because, as she says, it was the culmina-

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tion of a dream. Barbara Wolbert (1996) argues that güns can be a key to returnees’ reintegration in Turkey and that rejections by participants at güns can signal concern about women’s newly companionate marriages or other relationship changes due to migration. It was too long after Leyla’s return to Turkey to see her gün as significant for her “reintegration.” But, the gün did represent a measure of community acceptance. Leyla longed for respect and appreciation from neighbors, and one way she sought to achieve it was through leading community education at her gün. Several times in the years before the meeting with the psychologist, Leyla had told me that her life-long dream was to give classes to women about the things she had learned in life. “It could be like as part of a gün,” she told me one day. “I would just talk to them or invite teachers or doctors to talk about child health and anatomy, women’s rights, religion, English, and computer classes. Rather than thinking about what they are going to make for dinner or gossiping about whose daughter-in-law did what, I could do something useful for them.” She went on to explain that she learned so much from raising Hande, which necessitated her going to different hospitals and meeting doctors and psychiatrists. At the time of this conversation, which was two years before the gün, she was not optimistic about making any such community meeting happen. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any official certificate (yetkili belgesi) saying that I am qualified to do this. Of course, there is also the fact that most of my neighbors would rather gossip. But, I think if I started the group, they would come, and they would like it.” They did come, and they did like it. The meeting with the psychologist was the successful culmination of Leyla’s dream to help educate her neighbors. As a result of this first home meeting, Leyla told me, “The education center said that they realized that the best way to reach parents was to actually go to people’s houses. Now, it is becoming an official plan for the district.” The presence of a strong central state means that the ability to educate, even privately, must usually be sanctioned through a state document in Turkey—an official certificate—as Leyla says. And yet, through her ingenuity, Leyla orchestrated a model for community education that the state later adopted itself. Unfortunately, tragedy struck Leyla yet again a few months later and her involvement in arranging community visits was put on hold: her son Recep began having seizures for which no medical explanation has yet been found. He had to quit his job at the local computer repair shop because the family suspected that being near computers might be causing the seizures. He is now working at a nearby gas station. However, he has already had one seizure at work, causing him to pass out for almost two hours. Now, Leyla worries that he might be fired soon. Though I haven’t observed them, I am told the seizures are terrifying. Blood has flowed from Recep’s eyes, and Ceren

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said that Recep looks as if he might attack someone during a seizure. She was not able to sleep for several nights after seeing one, and the whole family is trying to keep Mert from seeing one, fearing that he would get too scared. Attending to all of Recep’s doctor’s visits, meant that Leyla had to stop attending her gün. However, she was still glad about arranging at least the one meeting with the psychologist and told me, “Now, I am a person that even more people come to for help. I make them feel comfortable. They trust me.” NEIGHBORLINESS AND CITIZENSHIP THROUGH EDUCATION AND ACTION This educational session with the psychologist is just one vivid illustration of Leyla’s efforts to educate neighbors, to improve her community, and to find acceptance. These efforts are the focus of this chapter. The next three sections further examine Leyla’s self-education and education of others. Leyla and other returnees value widely shared Turkish ideals for neighbors—ideals for hospitality, care, respect, and order. The process of migration leads to novel combinations of educational goals as part of neighborly actions. Inviting a psychologist to speak to neighbors at a gün is a prime example of such combinations, a way of becoming a caring neighbor for Leyla. Education is both a means and an end, a means of becoming a good neighbor and citizen, as well as an intrinsically worthy undertaking. The chapter then turns to citizenship projects and examines Leyla and other migrants’ discussions and actions surrounding rights, respect, equality, and active (ethical) citizenship. Some return migrants prefer to associate largely with other returnees, but for those like Leyla, who seek belonging in local communities, education is a means of combating gossip and anti-migrant stigma and of attaining respect and acceptance as neighbors and citizens. Leyla dedicates significant time to learning in a broad sense, to constantly educating herself through reading books, watching educational television programs, attending seminars, visiting museums, and talking with learned members of her community. It is no accident that she forged a friendship with an American PhD student, someone open-minded and knowledgeable about different cultures, and someone who clearly symbolizes learning and power. Self-education prompts Leyla to become an engaged, active citizen and spurs her to reshape neighbors; for example, to urge her neighbors to greater education and social action. Leyla shared her wisdom on parenting, religion, housekeeping, dealing with the state, and many other topics with her neighbors and family during conversations at parks, at schools, in neighbors’ homes, and in her own. She was a wealth of thoughtful, supportive, although often difficult advice that usually centered on the importance of self-cultivation and self-reliance. Her impetus

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to educate emerged from her desire to improve herself and her community, and these efforts were mutually reinforcing. As Ricoeur (1992) tells us, ethics are about how we experience ourselves in interaction with others: Leyla’s ethical work is part of her work on herself and her fellow neighbor-citizens, and vice versa. Neighbors matter greatly to people in Turkey, because the state often does not meet needs for material support and family welfare, and their neighbors often do. However, neighbors also matter because neighborhoods reflect the ethical aims of the larger community—people care that their community is honorable and that neighbors are compassionate, respectful, and orderly. For most people in Turkey, hospitality, politeness, and helpfulness are among the most valued neighborly traits. Return migrants like Leyla are unique in their additional emphasis on education. In general, the possibility of receiving and giving education is only open to a select few at the upper end of Turkey’s class hierarchy. Thus, by educating herself and others, Leyla is extending beyond customary social roles for her class and helping others to do the same also. Leyla uses education to find and to feel acceptance in her community, but this is a messy process characterized by misunderstandings, rejection, and conflict. “Reintegration,” which is so often the focus of return migration studies, is not a valid conceptualization of migrants’ community relationships. Leyla’s struggles over community belonging are dynamic: education of self and others, neighborliness, and citizenship are emerging, enduring social projects. In fact, the project of community belonging seemed less messy for Leyla than it was for many other return migrants who chose to isolate themselves from local communities. Leyla’s story of achieving community belonging is, thus, a success story, and one that also sets her apart from many other returnees. The next section explores the variety of self-education efforts that Leyla undertook and examines how neighbors judged her “education.” It also compares Leyla’s experiences with those of other return migrants to highlight the significance of discourses on education among returnees and to show how returnees use such discourses for projects of belonging in different migrant and non-migrant social groups. BEFRIENDING AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: CULTIVATING SELF-EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY “I cannot believe that an American is sitting on my couch! I never thought that would happen,” Leyla’s aunt exclaimed with a chuckle. After we left her house, Leyla confided that people are amazed that she has found an Amer-

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ican to take around with her. “It’s as if you came from outer space. If I visit people with an Almancı, people just say ‘Oh, an Almancı, we’ve seen them before.’ But, an American is really unique.” Having known Leyla for many years, I’m pretty sure that I was not just a spectacle, an alien that she showed off around town. But what was I to her? Our relationship was built on caring, loyalty, laughter, and more, but for both of us, it also had a greater significance. Our friendship is relevant for understanding Leyla’s goals and values, and in a sense, it should also be subject to ethnographic analysis. I always felt like I got more from her than I gave to her, that our friendship created a debt that I could never fully repay. For me, Leyla was a way into the lives of German-Turks. She was someone intimately involved in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field, engaged in fascinating activities and readily able to express her thoughts and memories. Often, I was bowled over by her acceptance of me and by the depth with which she shared her feelings. She was literally the reason that I am able to write a book, this book. It seemed that a few presents and a lot of “thank you”s were all that she received from me. But our friendship was not as one-sided as I sometimes perceived it. As an American pursuing an advanced degree, I could be considered a powerful person. Although I do not personally have strong political connections, as citizens of the world’s most powerful country, Americans are perceived as powerful in Turkey. Politically, Turkey and the United States have gone from being historically strong allies to angry adversaries in recent years, although both governments repeatedly stress enduring ties and shared goals. Aside from its economic and political power, the United States is also a major source of cultural ideas via music, movies, and television, exporting standards of beauty, consumption practices, and values like freedom and individualism. For better or worse, slim blonde women, Coca Cola, and “cool” are global exports. Americans are thought to be friendly and polite compared to Europeans. Many Turks think that all Americans are rich and beautiful like sitcom actors, though people with experience abroad, like Leyla, are astute enough to realize that media portrayals are not always accurate. While German and German-Turkish visitors are not uncommon, many lower-middle class Turks like Leyla and her neighbors have little experience with the few American tourists in Turkey, who typically do not venture outside of the major tourist areas, much less visit in people’s homes. Leyla’s aunt was naturally surprised to be hosting an American, and I must have brought a certain amount of prestige to Leyla in accompanying her. Our friendship was also centered around an exchange of knowledge and pursuits of education that others in Leyla’s social class would find unusual. For example, one afternoon, after one of Hande’s many trips to the dentist (described in Chapter 2), Leyla suggested stopping by the Military Museum,

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which was near the dental clinic and on our way home. Hande’s dentist appointments were always difficult and left us drained, so it seemed like a visit to the museum could cheer us all up. The museum is sprawling and filled with mostly staid displays of uniforms, weapons, and military documents. However, there is a colorful panoramic exhibit of the conquering of Istanbul, and the building itself is ironically a peaceful place to wander, despite the violent themes. Leyla and I marveled over a piece of the iconic iron chain on display that supposedly cut off sea traffic to the Golden Horn during the conquering of Istanbul. We snapped a photo together next to a large warplane outside of the museum’s main doors, and on the spur of the moment Leyla bought me a souvenir key chain. Leyla said that she loved being there and was in a much better mood afterward. Visiting this museum with me was one way that Leyla cultivated selfeducation and acted uncharacteristically for someone of her social class. In Turkey, college-educated, upper-middle classes, school children, and tourists usually undertake visits to museums. When Leyla later tried to arrange a return visit with some non-migrant neighbors, they initially agreed but then all cancelled at the last minute. Leyla constantly and often quite consciously worked on her self-improvement through a private, self-directed program of study, which she felt made her different from her neighbors. She frequently watched educational television programs, such as Dr. Oz, and read widely on topics ranging from gardening to atheism. One day, she related, “I wanted to go to university. I wish that it were free, that I had that opportunity, because I love to read and learn. Most housewives would rather gossip than be educated, but not me. I love reading, because I like to imagine and learn about other worlds. For example, I recently started reading about rose bushes and chestnut trees and imagining that I would have them near my house someday and know how to grow them.” Another time, she explained that she loved theatre and wished that there was a theatre in Huzurköy. “But, when I talk about theatre around here, people say that this is European and Western and that I am crazy (deli). If you don’t have an official certificate (vizekart), then you are not supposed to be interested in such things as a housewife. They would rather spend time gossiping. Smart people discuss ideas, medium smart people discuss events and stupid people gossip.” Leyla frequently discussed her religious self-education with me and others. As I explore in the next chapter, she lamented that she was not able to receive appropriate Muslim religious training as a student in Germany. But, she often emphasized that this lack of training did not prevent her from pursuing her own self-education on the topic of religion (or on any other topic) years later. “In addition to books about Islam, I read books about Christianity and Judaism,” she explained. “The women at my gün are not educated at all. If they read anything, they only read Islamic books. But they should also

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read atheists. One must read them to understand the other side. Otherwise, you cannot discuss with them. I read all kinds of religious books and am ready to discuss religion with anyone. A good Muslim can have educated discussions.” As she raised this topic with me frequently, I presume that she appreciated being able to discuss such topics with a non-Muslim and with someone who is open to all types of ideas. Her willingness to engage intellectually even with atheism is extremely unusual in most communities in Turkey, where studies show that people look on atheism with horror.1 Leyla’s transnational experience led her not only to appreciate a plurality of ethical perspectives, but also to enjoy intellectual engagement with diverse views. I didn’t always realize that Leyla might view our time together as consisting of educated discussions between “smart people,” because such interactions were normal for my social position, my class, and my educational level. Visiting museums and reading about and discussing theatre and world religions are normal, everyday parts of my life. Only with hindsight have I realized their significance for Leyla. Leyla contrasted our reading and discussing such topics with the gossip that is the common content of discussion among her neighbors. In addition to our discussions, I taught Leyla how to use e-mail, created a CV for her, helped her apply for jobs online, visited Ceren’s English class, and gave books to Sanem for a school project. For me, these acts were not especially significant, because they were not difficult. But for Leyla, knowing me was a valued means to achieving more in her life. Self-education can be seen as a type of ethical “work on the self ” (Foucault 1997) through which Leyla strives to improve herself. She sought every opportunity to educate herself, and I was one of those opportunities. For myself, I can say that I studied anthropology because I was drawn to learning about different lives and worldviews. I wanted to learn about the ideas of people like Leyla, and she wanted to learn about the ideas of people like me. Our friendship was a total joy, but, also, an intellectual and ethical project for us both. The next section examines how self-education impels Leyla and other returnees to seek, in turn, to educate others. EDUCATION AND ORDER Migrants like Leyla draw on their observations and experiences with German and Turkish neighbors. Education is an important ethical project for return migrants because of the (perceived) high value that Germans place on education. Many people in Turkey believe that Germans are “very educated” both through high quality schools in Germany and because Germans

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self-educate and “value knowledge.” It is common to hear people express their respect for “European expertise,” even if they otherwise criticize European familial or religious values. Education is also highly valued by members of all classes in Turkey, where even elementary school teachers are treated with the highest levels of respect.2 Experience in Germany informs migrants’ notions of what it means to “be educated” and also the content of the educational projects migrants undertake. For example, knowledge of Germany likely directed Leyla’s interests in reading about diverse religions, gardening, and theatre, which are not common interests among Turkish lower-middle classes. Some neighbors did not approve of these efforts, which they directly labeled “European” or “Western.” To combat these discourses, Leyla contrasted “their” gossip with “her” educated discussions. Like other migrants, Leyla was frequently outspoken in sharing her opinions and knowledge. One example occurred on a day when the gün was at Ayfer’s house. Her small living room was overcrowded with women perched on every available seat, and several were forced to sit on the floor amidst crawling children. After the exchange of greetings, the topic turned to Leyla’s outspokenness. “I’m not shy,” she explained to the group. “This is something that has happened with age and because I’ve lived in Germany. Over time, things just bothered me more and more. You know, there is no respect (saygı) in our country. I lived in Germany for 20 years and have been in Turkey for 20 years. And, when I came back to Turkey it was very difficult for me.” She went onto give examples of situations where she felt mistreated: “I went into a store and saw something for 10 TL and paid 10 TL. I didn’t know about bargaining (pazarlık). It’s terrible.” German-Turks are often perceived as wealthy or ignorant by shopkeepers because they do not understand how to bargain. But bargaining is widespread and perfectly socially acceptable in many contexts in Turkey, and Leyla’s neighbors may not have understood her complaint. They were entirely mute in response. Leyla then told a story about giving birth to her first child in a hospital in Turkey. She tried to call over a doctor using the address “Doctor.” He replied, “I won’t come to help you unless you call me, Doctor Bey.” “Bey” literally means “mister,” and would add respect and formality to the label “Doctor,” in this case. “I was having an emergency, and he should have helped me!” she asserted forcefully. This time, those listening responded with mild agreement rather than absolute silence, but I’m not sure that they entirely understood why she would expect the doctor to accept such a breach of etiquette. Leyla perceived such incidents as a lack of respect (saygı) for individual citizens in Turkey. When she did not find the esteem she sought in interactions in daily life, she often sought understanding from sympathetic neighbors. The attendees of her gün were friendly and welcoming to her. The fact

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that they attended the meeting she arranged with the psychologist speaks volumes. But I observed numerous occasions when Leyla’s views were not understood by neighbors. For instance, one day at the gün, conversation turned to Leyla’s outspoken criticism of one member’s attempt to sell what Leyla considered to be inferior cleaning products at their previous meetings. Leyla felt that the products were low quality, and she did not appreciate that they were not a Turkish brand. “You have to be careful about what you buy and read all of the labels, which tell you where the product is made,” she explained pedantically. Ayfer commented, “I am not able to be this forceful.” In fact, women often said that Leyla “is very talkative” and “not afraid to express her views.” Leyla never seemed offended by such comments, despite the inference that she was different from the others. Rather, she relished the opportunity to teach and model educated neighborliness. Opportunities often presented themselves. One day, after we dropped Mert off at school and were walking back to her house, Leyla suggested we visit her neighbor Şebnem for the afternoon. Even though we had not prearranged the visit, it was perfectly acceptable to simply show up at Şebnem’s house. This is called “çat kapı,” meaning literally “bang door” or “sudden door” in Turkish. People in Turkey are typically honored when guests choose to visit them, seeing this as an opportunity to demonstrate their hospitality; they rarely say that entertaining visitors is a burden. In fact, it would be considered extremely rude to refuse a guest at your door. Leyla’s neighbor Necla was an almost daily visitor, but Leyla also visited or was visited by at least 5 to 10 other neighbors per week. Leyla was an ideal neighbor in this respect: she would always insist that she was very happy to see every guest and that she was available at any time, even when it was obvious that she was not truly available and actually quite busy. Several times she told me, “There is no need to call me before coming over to my house, Susan. Just come over whenever you wish.” However, I could never quite break the habit of calling first to evaluate how busy she might actually be. Although Leyla is quite independent, like most people in Turkey, strong neighborly relations are very important her. Traditional proverbs about neighbors abound in Turkey and attest to the importance of these relationships. For example, “Don’t buy a house, buy a neighbor” (Ev alma komşu al), means that neighbors should be considered a factor when purchasing a house. In addition to güns, there are numerous neighborly activities that people perform, including daily home visits among women with nearby female neighbors and relatives, daily visits among men in public coffee houses, and formal visits between two or more families to discuss issues like their children’s potential engagement. Neighbors also interact with each through larger and more formal groups, such as sohbets, religious discussions usually, but not always, among women; and kermes, women’s preparation and sale of

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food and handcrafts to benefit the poor. (Leyla did not participate in either of these types of groups.) As in other Mediterranean societies (Herzfeld 1987), hospitality (misafirperverlik or konukseverlik) is arguably one of the most highly valued Turkish ethical aims. Both migrants and non-migrants are appreciative of “Turkish” hospitality, which includes the frequent hosting of neighbors in one’s home and exchanges of food and assistance. Acting as a hospitable neighbor is part of showing that one is well mannered (terbiyeli), comes from a respectable family, and is a religious Muslim. Most Turks think of themselves as more hospitable than people from other cultures, and returnees often comment that Germans rarely visit one another in their homes, preferring to meet in a public restaurant or café, instead, where each person pays for what they order separately. Turks view separate payment as an example of a lack of generosity; they even have a well-known phrase for this style of payment: the “German way” (Alman usulu). Suggesting the usage of the “German way” implies that one does not know or care for others or that one is stingy, selfish, or individualistic. On the day that Leyla and I visited Şebnem, like a good hostess, she appeared to be happy to see us and to have had no other plans for that day. She looked like she was dressed for housework, wearing a purple-black-andblue headscarf, a black hand-knit sweater, and red-and-blue şalvar (Turkishstyle loose pants). Şebnem greeted us with a big smile and invited us to sit down on two mismatched patterned couches facing each other in a small sitting room. She offered us a bit of cologne to refresh our hands, loosened her headscarf, and she and Leyla began smoking cigarettes companionably. They discussed their children and me and my purpose for being in Huzurköy. After a short time, Şebnem left us to prepare a lunch of fried potatoes, sliced tomatoes, white cheese, fresh bread, and tea. She laid a tablecloth out on the floor between the couches and placed the food in small bowls in the center. She then gave Leyla and I forks that we could use to take food from the communal bowls. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, we each placed a small part of the tablecloth over our laps and began to eat. Rather than seeming annoyed that we had disturbed her day, Şebnem apologized to us for not being able to offer us a more elaborate meal. I found the very idea of apologizing to uninvited guests quite strange, but Şebnem was merely demonstrating typical hospitality in Turkey. Shortly after we began eating the lunch that Şebnem had prepared for us, Leyla’s cousin, Rahime, arrived with her 13-year-old son, Esat. They also had shown up without prearranging their visit. Rahime was so thin, I might have suspected her of having an eating disorder, but she eagerly shared our lunch. She was wearing a red-and-orange headscarf with strands of dyed red hair escaping along the edges, further contributing to her wispy appearance.

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By contrast, Esat was chubby with a sluggishness that he must have inherited from his father, as his behavior was in stark contrast to Rahime’s jittery-ness. His slouching shoulders matched his drooping eyelids. After exchanging greetings, Rahime asked Leyla for advice about Esat’s education and career prospects. “He is failing all of his classes. We yell at him. . . . His father yells as him . . . but. . . .” At this point, Rahime began to cry. Esat was staring at the TV stonily, and an awkward tension filled the room. “Oh, what is this? Stop crying like that,” Şebnem said in a typical Turkish mother’s voice, but Rahime’s sobs continued. “Of course, I will help you,” Leyla responded. “I’ve always wanted to help you. I knew there were problems, but I did not want to interfere in your family life. People listen to me, because I have seen Europe. My uncle [Rahime’s father] always used to say: ‘Leyla, you know about education because you’ve seen Europe.’” Rahime nodded meekly. “You must find out Esat’s skills and interests,” Leyla advised. “There must be something that he is good at. You must investigate this. You shouldn’t get mad at him.” Rahime sniffed and nodded shyly. Leyla’s advice seemed similar to the advice that the psychologist had stressed at the gün. By this point in my association with Leyla, I had observed that it was not unusual for a neighbor to come to her for advice and that she very much enjoyed advising others. In the Introduction, I described her advice to Melis; in Chapter 2, I related how her next-door neighbor, Necla, confided in Leyla about her experience of sexual abuse. In both cases, Leyla urged a search for inner strength. She also urged neighbors like Melis and Rahime to engage in research and to educate themselves to become better parents. After Rahime had calmed down somewhat, Leyla explained to her, “If you want your children to be well mannered, you must look at yourself. Look at your behavior first; then you can correct your child.” Leyla’s interaction with Rahime indicates how being a return migrant can lead to prestige on some occasions. Some neighbors believe that migrants have valuable intercultural knowledge. Leyla cultivated friendships with several neighbors and seemed to seek out people who she felt were “educated” in some way. She often mentioned to me that she liked a neighbor named Damla because she had taken computer and English classes and tried to educate herself. Leyla enjoyed inviting her children’s teachers to her house for social visits and on at least one occasion to introduce them to me. Other migrants are similarly engaged with community education. For example, some seek to create more “orderly” communities through neighborly education about maintenance of homes and public spaces (Rottmann 2013). Returnees frequently speak about the importance of “orderliness” (düzgün, düzenli), a quality that they perceive as German, and which they repeatedly use to describe homes, neighborhoods, and cities in Germany. Returnees told others and me that they would like their Turkish neighbors to main-

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tain tasteful and clean houses, clean and quiet public spaces, and to follow rules and laws. They build houses that differ from their neighbors’ in color and style because they stress the need for aesthetic appearances, not simply function. If visible from the street, they plant their gardens with only flowers, as opposed to vegetables as this is more visually pleasing in their view. They complain about their fellow citizens’ littering and their refusal to wait in “orderly” lines. Esra, a middle-aged returnee to the town of Ilçe, related that she missed the order of Germany, saying, “Turkey is our homeland. What can you do? You are forced to adjust to life here. There are uneducated people. There are no rules or laws. . . . To be honest, this seems difficult to us now.” In mixed groups of return migrants and non-migrants she would discuss her views about “order” and how she thought neighbors should behave. Her husband, Yavuz, shared her views. He noted, “We could not integrate with our neighbors. My views are different from those of people here, very different. Because we saw a European country, Turkey seems different to us. . . . People are only this cultured (görgüsü bilgisi bu kadar). You can’t say or do too much.” And yet, like Esra, he constantly told neighbors his feelings about issues, such as the importance of not littering or being excessively noisy. Migrants’ ideas about order stem in part from experiences in Germany, where Ordnung (order) is an important, though contested, ethical aim. But migrants are also linking themselves to Muslim discourses on cleanliness and middle class discourses on the importance of order in neighborhoods (cf. Ayata 2002). In fact, their discussions of order are as much “Turkish” as they are “German.” Esra and Yavuz engage in future-oriented projects of establishing local and national belonging in Turkey and model what they consider to be modernity, good neighborliness, and citizenship (Rottmann 2013). Discussions of order can also be seen as a strategy for combating negative stereotypes about German-Turks’ ignorance and “uncultured-ness.” Esra signals that she is “educated” and Yavuz that he is “cultured,” thereby distancing themselves from the stigma of being perceived as stereotypical German-Turks. The next section examines migrants’ projects of education further by looking closely at how they deal with gossip and negative discourses on return migrants. Educational projects are one means of transforming feelings of stigma into feelings pride. NEGOTIATING ALMANCI BELONGING: SELF-EDUCATION AS A DEFENSIVE STRATEGY It is very common in Turkey to hear people grumbling about neighborly social control, what people call “neighborhood pressure” (mahalle baskısı).

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Individuals complain that neighbors will gossip about them if they are observed doing an activity that is frowned upon, such as drinking alcohol, dressing inappropriately, talking to a member of the opposite sex, and eating or smoking during the daylight hours during Ramadan, and many others. For this reason, some Turks claim to appreciate the freedom and anonymity of city life and not knowing their neighbors. Yet, I found that even if a person grumbles about mahalle baskısı, most people are careful to avoid becoming a subject of gossip. From an American perspective where individuality is highly valued, it might be difficult to comprehend the awfulness of becoming a target of gossip in Turkey. But, in a milieu where neighbors are vital—neighbors are one’s social life and practical support in an environment where the state is often absent—neighborly rejection can be devastating. Discourses on education can be seen as a defensive strategy against the frequent gossip that return migrants face. For example, Leyla told me that she was frequently the subject of gossip. She explained, “In Germany, after you turn 16 years old, you can be outside of the house until 11:00 pm. And, after 18 years old, children can move out of their parents’ house. Even from young ages people live independently in Germany. It is very different in Turkey where you have to be very careful or people will quickly start to gossip. People have even gossiped about me going out on my own—even taking Hande to doctor’s appointments. They say I was sightseeing!” I observed a direct example of neighbors’ sharing concern or disapproval of Leyla’s actions on the day we went to the Military Museum. Leyla received two phone calls while we were at the museum—one from Selim and one from her neighbor Irem. Selim had called to check how Hande’s dentist appointment had gone. He laughed upon hearing that she was at a museum, and they ended the call on good terms. “In the past, he would not have accepted me going to a museum, but he has changed and accepts it now,” she said smiling. This appeared to be another example of Leyla’s successful “education” of Selim. But Irem indicated her disapproval with a snort followed by a series of questions about where Leyla’s other children were while she was at the museum, when Leyla would return home, and how Leyla could afford the entrance fee. I could see Leyla’s face drop during the call. Afterward, with a forced laugh, she said, “I get so frustrated with her.” But she also admitted, “She probably thinks that museums are expensive, and I can’t afford it. But, the entrance is free for me because of Hande’s disability, and the food here was extremely cheap.” (Indeed, water, two teas, a juice and a cake came to just 70 Kuruş [~35 cents]!) Leyla has a different worldview from neighbors like Irem: she values an educational excursion for its own merit and saw this as an act of a good mother, not as a waste of time and money or a socially inappropriate behavior. Later that night Leyla explained, “In Turkey people live for ‘what will people say?’” (“Millet ne diyor?”). She proceeded to tell me again a story

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she had told me previously about having had 31 pairs of pants when she first returned to Turkey, and how her mother threw them all out and demanded she wear skirts. But this time she told the story to illustrate how her mother worries too much about what others think of her. She continued, “Everyone tries to gossip and show off (hava atmak).” How did she handle such constant neighborhood pressure, I wondered? Suddenly, the television series we were watching, “Bugünün Saraylısı” (Today’s Royalty), prompted a conversation that provided an answer. There were two scenes that jumped out to Leyla relating to her concern with “what will people say?” In one scene, a bad mannered, criminal son-in-law is taking the family’s daughter from her home. The father wants to call the police, but the mother says, “Don’t do it! What will people say?” In another scene, a brother is screaming because his mentally ill sister is missing, and his mother tells him to be quiet so the neighbors don’t hear him. “See, what will people say?!” Leyla exclaimed both times. This anxiety about neighborhood gossip seemed to be the subject of the whole show, clearly a common concern for viewers. “I have faced this so much, this concern about what other’s think . . .” Leyla said. “How do you handle it?” I asked. “I just say something to them when they say something to me. I need to have an answer when they say things. I need to educate myself. In that case, it doesn’t matter what they say.” While I found that many other return migrants, and also non-migrants, share Leyla’s complaints about social control in Turkey, few could respond with such aplomb. It seems that her self-education was useful not only for making her a good parent, neighbor, and Muslim, but it was actually a defensive strategy. Self-education enabled her to be a good person in her own ethical worldview, even when not acquiring acceptance from others. Leyla faced gossip because she was outspoken and independent, because Selim was often absent, and because she was a German-Turk. Stigma associated with being a German-Turk largely stems from the images and discourses in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field. Many Turks believe that Germans are “individualistic” (bireysel, bireyci) and do not value neighbors like Turks do. I heard repeated critiques from non-migrants and migrants that in Germany children could move out of their parents’ house when they turn 18 and that even very young people live independently and supposedly don’t care about their families or neighbors. Both non-migrants and migrants told me that “Germans are not smiling-faced” (güler yüzlü) or “warm-hearted/blooded” (sıcak kanlı).” These are both qualities they think Turks possess and that connote friendliness and caring towards family and neighbors. Many Turks believe that migrants have lost valuable cultural knowledge as a result of their time in Germany, including knowledge of reciprocity among neighbors, “Turkish” cultural traditions, and helpfulness and friendliness.

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At the same time, most people believe that returnees have not adopted what they consider to be the positive traits of “Germans,” such as orderliness and self-education (cf. Rottmann 2013). Return migrants are suspect when they enter Turkey where Turks are likely to see them as failures, backwards, or as people who have lost their cultural identity. The Germany-Turkey transnational social field is full of negative images of migrants, and even people with little experience with returnees frequently told me that returnees are “show offs” and excessively “individualistic.” My discussions with Cemil and his daughter, Selin, illustrate the views of non-migrants regarding returnees. Selin told me that I should interview her father, a non-migrant doctor living in Istanbul, to learn more about a typical Turks’ feelings about Almancıs. She explained that “German-Turks” were a frequent topic of conversation in their house, because their neighbors at their summer house are “a completely Almancı family who is always yelling at each other and having loud fights. This is a typical Almancı family.” Selin said to make sure that Cemil “tells me the truth, not just a sugar-coated performance,” but she needn’t have worried. Cemil explained, “German-Turks become more rule-oriented and irritable. They see different rules in Turkey and Germany, and they choose to put Turks down. This is not good. You might even call this losing their identity. Is it really that they are better than us?” One might assume that return migrants from Europe would be viewed as having gained valuable “European knowledge” by those in Turkey. Yet, most Turks do not think that German-Turks have absorbed valuable knowledge from their time in Germany—just the opposite. Images in the GermanTurkish transnational field lead many neighbors to believe migrants have lost valuable Turkish cultural knowledge as they have become more materialistic, like the arrogant show-off played by Ilyas Salmon in the film Sarı Mercedes (Yellow Mercedes), who values his precious Mercedes above everyone that he meets. For Cemil, the attitudes displayed by German-Turks indicates their cultural corruption. Other non-migrants argue that Turks have failed to become “modern” in Germany. For example, several non-migrants informed me, “German-Turks are living in Germany like people did in Turkey 30 years ago.” They claim that German-Turks are stuck in time with outdated traditions or uncultured behaviors, such as talking loudly, as Selin mentions when she tells me about “the completely Almanci family” who are her neighbors. Incidentally, loudness is not only perceived as inappropriate for modern life, but also one sign of being lower class and not sufficiently cultured for middle-class Turks. Non-migrants also complain that German-Turks act hypocritically. For instance, Cemil explained that he feels they do not apply what they have learned in Germany in Turkey. For example, it is illegal to barbeque in public spaces in Germany and Turkey, but German-Turks follow this rule

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only in Germany. “For this reason, Turkey does not develop as a country.” It is difficult to tease out the several strands of Cemil and Selin’s scorn: are they more troubled about how German-Turks represent Turkey negatively in Germany, about German-Turk’s losing Turkish identity in Europe; or is their condemnation the result of class conflict or their own personal experiences with one particular family of German-Turks? Whatever the primary reason, we can see the fostering of self-education and educating others as defensive strategies with which migrants like Leyla try to combat the many varieties of anti-migrant stigma. While migrants experience stigma, they can also use their transnational experiences and the ethical discourses they access through this experience to gain prestige and form bonds with some neighbors. In sum, return migrants are able to transform their community belonging through ethical projects of educated and active community membership. Turkey’s political and social ties to Europe are a source of deep anxieties for Turks, and thus the actions of “European Turks” (return migrants) prompt anxieties. Despite the fact that returnees are referring to valued class and national discourses, for example, on education, the combination of negative perceptions of returnees and anxieties about Turkey’s “European-ness” result in rejection of their ideas, hurtful gossip, and sometimes rejection of return migrants. Migrants like Leyla use education to combat accusations that they are culturally corrupted, ignorant, irresponsible parents, and showoffs. But, some migrants do not seek or cannot form community ties in this milieu. For example, some returnees spend time primarily with other migrants and complain heartily about non-migrants. One example is the attendees of the Rückkehrer Stammtisch (Returner’s Meeting), a group for elite, cosmopolitan returnees that meets monthly at an expensive restaurant in Istanbul. At meetings, returnees commonly express their frustrations about disrespect and inequality in Germany and Turkey. Like Leyla, they see disrespect in daily life as evidence of unethical and unequal treatment of citizens, but unlike her they choose to spend as much time as possible with other returnees who share their view (Rottmann 2018). For example, Berk, an upper-middle class return migrant to Istanbul, complained about overcrowding on buses, a lack of democratic structures, and disrespectful state officials. “The buses are too crowded, but still the drivers tell people to push back to let more people onto the bus,” he said. “This is disrespectful (saygısızlık)! In Turkey, there is no respect for people, no rights, no law. Whoever is powerful is right.” His exasperation resulted in him repeatedly asking the bus drivers: “Are you moving animals or people?” Returnees often feel so frustrated by the lack of understanding on the part of their neighbors in Turkey that they choose to isolate themselves, even

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though they don’t participate in a formal return migrant group. For example, Derya and Ali, a first-generation return migrant couple to Ilçe, sought to spend as much time as possible with other return migrants, travelling hundreds of miles to visit and share food and stories about Germany. Derya explained that she can more easily understand and be understood (“daha iyi anlaşılır”) by other German-Turks, because they have seen another world, experienced similar things, and have a broader worldview. She said, “It is harder to relate to people in Ilçe who are not as friendly or helpful as we are.” While they still want to host and share with neighbors, they also care about relationships with other migrants. In practice, this results in reduced time for visiting and hosting neighbors in their communities, which, for their neighbors, can lead to the impression that they are antisocial. Return migrants like Derya do not think that they are less interested in hospitality or in nurturing community relationships than their neighbors—they simply feel that they have some new positive ethical aims with regard to their neighbors. Returnees like Berk, Derya, and Ali express a strong sense of transnational belonging. Discourses of complaint about Turkey result from negative experiences in daily life and further tie them into shared discourses on “European” rights and laws or “German-Turkish” friendliness. These discourses can be seen as a defensive gesture, justifying their lack of acceptance in local communities by asserting that others are not as enlightened or as kind as them. Ultimately, they find a sense of home in their shared isolation with other return migrants (Ahmed 1999). By contrast, although Leyla associated with German-Turks at work and in her family, she also sought out and maintained meaningful relationships with non-migrants as well. Many return migrants maintain ties to return migrants and neighbors. Ultimately, some give up trying to change (i.e. educate) their neighbors, but all seem to agree that they have been “educated” by migration. The next section examines ideas of citizenship, which are also permeated by notions of self-cultivation. Specifically, migrants’ transnational view leads to novel understandings of rights and to a novel habitus of fighting with the state to get needs met. ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AND THE FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: LIKE PEOPLE ON TV! Although Leyla was clearly accepted by the members of her gün, it was not always clear that they understood and agreed with her ideas when it came to citizenship. For instance, by far, the hottest topic of discussion at her gün was the school fees, which the school collected to pay for cleaning, security, and needed supplies. Leyla felt very strongly that parents should not have to

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pay these fees and that, in fact, they represent a type of extortion by corrupt school officials of hapless parents. “People don’t know their rights (hak)!” she exclaimed. There are so many agencies for protecting people’s rights in this country, and this is important! The AK Party has tried to improve this,3 and they have done so, but people do not know or demand their rights.” Several women agreed with her. Nukhet exclaimed: “The school is old, and they plan to tear it down. Why do they need so much cleaning money?” Other parents I’ve spoken to outside of Leyla’s social circle see these fees as necessary. They say that the state does not provide sufficiently for the local schools, and officials are only collecting what they need to maintain a bare minimum of services. In response to Nukhet, one woman said timidly that she was told if she didn’t pay the fee, her child would not be allowed to go to class. Leyla came alive with the following story. One time, the school did not have a uniform in Recep’s size. During this time, all children at public schools were required to wear a school uniform. The law changed in 2012. The school director said, “That’s fine, he can come to school without a uniform.” But, Recep’s classroom teacher said, “No, he cannot come to school like that.” Leyla promptly yelled at the teacher, but eventually had to meet personally with the school director to get the problem solved. “He knows me very well,” she said with a crafty grin. She then related another time when she had a confrontation with the director. He would not give her son his diploma unless she paid 80 TL (~50 USD) to the school. “I had to fight a lot,” she said grimly. She ultimately ended up threatening to contact the National Education Ministry (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı). At this point, another woman, Seyma, piped up: “If we all stick together like this, we will be like people on TV! You know, they show people coming together to talk about something.” She giggled embarrassedly. Despite Seyma’s spirited comments, only a few women successfully waged a battle against the school fees; most caved under the pressure of school officials. This outcome seemed typical of the group—only Leyla and a few others were willing to assert their rights by moving from talk to actions. Leyla was not seeking to be “like a person on TV,” but rather, she had a novel expectation of proper state treatment—an awareness of the possibilities of citizenship—that her neighbors simply lacked. Like other returnees, Leyla drew on citizenship expectations based on experiences in Germany and fought for her rights. Leyla told me many stories illustrating her tireless campaigns. For example, one time a nurse at the local medical clinic told Leyla that she would not admit Hande because Leyla was missing some paperwork. Leyla promptly went home and, impersonating a lawyer, phoned the head doctor (başhekim), who immediately agreed that they could indeed help her at the clinic without the paperwork. She should come right over, he said.

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Another time, she had difficulties enrolling Hande in a particular school. This was before she knew about the school for special needs children that Hande attends now. The school director agreed to take Hande into their school, but the classroom teacher refused. The school director told Leyla that there was nothing that he could do about the situation, even though he had given his consent. Leyla promptly called the National Education Ministry and complained. After this, she said, “The school director was soooo nice to me, and of course they accepted Hande. The problem is that most Turkish people do not know about the official channels for complaining. They just prefer to gossip.” Leyla is a true “active” or “participatory” citizen (Reed-Danahay and Brettell 2008), not in the sense of voting or political organizing, but in the sense of addressing or confronting the state. She seemed to see herself as a crusader when compared to her neighbors, who she considered to be more passive. She had supreme confidence in her ability to make the state work for her. In fact, her neighbors were simply accustomed to normal operating procedures in Turkey. Access to state services is occasionally unpredictable, and state officials are sometimes capricious and unprofessional. Numerous scholars have noted a general lack of respect for citizens’ rights and a weakness of civil society in Turkey (Keyman 2009; Walton 2013; White 2012). In the absence of state services, people turn to personal networks of relatives and neighbors during difficult times. Returnees are apt to do more than just complain about the state; they often take action, when necessary. For example, Bülent, a first-generation returnee to Tekirdağ, felt frustrated by his neighbors’ flagrant disregard of the rules for use of public spaces when they expanded their own houses and gardens over public sidewalks and into streets to make them bigger. Numerous times he called city officials asking them to enforce local laws. Compared to non-migrants, Leyla and other migrants have widely divergent expectations of the state, on the one hand, but on the other hand, a habitus for dealing with the state that is successful on many occasions. One day, I asked Leyla how she “learned to demand her rights.” She said, “I’ll never forget what my upstairs neighbor Tante Ursula (Aunt Ursula) in Germany said to me. She said, ‘I can do anything I want. If I want to talk to the prime minister, I can. Yes, I’ll have to make a lot of phone calls and a huge bill will come in the end, but eventually I’ll get to talk with him.’ If you really want something, you can do it. I believe that.” She directly linked her sense of the availability of rights and the importance of demanding them to her experience in Germany at this moment. But, it also seems probable that her own personal circumstances also played a role in her impetus to become a thorn in the side of state officials, particularly, the need to mother Hande and to do so as a poor, virtually single mother while Selim was away. What is

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significant in her statement is that her emphasis is not on what the state owes citizens, but on what citizens are capable of demanding from the state if they put their minds to it. Leyla demands self-reliance as much as state services. In general, it seemed that Leyla never blamed the state when she had difficulties. Rather, she accepted that it was necessary to fight to get her needs met, and instead faulted citizens who did not do so along with local corrupt officials who failed to uphold just laws. She often exclaimed, “Many government systems have gotten better since the AK Party came into power.” One example she discussed at length was healthcare. In the past, she would have needed to run between several buildings to get all of Hande’s forms in order before a doctor’s appointment. But, now, the system has been streamlined, and she can usually accomplish registering for an appointment at one stop. Leyla also appreciated improved services for disabled children, better functioning schools and hospitals, and more regular street cleaning. Another reason she appreciated the AK Party was the law change that allowed women to wear headscarves when working for the state.4 She explained, “Now, the people who work at the water department, for example, can wear headscarves, and that is good. Why shouldn’t someone with a headscarf be able to work for the government or go to university? People make a problem about Erdoğan’s [the prime minister at the time] and Gül’s [the president at the time] wives’ wearing headscarves or praying on Friday. But we’re all Muslims! Michelle Obama was in the news for planting vegetables, but if our prime minister’s wife did that, everyone would say how bad that was,” she ended with a laugh. Even though Leyla never wore a headscarf when I knew her, most of her relatives and neighbors did, and she saw this as an important freedom. During the local elections in Spring 2014, Leyla talked with her mother and me at length about her support for the AK Party, because they provided services to people unlike any party in the past. Clearly, many others shared her views: the AK Party earned 44.1 percent of the vote nationwide, a significant percentage in a wide field of parties. While Leyla’s insistence on fighting for rights is somewhat unusual (especially for her social class in Turkey) and is influenced by her experience in Germany, her reasons for supporting the AK Party and her impassioned support for Erdoğan clearly linked her to a large segment of the Turkish population. Many return migrants shared Leyla’s views. The following conversation between two first generation returnee men, Yavuz and Ali, in Ilçe in 2009 provides an example. Yavuz said, “Whoever will provide services, that is who I will vote for. Until the AK Party came to power, everyone had to buy their own books for school, and teachers had to teach all of these different books. Now, the state is printing books.” Ali responded, “Yes, and the AK Party is distributing coal for heating to people who need it.” Nodding, Yavuz

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asserted, “A social state is important. All Muslims have to help the poor, but if someone doesn’t get enough food from neighbors, there must be a social state.” Yavuz and Ali linked the idea of a “social state” in Turkey to their observations of the German social welfare state and claimed that the AK Party approximated this model. “We see how important this is because we saw Germany,” Ali said to me. “Yes,” agreed Yavuz. “There is a social state is in Germany. There, the government gives money to poor people. Here, they do it a little bit differently—they give coal.”5 Ali added, “The opposition in parliament is complaining about this, but they are just jealous since they couldn’t do it and the AK Party did do it.” Yavuz and Ali combine an Islamic understanding of care with an understanding of the paternalistic state as a provider of this care. They stress that Turkey is not so different from Germany: both are social states in their view. Turkey is simply accomplishing care for citizens differently. In positing this similarity, these migrants place Turkey on a par with Europe and draw on their own experiences as migrants to buttress their claim that this is the ethical role of the state. Most scholars would likely not agree with the assessment that Turkey provides a similar level of social welfare as Germany and would instead point to a weak social welfare system in Turkey that places the burden of care on families and leaves many citizens in dire need (cf. Duben 2013; Yoltar 2009). Regardless of accuracy, such statements make clear these migrants’ desires to view Turkey as the equal of a European state with regard to this issue. Nearly all return migrants stress that state services are one of their key concerns. Other migrants, however, emphasize that the AK Party is not providing services. Bülent (in 2008) said that the AK Party is tricking (kandırıyor) people with religion. “We are experiencing real fascism here, but people don’t realize this. They don’t realize that the highest government officials are sharing everything amongst one another—money, land. . . . There is no law for them.” Though Bülent disagreed with Leyla, Ali, and Yavuz about the AK party, like them, he also drew on his experience in Europe to support his claims. “This would not be possible in Europe. In Germany, the prime minister’s brother was even unemployed at one point. That is how much they value fairness,” he said. Migrants may use their experience in Europe to justify their support for different political groups in Turkey. Even if Turks are questioning whether or not they want to be part of Europe materially (cf. BBC News 2010; Poort 2010), Europe is still a gold standard, a superior social milieu that provides criteria for judging Turkey. Observing projects of neighborliness and citizenship provides insight into how Turks are feeling about their belonging in Europe generally. Although Turkish leaders may be “turning away from Europe,” as many scholars and media commentators report, this research shows that “Europe” remains a highly salient symbol of

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ethical citizenship and state practice and that Turkey’s perceived “Europeanness” remains a major concern to many. What return migrants on any side of the political spectrum broadly share is a concern with rights, what we could call a “rights-bearing subjectivity” (Osanloo 2006). Regardless of education or class, return migrants bring back from Germany a sense that citizens’ rights matter. For example, uppermiddle class returnees who attend the Rückkehrer Stammtisch (Returner’s Meeting) are much more mobile than Leyla, but, despite their mobility, they still care deeply about citizenship rights in Turkey (and Germany) (Rottmann 2018). What distinguishes these migrants from Leyla is that they are more likely to blame the government for their lack of rights, even if they otherwise support the AK Party. They are less likely to fault citizens for not sufficiently demanding rights like Leyla does. This difference in expectations of government action likely reflects the fact that most meeting attendees were supporters of the opposition party (the CHP Party) and thus eager to criticize the government. Many migrants claim that time in Germany prompted an awareness of rights and services, but even if they do not directly credit experience in Europe for their changing ideas, a vast majority use the idea of European citizenship to further political positions in Turkey. COMMUNITY DREAMS Self-education and educating others, fighting for rights, and active citizenship are linked projects encompassing personal ethics and ethical neighborliness and citizenship. These efforts arise as a result of having experienced more than one cultural space and develop in response to interactions with schools, hospitals, government officials, shopkeepers, relatives, and neighbors in Turkey. Leyla seeks connection, but also reform. She wants to make her community better, just as she strives to become a better, more educated neighbor herself. These are not separate aims but intermeshed efforts at selfand other-improvement. Returning home is about nurturing future plans. All of Leyla’s struggles over community belonging are emergent: “reintegration” is not a single moment in time, education is never “finished,” and citizenship is not a static identity she simply possesses, but something she enacts over and over again. Her ethical projects are tenuous and conflictual, but also fulfilling. The next chapter continues to examine emergent struggles for community belonging and the ethical project of education, but it focuses specifically on the area of religiosity and Leyla’s changing Muslim practice across space and time.

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notes 1. For more information about Turks’ views of atheism, see Yalcinkaya (2014). 2. For more on education in Turkey, see Kaplan (2006). 3. AK Party refers to the ruling party center-right, the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi ( Justice and Development Party). 4. For more information on the history of headscarf legislation in Turkey, see Marshall (2005) and Secor (2004). 5. Yavuz is referring to programs to deliver coal for winter heating and other goods to needy families in 2009 ahead of local elections.

CH A PTER

5 B EI N G A N D B E COM I N G MUS L I M

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ FROM “MODERN” TO “CONSERVATIVE”: MOVING THROUGH RELIGIOUS MILIEUS

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oday is Ramazan Bayramı (Ramadan Holiday or Eid al-Fitr), and Leyla and her children break their month-long fast with a hearty breakfast of fried dough, fried hotdogs, boiled eggs, black olives, and shepherd’s salad, which consists of cucumber, tomatoes, parsley, onions, olive oil, and lemon juice. Of course, there is also tea. After breakfast, Leyla changes from sweat pants into jeans and a flowered blouse. She dresses Mert and Hande in new clothes. It is time to begin our rounds of holiday visiting. It is called “bayramlaşmak” in Turkish, which literally translates as “making the holiday” and which means visiting homes to offer holiday greetings. After a difficult and somber month of fasting—a religious requirement for Muslims—the Ramadan Holiday is a celebratory time. Through bayramlaşmak relatives and neighbors show that they care for one another and find it meaningful to mark the holiday together. Although the Ramadan Holiday is a religious observance, in fact, there are few religious rituals expected on the holiday itself aside from males attending the required canonical prayer after sunrise on the first day of the three-day holiday. The visiting is the main event. There are no religiously prescribed rituals for the visiting; but, in fact, I find it very ritualistic: knock on the door, remove one’s shoes, enter, kiss the hands of elders or embrace and kiss equals, say “Bayramınız mübarek olsun,” (“May your holiday be a blessed one”) and then “nasılsınız?” (“How are

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FIGURE 5.1. Detail from an Istanbul mosque. Photograph by Peter Rottmann (2009).

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you?”) to which the response is “Teşekkür ederiz” (“We thank you”) or “Allah’a şükür” (“Thank god”). Sometimes there is a funny awkwardness when you see people that you just saw at a previous house and realize that you are making the same rounds together. People show their regard through these small rituals of politeness. What is said has, in fact, little significance—just visiting is sufficient. After greetings have been exchanged, the host offers cologne for the hands, then a candy and, if any children are present, a small amount of money for them. Next, a small plate of food is served. The traditional offering is baklava, but sometimes another sweet such as kadayıf is served or a savory food like grape leaves stuffed with rice. On Leyla’s visits, hosts also serve a unique style of börek native to the Black Sea region of her family origin, which could be filled with either yogurt, onion, and spinach or made in a sweet-style with raisins and sugar. Tea, Turkish coffee, Nescafe, Coke, or orange sodas accompany the food. After serving the food, the host would implore: “Ye! Ye! Niye yemiyorsun?!” (“Eat! Eat! Why aren’t you eating?!”), even though everyone knows you cannot eat all of the food offered at the many houses visited. Finally, newsy conversations commence. Most discussions I observed revolved around Leyla’s job, her husband, her kids, or me: where is Leyla working now? When will Selim return from Europe? Her son, Recep, is respectful to people; her daughter, Hande, has gained a lot of weight; her son, Mert, has learned numbers and colors even at his young age. Is Susan a relative? An American?! Why is Susan in Turkey? On one occasion, Leyla became animated as she talked at length about the history of their town, Huzurköy, elaborating on past military operations, the romantic castle on the hill and a secret tunnel. Yet, most conversations during holiday visits barely scratch beneath the surface of idle pleasantries. After 15 to 20 minutes, the ritual visit is over, and we politely ask for permission to leave, because we have other people to visit. The ritual is repeated a little over a month later for the rounds of visits on the Kurban or Feast of the Sacrifice holiday (Eid al-Adha). I found it quite enjoyable to be invited into so many homes, to exchange pleasantries with people dressed in their holiday best, and to sample the delicious food on offer. For Leyla, bayramlaşmak involved visiting seven households within walking distance of her house. First, we went to her neighbors across the street, the Atay family, who were living in two large apartments in a two-story building they built themselves. Kaya and Nalan lived upstairs, a couple in their 60s with four children, all of whom are now living on their own. Kaya’s brother, Süleyman, and his wife live in an apartment below the couple. We spent most of our time with the Atay’s eldest daughter, Başak, whom Leyla claimed to like and to find very interesting. I soon found out that Başak is

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not like Leyla’s other neighbors in terms of education and worldview. She is 40 years old, with brightly died red hair and deep brown eyes. She has a Master’s degree in Political Science and lived in England for two years after university. Unmarried with no kids and two cats, Başak related, “I never wanted to marry because I want total equality. And, with a Turkish man, at a certain point, you will always have to do more of the housework.” She also shared that she struggles with depression and prefers to be alone because she has a very precise way she likes to live. Başak seemed a sharp contrast to the attendees of Leyla’s gün (described in the previous chapter), who were housewives who married in their late teens and or early 20s and would unquestioningly perform all the family housework. Next, we visited Süleyman downstairs. In his late 60s with terminal lung cancer, he is a man whom Leyla describes as “legendary.” Indeed, he told us an interesting story that explained some of the legend and the lung cancer. He went to Germany in the 1970s and couldn’t find a job, so he started selling cigarettes illegally out of suitcases on the streets outside of factories where German-Turks worked. He was making 2000 TL (~900 USD) a week, but eventually the police caught him. However, his luck had not run out. They pitied him and asked: “Why are you doing this?” He explained, “I am doing this to make money so that I can go back to Turkey.” The police decided to help him get a job in a factory, and, as soon as he got his first paycheck, he sent a bicycle to the 4-year-old daughter of the policeman as a thank you. His story made everyone smile, and I would have liked to ask him some questions, but it was time to leave for our next house. If we stayed too long in any one place, we would not accomplish all of the necessary visits. We next visited Leyla’s oldest maternal uncle and his wife, children, and grandchildren. Then we walked a short distance to Leyla’s mother’s house, her mother’s older sister’s house, and a neighbor’s house, where eight female relatives and neighbors were also visiting at the same time. Finally, we visited the home of Leyla’s mother’s younger sister. After we left the Atay family, Leyla told me, “We are going from modern people to more conservative people who are kapalı (covered, wearing headscarves).” As Leyla predicted, all of the women in the houses we visited after the Atays wore headscarves and were dressed modestly in floor-length skirts and long-sleeve blouses. Leyla seemed to have no trouble “fitting-in,” whether we were with her more “modern” or more “conservative” neighbors. In fact, I was very surprised to hear Leyla separating people into “modern” and “conservative” types, based on headscarf wearing practices during our holiday visiting. Leyla had worn a headscarf in the past and strongly believed that women should have the right to wear headscarves. I had even observed her arguing with her boss, Erol, about a woman’s right to wear a headscarf. “Girls should be able to wear what they want on their heads. It’s what’s inside, not

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outside, that is important,” she had told him. Clearly, Leyla socialized with a wide group of people who had a variety of religious leanings—the Atays and their uncovered, unmarried daughter, her conservative family members and neighbors who dress in floor-length skirts and headscarves, her “atheist” boss (Erol), and her former boss who was planning a second trip to Mecca (Ufuk). So, why would she still point out distinctions regarding “modernity” based on religious practice? In part, she may have believed that she was explaining Turkish social groupings in terms that I, an American, would understand. But it also may be that she simply could not escape the dominant stereotypes about religiosity and modernity in Turkey’s polarized political environment (cf. Navaro-Yashin 2002; Özyürek 2006). Whatever her reason for describing our visiting in this way, it seemed clear that Leyla moved comfortably among groups of people who themselves had differing religious sensibilities. As I explore throughout this chapter, Leyla’s experiences challenge facile descriptions of “Islamic” and “secular” spaces in Turkey (cf. Henkel 2007). Further, the way in which Leyla comments on her own movement among groups is significant. While many Turks navigate similarly diverse communities in their daily lives, Leyla’s transnational experience enables her to step back and reflect on her experiences. She differs from many neighbors because she has an awareness that others either don’t have or don’t verbalize. This chapter explores Leyla’s religious life, examining how she navigates varying religious milieus in daily life, how her religiosity has changed over the course of her life and how migration affects her Muslim practice. In illustrating how Leyla’s religious practice has changed over time, this chapter draws attention to gradual processes of ethical transformation. It also challenges simplistic accounts of German-Turkish religiosity as attenuated due to migration or as reactionary and conservative (cf. Kaya 2009). Leyla claims that she knew very little about Islam in Germany, even though she lived with many Turkish neighbors and attended a Qur’anic recitation course. She gradually came to important religious understandings after returning to Turkey, interacting with family and neighbors, and educating herself through reading religious texts. It is clear that Leyla’s life experiences are as important as her transnational movement for explaining her religiosity. But it is also clear that migration does affect religiosity, expanding her awareness of diverse perspectives about religious practices. Today, belonging in a religious community is vitally important to Leyla, and she cultivates belonging through work on the self, such as, prayer, fasting, and Qur’anic reading, and through making connections to other Muslims by praying together, discussing religion with relatives and neighbors, and visiting on religious holidays, such as Ramadan. As we have seen in previous chapters, education of children and neighbors is a centrally important

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ethical aim for Leyla. Pointing to the conflictual nature of ethical paradigms, this chapter explores how education becomes a practice that leads to both acceptance and exclusion in religious communities. The chapter also explores how Leyla draws on transnational experiences and refers to surprising and sometimes troubling ideas about German Christians and Turkish Muslims—specifically, ideas about self-education and frequent prayer. With these discourses, Leyla seeks to combat negative images of migrants’ loss of religiosity in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field. She shows that she has knowledge about European practices that she thinks is valuable. She also seeks to insert Turkish belonging in Europe with these discourses, a strategy that works because Turks remain concerned about their belonging in Europe, even if they also embrace a growing role as a leader in the Middle East. In short, Leyla combats the implied stigma about how living in Germany corrupts migrant religiosity by combining a variety of ethical discourses and crafting a novel Muslim practice. The next section explores how Leyla’s religiosity emerged and changed over the course of her life experiences—in the wake of profound loss, in response to arguments with neighbors, and through friendships formed—and how transnational experience confers a unique perspective from which she is able to shape her own religiosity and evaluate the religious practices of others. BECOMING MUSLIM One night, I’m making chicken soup in Leyla’s kitchen while she is making meatballs and a salad. “I have news,” she says without warning. “Last night I was chatting with Selim on Facebook, and he told me that he got involved in a religious sect (tarikat).”1 Selim was abroad in Germany at the time. “What? What kind?” I ask with surprise. She explains that it is a sect located in Eastern Turkey. “We’re going to Adiyaman [a city in Eastern Turkey]. There is a man there who does religious things for you.” A sharp note of disapproval enters her voice. “This is actually against our religion,” she adds. “We Muslims are not like Catholics who need a priest to reach god. We can all pray ourselves. But, this man, if you go to him, he says you can work on his farm for him, and he’ll help you religiously.” She chuckles and adds, “I say, give me land, and I’ll work for myself.” Despite her laughter, I sense significant unease. I add a bit of red pepper to the soup. “How did Selim get involved with this group?” I ask. Leyla is cutting tomatoes with vigor. “He met some guy at a truck stop who said that he used to drink a lot. But, after he joined the tarikat, he stopped and turned his life around. Now, Selim started praying with him.” Does this mean that Leyla will also join this group? She’s not sure.

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“Let’s see what happens when he comes back,” she says. She begins bringing dishes into the living room for our meal and doesn’t seem to wish to discuss the matter further. There are good reasons for Leyla’s discomfort with Selim joining a tarikat. Officially, tarikats are illegal in Turkey, although AK Party rule has broadly increased freedom for religious groups, and the police do not actively investigate their activities most of the time. This tarikat, in particular, seems cultlike: as Leyla notes, adherents work for a leader in exchange for religious benefits.2 Further, as someone who deeply values religious self-education, it seems unlikely that Leyla will accept such a leader’s ministrations. But, ultimately, who knows what will happen? Even Leyla does not know how her religious beliefs and practices and her relationship with Selim will change in the days to come. This incident illustrates the ongoing evolution of Leyla’s life beyond any standard narrative about return migration. Leyla’s ability to move with and between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and her personal convictions continue to develop. Her upbringing in Germany and her husband’s extensive travel in Europe play a significant role in this process. No matter what happens, Leyla is likely to remain a religious Muslim. Her Muslim identity is extremely important to her, and she speaks often and openly with her children, her neighbors, and me about her views and practices. Like the majority of Turks, Leyla considers herself to be a Sunni Muslim.3 In Turkey, whether or not a person considers himself or herself to be religious, having made the confession of faith connects all Muslims: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Most Turks claim to believe in God, regardless of the frequency and intensity of their religious practice. Sunni Muslims believe that the Qur’an (in Turkish: Kur’an) as written in Arabic is the untranslatable word of God and “to write the Kur’an, read it, study it, memorize it, decorate it, and care for it, are all forms of witness to the divine truth, and each is an art and a business” (Özdemir and Frank 2000: 46). Leyla cannot read Arabic, but she is proud of having read and understood the entire Qur’an in Turkish. She observed, “My neighbors read the Qur’an only in Arabic, but they do not understand what they are reading, and they do not read any other books about their own religion. People think that you should not read anything outside of the Qur’an. However, the Bible includes God’s words, too, and should be read, but people do not know about their own religion.” As in other aspects of her life, when it comes to religion, Leyla continues to advocate for the necessity of education and, in particular, education to increase understanding. Many Muslims believe that the Qur’an cannot be translated, however, insisting instead that the only way to study it is through recitation in Arabic. This is a formal practice institutionalized in Arabic instruction for children in mosques, schools, and community groups

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and an informal practice whereby in everyday life people frequently express themselves using pious Arabic phrases, such as “hopefully” (inşallah) or “wonderful!” (Maşallah). Although the Bible is considered a religious book for Muslims, most Muslims in Turkey do not read it. However, Leyla does not advocate that Muslims abandon reading the Qur’an in Arabic, only that they also engage in certain specific types of self-education. Neighbors have told Leyla that reading the Qur’an in Turkish is Avrupalı (European) and a günah (sin) and that you can only get sevaps (benefits) from reading in Arabic, even if you don’t understand what you are reading. I didn’t observe a time when neighbors said such things to her directly, but I did observe an awkward moment at her gün (her women’s visiting day described in the previous chapter). A woman asked the attendees if they could read Arabic. Most responded “a little” or said that they were currently learning. Leyla replied, “I pray in Arabic, but cannot read it. I read the Qur’an in Turkish every night.” One neighbor, Ferah, responded, “We will teach you Arabic.” Nukhet inquired, “What? You read in Turkish?” Leyla said, “Yes.” Several women responded with a lukewarm, “olsun,” which literally means “okay,” but could also be interpreted as, “At least it is something,” or “If that is all you can do, that’s ok.” One day, I asked Leyla if her religious ideas stem from her time in Germany. After all, her views about the importance of studying one’s religion in a vernacular language are similar to those of German Protestants who read the Bible in German and who also stress self-education and a person’s individual, direct relationship to god. “No,” she responded, “It is not because of that. It is because of the difficult things that I have seen and lived in my life.” Naturally, migration is one of those “difficult things.” Moving among various communities allows Leyla a freedom to reflect on different religious requirements and to consciously choose practices that seem correct to her. Though time in Germany is not a primary influence in her view, when she is criticized by others for her religious ideas and practices, her transnational background seems to matter: neighbors label her “European” or “German-like.” There is an essential core of Muslim practice that most people in Turkey, including Leyla, consider vital to being a good Muslim. These include prayer five times daily (in Turkish: namaz), fasting during the month of Ramadan (in Turkish: oruç), almsgiving (in Turkish: zekat), and the pilgrimage to Mecca once in one’s lifetime (in Turkish: hac). Sacrificing an animal on the Sacrifice Holiday (in Turkish: Kurban Bayramı), male attendance at mosques on Fridays, maintaining cleanliness and purity, and female modesty, including a range of head and body coverings, are also common pious practices in Turkey and elsewhere. There are other practices that are more contested among practitioners as they stem from cultural Islamic traditions or folk practices. These include praying and petitioning at the graves of saints, reciting a poem

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about the birth of the prophet Muhammad (mevlut) on special occasions, and using Qur’anic charms or amulets. Purifying movements within Islam would not approve of these practices common in Turkey, but it is important to note that Islamic orthodoxy is not fixed, but rather subject to heated debates. I observed many conversations about what is approved or required within Islam, about how to be a good Muslim. As Kimberly Hart (2013) writes, Islam “has multiple sources, is living, and is in a state of constant transformation because people are concerned about locating the true path” (3). Therefore, the boundary between “correct” and “incorrect” should be seen as fluid and open to interpretation. Today, Leyla does not pray five times daily, but she does know how to recite the required prayers and teaches them to her children. She fasts during Ramadan when her health allows, and when the family’s finances were sufficient, she and Selim have sacrificed an animal on the Sacrifice Holiday. On years when they could not afford to do so, several relatives and neighbors brought meat to them, a religious requirement that signifies consideration for the poor. Thus far, Leyla and Selim’s finances have not allowed significant almsgiving or a pilgrimage to Mecca. During the time that I’ve known her, Leyla has never worn a headscarf except during the recitation of the Qur’an at her gün, but she has worn one in the past, which I discuss below. Although Islam is very important to Leyla today, it was not always so. In an interview, she related, “As a child in Germany, I could not educate (kendimi yetiştiremedim) myself about Islam sufficiently. When I was around 12 years old, I began attending a Qur’anic course to learn how to pray, and I wore pants to the mosque, not a skirt!” She laughed loudly. For Leyla, this story shows how little religious guidance she received and how she struggled to learn correct practice. Her first experiences with Islam involved the Turkish communities in Germany and were not positive. “Turks have lost their culture in Germany and have not adopted the positive aspects of German culture,” she told me. “The families there are bad.” While I can’t know the source of her feelings for sure, Leyla’s view that Turkish families in Germany are “bad” may stem from her feelings that Turkish families, unlike German families, did not come to her aid when she was facing poverty and her father’s abuse during her childhood. Leyla’s inability to learn about Islam was not related to any oppression on the part of Germans, she claimed. She was able to celebrate religious holidays if she wanted to, and Germans were respectful of Turks and their religious beliefs. “In my school, the school principal respected Muslim holidays,” she told me. During this time, Leyla explained that she never wore a headscarf and never wanted to. Some return migrants told me that not wearing a headscarf allowed them to fit into German society more easily. For example, a young woman in her mid-30s, Elif, said that her family was comfortable in

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Germany because her mother didn’t wear a headscarf. She related, “What I heard is that if women don’t wear headscarves and don’t dress traditionally, then they are perceived as like Italian or Spanish, not Turkish, and they are accepted. If you do not wear a headscarf, they do not know that you are Turkish. They can see that your hair is dark, but they accept you more easily.”4 When speaking about her life in Germany, Leyla never refers to a desire to “fit in.” What she emphasizes continually is her lack of training and ignorance of Muslim practice. Incidentally, some return migrants seem to face stigma or pressure in their communities in Turkey if they do not wear headscarves after returning. In Chapter 3, I related how Yasemin’s mother was forced to wear a headscarf when she returned to her village in Turkey. But, in general, headscarves are not mandatory in most Turkish social groups. I never wore a headscarf while conducting research unless the Qur’an was being read or I was entering a mosque, and I have never felt any social pressure to do so. By contrast, some return migrants describe stigma as a result of wearing a headscarf in Turkey and say that they felt more free to wear it in Germany. In an interview, a returnee to Istanbul, Cemile, lamented that she couldn’t go to a university in Turkey because of her headscarf, claiming, “Headscarf-wearing people are more free in America and Europe than they are in Turkey.” Another returnee, Şeyma, related in an interview that it “broke her heart” when she returned to Turkey and learned that women could not attend public universities while wearing a headscarf. In 2010, the AK Party changed laws banning headscarves in universities, and the party has generally liberalized headscarf policies throughout Turkey.5 Some scholars have argued that migrants become more religious and even fundamentalist in Germany in response to the racism and inequality that they experience (e.g. Kaya 2009: 180–194), while others point to the development of individualistic and tolerant understanding of Islam stemming from exposure to an alternate cultural milieu (e.g. Yükleyen 2012: 6). Images in the Germany-Turkey transnational social field portray opposing religious extremes as well: some migrants are said to be excessively focused on overly strict religious practices, while others appear to have lost their religion altogether. One non-migrant related, “German-Turks are crazily religious!” Describing a relative of hers in Germany who wears a black sheet with only her eyes showing through narrow holes, she explained, “Even in Turkey we do not like that kind of covering—no wonder they do not like Turks in Germany!” In contrast, one non-migrant told me, “The children of Turks do not learn enough about their religion in Germany and grow up to be atheists.” My experience with German-Turks leads me to conclude that migrant religiosity cannot be simplistically categorized: it changes over time through experiences with Turks and Germans in schools, in workplaces, and in

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homes, and as people encounter the vicissitudes of life—as they marry, give birth, age, and lose and gain friends and family. The return to Turkey is not necessarily a formative moment of religious change—of Islamic awakening. But, time in Germany does matter for returnees because it provides an alternate perspective for understanding religiosity. When Leyla returned to Turkey to reunite with her birth mother, she did not immediately begin learning about Islam. She worked as secretary, married Selim, and gave birth to her first three children. As I related in Chapter 3, she told Selim that she would not wear a headscarf but relented to his requests to wear one when they visited his village. Her mother and Selim both wanted Leyla to wear skirts instead of pants, but she refused. One time, the topic of Islamic dress came up, and Leyla stridently explained to her neighbor, Necla, “The Qur’an tells people to cover themselves, but it does not say to wear a black sheet, and it does not say that you cannot wear pants. It recommends the covering for women for protection from men and protection from rape.” Leyla’s decisions about dress—to wear pants, not skirts, particularly—are based on her interpretations of the meaning of Islamic doctrines, in other words, her self-education. This example further illustrates how important education is for Leyla: she wants Muslims like her neighbor Necla to understand why female covering matters, not to blindly follow any particular religious rule. The death of Biray, one of her twin daughters, prompted a significant religious transformation for Leyla. After she lost Biray, Leyla started wearing a headscarf every day and started learning more about Islam. In her life story, she often links her suffering—physical and sexual abuse and loss of a child— to the idea of a religious test. Muslims believe that life is a test and that they must perform well in order to enter heaven after death. Leyla writes, “I am a person who has experienced bittersweet, painful, and happy moments. Just like everyone else’s life, my life has been a test. I made it to today. It has never been easy, and who knows what else is awaiting me!” But, Leyla laments her being tested, too. She writes: “Everyone suffers, but why do I have to suffer more than others?”

Having lived in Germany and returning home certainly had an effect on Leyla’s changing religiosity, but they were far from the only significant factors. Karen Fog Olwig stresses that researchers must be careful to view people moving through their lives and not to attribute all of their experiences to migration between places. She notes that for Caribbean migrants, we see that “transnational moves did not necessarily constitute the most momentous turning point” in their lives (2003: 801). To understand Leyla’s narratives about religion, we need to understand her movement through life, including the death of her daughter, as much as her movement between two geographic places.

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Increasing religiosity developed gradually for Leyla. In the 1990s, her religiosity changed again as she came into contact with members of the Islamist or “Sunni Muslim revival” movement in Turkey (Walton 2017: 4). The Islamist movement arose out of several informal movements beginning in the late 1980s and is led by diverse groups and individuals broadly affiliated with the Nakşibendi and Nurcu religious sects. Although Turkish Muslims can be separated into “Islamists” or “orthodox” Muslims, there is not an essential “Islamist” identity. We can broadly define Islamist identification as conscious self-identification with a global Islamic movement, which has political, economic, and religious goals. Islamists organize as part of brotherhoods, foundations, or associations in Turkey, what some scholars call “neo-tarikats” (e.g. Hart 2013: 195–222). Though we may call particular groups and individuals “Islamists” for analytical purposes, we must remember that there are no membership rosters and that Islamist practices may be varied and informal. There are many varieties of Islamist belief and practice, just as there are many varieties of belief and practice among traditionalist Muslims and practitioners of any religion for that matter. However, certain aims and interests for Islamists in Turkey can be highlighted. For example, many Islamists strongly value religious education and group discussions, and they stress Qur’anic understanding in addition to recitation. According to Cihan Tuğal (2006), “The need to learn the meaning of the Qur’an, rather than only reading and memorizing its Arabic original, is one of the most pronounced principles of Islamism in Turkey” (258). Walton (2017) points out that some strands of the Islamist movement are more expansive and explicitly neoliberal than others, namely the Gülen or Hizmet movement, which actively ran schools, businesses, and media outlets in Turkey until 2016 and is still involved in such activities across the globe (32).6 Leyla’s sympathies with the Islamist movement changed over time. She particularly appreciated the emphasis that Islamists place on education. As is clear from her continual efforts to educate her neighbors, children, and me, religious understanding is of the utmost importance to her. It is hardly surprising that she might feel kinship with people advocating education, and I discuss more specific actions that she took in this regard below. She developed very negative feelings about the Gülen movement when relations between the AK Party and the Gülen movement soured in December 2013. Leyla strongly condemned them, seeing them as overly concerned with their own gain, not with helping people. At this time, Leyla told me how corrupt she thought the Gülen movement was. “They own FEM schools, which only exist to take people’s money. They only care about money. Everyone wants service from the government and all the parties steal and cheat. But, only the AK party, only Erdoğan, could provide the service that people

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want.” She related several examples of what she meant. “The trash smelled sooo bad in Ümraniye [a nearby neighborhood where she used to work], you could smell it for kilometers away. Now, it’s gone. I used to have to wait in long lines at hospitals, now there is an orderly numbering system. It used to be that rich people wearing makeup could cut in lines in hospitals. Now, the order of appointments is followed. In the past, people with headscarves were treated differently, and since I didn’t wear one I got treated better!” In short, Leyla did not have a single and stable stance towards all elements of the Islamist movement, and her feelings were strongly affected by political developments. As for all devout Muslims, Leyla’s religious development can be viewed as personal project lasting a lifetime (Hart 2013). Leyla’s religious feelings have undergone vast change over time: growing up in Germany she felt a lack of knowledge about religion. After returning to Turkey, a heartbreaking loss results in the search for religious meaning. Personal difficulties lead to both acceptance and struggle with the Muslim belief that life is a test. Leyla’s feelings are further influenced by the changing religious and political environment in which she lives. In the next section, I examine how transnational experience provides a greater freedom to reflect on Muslim practice and prompts forms of religious learning and engagement with religious communities in Turkey. GERMAN-TURKS, ISLAM, AND A “EUROPEAN” TURKEY In the 2000s, Leyla’s religious practice shifted again in a way that is particularly significant in Turkey’s political context: she stopped wearing a headscarf. Leyla and her husband began experiencing financial troubles. They agreed that Leyla should work, but, as she began applying for jobs, she realized, “If you want a job, you cannot get a job with a headscarf, even though the president’s wife has a covered head. Unfortunately, people think that covered people are ignorant (cahil) but uncovered (açık) people are modern.” In addition to the difficulty of securing employment, Leyla also noticed that when she went to the hospital with her sick daughter, Hande, they did not treat her well if she wore a headscarf. For example, one time a nurse at a hospital assumed that Leyla didn’t know what was wrong with Hande. “You are ignorant,” the woman told her rudely. Leyla told me she believes that she was perceived as ignorant because she was wearing a headscarf. She promptly responded, “‘I know what is wrong with my daughter. I was a nurse in Germany, and I am not ignorant.” At that moment her brother called her from Germany, and she spoke German to him. “The woman ran away!” She chuckled. Speaking German and being from Germany were ef-

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fective “proof ” of her education that Leyla was ready to employ as needed. Although she could defend herself quite ably with the lie about being a nurse when necessary, it was clearly easier not to wear a headscarf. Leyla never wears a headscarf today, but two of her daughters, Ceren and Hande, are now wearing headscarves. Recently, I asked her why she does not wear a headscarf now, but she evaded the question, and I never asked again, thinking that maybe it made her uncomfortable. There may or may not be a specific reason or belief behind her decision, but it is also possible that she herself is not sure why. To understand Leyla and other migrants’ struggles with the religious practice of headscarf wearing, it is necessary to understand the place of religion in Turkey’s political environment historically through to the present day. Religion has often been a touch point for those debating Turkey’s modernity. When Turkey was founded in 1923, leaders followed in Europe’s footsteps by designating a single ethnicity and religion for the country. The country’s ethno-national identity would be Turkish, and a single religion, Islam, would be its religion.7 Yet, at the same time Islam was blamed for the perpetuation of the country’s backwardness and decline at the end of the Ottoman Empire, and leaders believed that it needed to be controlled and contained in order for the country to become “modern” and “European.”8 Laicism (laiklik), the Turkish version of secularism, was institutionalized. Under the leadership of the Republic’s charismatic founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, lawmakers shut down dervish religious orders, abolished the Caliphate, introduced a new Gregorian calendar in place of the Islamic one, and discouraged wearing of headscarves in public places (Zürcher 2004). The state controlled Islam through a Directory of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı), which staffed and regulated mosques. This trend towards state control of Islam continued in the 1980s in a different form, with the state actively attempting to increase the significance of Islam. After the 1980 military coup, the government used Islam to create a moral foundation for the new state and to “heal” the country (White 2002). A greater synthesis between religious and ethnic identity—between Islam and Turkish-ness—which has been called the “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,” was encouraged (Akin and Karasapan 1988). This period marks the beginning of an explicitly Muslim economy and an aggravation of ideological cleavages between religious groups and other societal groups, particularly leftists. As I noted, this is the time when the Islamist movement took off. The AK Party, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, has fully fused Islamic identification with the state, mitigating early founders’ attempts to control and contain Islam (Walton 2017: 11). In his nuanced account of the party’s rise between 2000 and 2006, Cihan Tugal (2009) argues that they brought about a passive revolution and an increasingly moderate and liberal interpretation

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of Islam. However, tensions remain between the state’s promotion of Islamic identity and the wishes of some civil society groups and a significant minority of citizens. Since the 1990s, politicians and citizens have been debating the effect of Turkey’s Muslim identity on the country’s acceptance in Europe. For example, Turkish citizens actively debate the meaning of anti-Muslim movements and events, including the “Danish cartoon controversy” in 2005 and 2006,9 negative statements made by Pope Benedict XVI about Muslims at his Regensburg lecture in 2006,10 and the ongoing German “Leitkultur” controversy.11 In April 2012, many Turkish newspapers reported the comments of Germany’s ruling party CDU general secretary, Volker Kauder, who said, “Islam does not belong in Germany,”12 and Turkish citizens widely discussed the reasons for anti-Islam protests in Germany in 2014–2015.13 Taken together with the EU’s reluctance to extend EU membership to Turkey, these and other incidents indicate to many Turks that Europeans do not feel that Muslims belong in Europe. Europe’s rejection has led to a sense of anxiety in Turkey, which has created a polarization into groups that identify themselves as either “secular” or “Islamic.” According to Turkish government statistics, 99 percent of Turks are Muslim, but how Islam should be promoted or supported by the state is a highly controversial subject in Turkey, where laicism is the official doctrine historically, but the AK Party promotes Islam at every turn. Mosque construction, religious education, Muslim broadcasting, and the “secularity” of political parties and the Turkish military are all touch points for fierce debates about Islam, secularism, and Turkey’s belonging in Europe. Headscarves, in particular, are seen as potent religious and political symbols, representing “political Islam,” “modern Muslim womanhood,” “Turkish villagers,” “modesty,” and many other ideas depending on a person’s perspective. Turkish society is now highly polarized and citizens are apt to explicitly assert stark affinities or differences between themselves and other citizens. For instance, when getting to know a person it is likely that you will be told or can easily infer that the person identifies as either a “secular Muslim” (using the words “laik” [laic], “solcu” [leftist], or “Atatürkçü” [Kemalist or Atatürk-ist]) or a “religious Muslim” (using the words muhafazakar [conservative], “İslamcı” [Islamist], “sağcı” [rightist], or “dindar” or “mütedeyyin” [religious]). Many scholars strongly caution against reifying secular and Islamic communities, but they are often forced to refer to the people they study as “my secularist and Islamist informants” (Navaro-Yashin 2002: 15). What do these identifications really mean? The situation is more complex than it appears. In the first place, people who self-identify as “laik Muslims” or “not religious” usually still consider themselves to be Muslims and often

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use “we” when celebrating or criticizing Muslim beliefs and practices. Some people who identify as laik engage in little or no religious practice—they do not pray, fast, or attend mosque services and do not believe that women should wear headscarves in daily life. However, others who perform almost all religious duties, such as praying daily, fasting, sacrificing an animal, and giving alms, may also consider themselves laik Muslims. Being a laik Muslim in the Turkish context does not mean that a person does not engage in any religious practice. For people who call themselves laik, not wearing a headscarf in daily life, supporting the CHP political party,14 drinking alcohol, and expressing praise and love for Atatürk may define the meaning of secularity more than any failure to engage in religious practices. Though many scholars point to the diverse meanings of religiosity and secularism in Turkey, what scholars have not sufficiently emphasized is that these identities are not as hardened as they seem. In different contexts—at work or at school, with family or with neighbors—people may claim that they are religious, laik, or sometimes neither. They often indicate that they wish to remain outside of the “Islam-secularism wars” by saying, “I am not political,” or “We are all Muslim, and we all believe in God.” I often heard return migrants make these claims. Further, the presence of these polarized identities does not mean that Turkish society is somehow divided spatially and practically. Individuals engage with laik state institutions and religious and laik family members, neighbors, and colleagues in their daily life (Henkel 2007). They also engage in discussions about what laik means and how this relates to Turkish politics and history. For example, I observed an occasion when Leyla sought to convince her neighbor, Necla, that Islam and appreciation for the founder of Turkey, Atatürk, were compatible. “People misunderstand Atatürk,” she related. “They think that he wanted to destroy Islam and only supported secularism, but it is not true.” She referred to a picture of Atatürk in a classroom teaching the Latin script to children. “What the picture does not show is that Atatürk also wanted the children to learn the Arabic script. He supported imam hatip [religious] schools. People don’t know this about him. They just think that he was against religion.” Though analysts of Turkey observe distinctions being made between religious and laik people, when we are confronted with a person’s life, where can we place her or him? I don’t think it is possible to position Leyla (or anyone else) precisely and permanently. Today, Leyla advocates for religious education and understanding and the freedom to dress as one wishes: in pants or a skirt, with or without a headscarf. This intellectual and practical freedom is clearly essential for her as she herself moves in and out of religious milieus temporally and spatially as she did on the Ramadan Holiday described earlier. Leyla traversed between Turkish and German com-

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munities and Christian and Muslim spaces in Germany—German schools, a Qur’anic course, other Turkish families and her own Turkish family. She also traversed and continues to navigate public spaces in Turkey like hospitals and private spaces among her relatives and neighbors where views of religiosity are inflected differently. But, rather than focusing only on the places of Germany or Turkey, and her movement geographically, it is important to note Leyla’s movement through life: her childhood, education, marriage, motherhood, and employment infuse her changing experiences with Muslim practice. She claims it is what she has lived, not where she has been, that influences her religious ideas. Her transnational experience does not determine particular religious ties or transformations, but it does shape her views and how she is perceived. Her observations of (Christian) Germans and (Muslim) Turks in Germany strongly influence her understandings of Muslim practice even as these understandings change over time as she learns about Islam and the Islamist movement in Turkey. When she deviates from neighbors’ expectations, they do not claim that she simply has an unorthodox idea, but that Europe has somehow affected her in a decidedly negative way. Leyla’s Muslim beliefs and practices are negotiated with others: Selim wants her to wear a headscarf; Selim and her mother want her to wear skirts. Selim’s ongoing travel to Europe and potential involvement with a new religious group may further affect Leyla’s religiosity. Her neighbors want Leyla to learn Qur’anic recitation in Arabic, the Islamist movement stresses religious understanding, and Leyla herself clearly wishes to teach about religious practice to her neighbors and to me, an ethnographer. She faces difficulties wearing a headscarf and confronting state institutions, like hospitals, and when seeking work and even must argue with her “atheist” boss, Erol. But, her decisions about religiosity are also personal decisions that emerge through life experiences: her daughter’s death is a defining religious moment for her that increases her religiosity and prompts a changing practice (wearing a headscarf ) and which she explains with the idea of a “religious test.” But, religious practice changes again when the family’s financial situation changes, and Leyla is burdened with caring for a child with special needs. The meaning of being a good Muslim, mother, wife, and neighbor changes for Leyla over time as she moves through different life experiences and spaces. Religious meanings also change spatially. Leyla traverses diverse spaces at particular times—spaces of admiration and scorn for the Islamist movement, spaces where her ideas about religious education are praised, and spaces where neighbors express skepticism about the types of education that are religiously acceptable. As I show in the next section, it is not always easy for Leyla to reconcile her religious ideas and her community belonging.

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RECEP’S CRISIS OF FAITH AND LEYLA’S RESPONSE Shortly before Recep was to depart to attend university, Leyla overheard him mutter in an offhand way that he did not believe in God.15 Hearing this made her extremely worried, so she arranged for him to live at a dormitory run by members of the Islamist movement. There he would learn about Muslim belief and prayer and receive instruction in Muslim ethics, such as not drinking alcohol and abstaining from sex before marriage. Leyla felt, “Recep would be able to learn about Islam, which was important, because he seemed to have lost his faith.” There were also economic and practical advantages: he would be able to stay there for very little money, and it would be a safe environment where “someone would be watching over him, and he would not be able to get into trouble.” Several months later, when Recep returned for the Kurban religious holidays, he and three friends came over to Leyla’s house. The boys seated themselves on yellow couches in Leyla’s living room and began smoking cigarettes, with their arms and legs outstretched, a jumble of gangly limbs amidst the rising cigarette smoke. Leyla served them tea and homemade baklava, the traditional treat on the Ramazan and Kurban holidays, and Leyla and I seated ourselves on the remaining couch perpendicular to them. Following an exchange of greetings between Recep’s friends and their families and Leyla, Recep and his friend Ferhan launched into a conversation complaining about the conditions at their dormitories. Ferhan was studying at a different university from Recep, but he had similar complaints. The other two boys and I listened attentively as Recep and Ferhan shared their unhappiness with Leyla. Recep and Ferhan said that students were threatened with punishment if they refused to pray as a group. Ferhan said, “One boy who refused to pray was hit by the person managing the house.” Recep also complained, “The instructors are one-sided and against the Turkish military.” Recep also felt forced to give money to charity projects of the group directed towards the sacrifice of an animal for poor families on the Kurban holiday. He felt uncomfortable, because he did not have much money and could not provide the money the group requested. While many Muslims in Turkey are able to negotiate a deeply religious identity and to support the military, apparently for these Islamists, the military is symbolic of a secular milieu anathema to religiosity. Leyla was surprised and dismayed with what the boys told her. “I will gather more information about the dormitories, and I can call someone to report the bad conditions,” she said. As I found out later, she planned to ask her friend and neighbor, Sami Öztürk, who was affiliated with the Islamist group running the dormitory, for information about practices at the dormitories.

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At this point, the conversation turned to broader religious concerns that the boys shared. They began expressing doubts about the importance of praying five times daily. “Why does it matter?” Recep asked. Leyla said, “The dormitory leaders are trying to instill a positive daily prayer ritual in the students, and this is important.” Additionally, she pointed out that the boys are living in an environment where people do not consume alcohol. The boys continued to complain that they felt forced into praying and becoming involved in the movement. Leyla was familiar with Islamists’ emphasis on self-education and told the boys it was important for them to educate themselves about Islam. Gesturing to a nearby bookcase stacked with religious texts, she suggested that they read the Qur’an in Turkish as well as Arabic. As she had on several previous occasions when talking with her neighbors and me, she said, “A major tenet of the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad’s first order from God is to read.” As I noted previously, by stressing reading in Turkish, Leyla is advocating a language ideology that many Muslims would justifiably feel departs from ethical Muslim practice, which stresses the untranslatability of the Qur’an. Most Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad received the order “to recite,” not “to read.” Leyla also told Recep and his friends, “Read books about your religion written by many different people. Also, you should talk with other people. Talk to your parents. Talk to other adults.” After the boys left, Leyla turned to me and said, “I’m so proud that those boys felt comfortable coming to me and talking to me about religion.” The boys did appear extremely relaxed and comfortable discussing their ideas with Leyla. I noticed that they lounged comfortably on Leyla’s couches and smoked cigarettes in front of her, which is somewhat unusual—younger people are often reticent to smoke in front of older people in Turkey, as a sign of respect and formal distance between generations. Young men having such an open conversation with an older woman is also unusual in Turkey (and I would say, even in America). She explained, “Educating children by talking to them is important. Some people may gossip about my talking to them, but it is more important to educate a child than to worry about gossip.” Indeed, this event did result in gossip. Neighbors said that Leyla had behaved improperly for a mother living with two teenage daughters. Actually, Ceren and Sanem never even greeted Recep’s friends, and they did not enter the room in which Leyla talked with the boys. Yet, some neighbors found it inappropriate for the girls to be in the house when Leyla entertained their brother’s friends. In addition, there were neighbors who told Leyla they do not believe that there is any religious benefit to reading the Qur’an in Turkish and that doing so constitutes a “sinful” practice. Leyla heard that her neighbor, Feriha, said to her aunt, “Leyla saw that type of thing in Germany, so she does not know that it is wrong.” In fact, Leyla told me that

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neighbors have often accused her of being “like a European or committing a günah (sin). Neighbors will say, ‘Oh, she does that because she’s an Almanyalı (German-er).’” Neighbors also criticize Leyla for discussing religion with non-family members and without appropriate qualifications and for inappropriate gender behaviors. For example, some neighbors say “hocalığı tuttu” (“you are acting like a religious teacher or know-it-all”) and call her an “imam” (male religious leader), which in this case takes on a negative connotation, because it implies assuming an inappropriate male and religious role that one does not deserve. In Leyla’s opinion, these labels stem from the fact that she is knowledgeable about Islam and does not shy away from discussing her religious views with anyone. Expressing dismay with her neighbors’ ignorance and their efforts at social control by use of gossip, Leyla told me (as she had on many previous occasions): “Unfortunately, in Germany, you live for yourself. In Turkey, you live for society.” Leyla’s ethical stance derives from many years of experiences that set her apart from neighbors. She is confident in her own ethical moral compass in the face of others’ criticisms. How can we explain Leyla’s difficulties with some neighbors in this regard? Returnees’ are navigating Turks’ “anxieties about their country’s modern, European status” (Silverstein 2003: 511), and they face significant stigma as a “Europeanized Muslims.” As Turks negotiate their own ambivalent vision of their present and future in Europe, returnees get castigated, for their perceived loss of “Turkish-ness,” and for their dangerous excess of European modernity. On the one hand, some neighbors see Leyla as “ignorant” for not knowing about what they think is correct Turkish religious practice, such as reciting the Qur’an in Arabic and not reading it in Turkish. On the other hand, some neighbors see her as “too modern,” the changed “European Turk,” who has become a “bad Muslim” and a “bad woman” for attempting to engage in religious teaching without appropriate qualifications. Leyla’s own ideas about her experience in Europe must be understood in this context of neighborly suspicion and as part of her desire to assert a third possibility. As I explore in the next section, she seeks to assert a Muslim Turkish modernity compatible with Turkey’s belonging in Europe, and she signals belonging and experience in both Turkey and Europe to do so. ISLAM, EDUCATION, AND BELONGING Despite neighborly disapproval, Leyla was happy that the boys came and talked with her about religion, because she believes that, “the teenagers probably had nowhere else to go for information about Islam. In Germany, self-education is important, but most Turks are ignorant about their own

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religion. I am glad that I could explain the importance of prayer and that I could urge them to educate themselves.” Leyla constantly stressed the importance of religious self-education, and she would often share her views on religion with neighbors and me. For example, once she related to Necla, “People are so ignorant! They think that cutting your nails in the evenings and chewing gum are sinful. But, in fact, these things are just sünnet (beneficial). There were logical reasons for these prohibitions—you could injure yourself if you cut nails in dark light, and it is antisocial to chew gum when you are sitting around with other people. People need to educate themselves about their religion!” Many returnees share Leyla’s belief in the importance of education and reading religious books. For example, Aslı, a returnee to Ilçe, told me that in Ilçe, people have only recently become interested in educating themselves about religion. As she put it, “People didn’t know much about their own religion” in the past. “Now, they are reading books about Islam and learning about their religion. This is important.” Another time, Aslı told me, “I wanted to come back to Turkey to learn about my religion.” Unlike Leyla, Aslı strongly emphasized reading the Qur’an in Arabic, but I often observed her reading other books about Islam and running her own sohbet. Like Leyla, Aslı has made a conscious decision to pursue a Muslim life that involves significant self-education and discussion. When describing her feelings, Leyla employs some troubling stereotypes, referring to German “self-education” and Turkish “ignorance.” I do not know where or when Leyla first developed these ideas, though I suspect that her school years in Germany and observations of Christian religious education are significant. The Evangelical Church and the Catholic Church are “public law corporations” in Germany, and Christian education is legally mandated in German schools. Turks have had difficulties getting analogous Muslim instruction instituted (Ewing 2000). One day, I observed an incident that may indicate how Leyla developed some of her ideas about Christians and Muslims. She told a neighbor, Ipek, and me that she observed, “Christians pray more frequently than Muslims in Germany.” Given the low rates of Christian religious practice in Germany—30 percent of Germans are not affiliated with any religion, and less than 10 percent of German Christians attend church on Sundays16—her idea did not seem accurate to me. She went on to explain her assertion with reference to her experience as a fifth grader: “One time, the Christian children in my class were taken to a church where they all prayed together, but the Muslim children, including me, were just milling about outside of the church. We were saying to ourselves, ‘What business do we have here?’ Eventually, some Christian children began saying bad things about the Turkish children and a fight started. At this point, a German teacher came over to us and asked

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the Muslim children: ‘Don’t you have a place to pray? What is wrong with you? Why don’t you practice your religion?’ The Turkish children said with indignation, ‘We do have a place to pray!’ The teacher then replied, ‘Why don’t you go there?’” Rather than questioning the fact that Christian religious education is supported as part of state schooling and that the teacher did not take the Muslim children to a mosque in the first place, Leyla feels that that the teacher was right to question the students in this way. She explained, “Turks in Germany do not know how to practice their religion and live as Muslims. The Christian children who were praying set a good example for the Muslim children. It is because Turks don’t live like good Muslims that the European Union does not want to accept Turkey. We do not live like good Christians or Muslims.” There is ample scholarly evidence that many Europeans are uncomfortable with Muslim migrants in their midst and that Turkish migrants in Germany experience severe discrimination for their Muslim practices and identities (Ewing 2008; Kaya 2009; Mandel 2008; Weber 2013). So, Leyla’s assertion that the European Union would accept Turkey if Turks lived like “good Muslims” might be incorrect. Leyla’s use of stereotypic descriptions of religious comportment involving ideas about education, frequent prayer and ignorance are also not accurate portraits of Christians, Germans, Europeans, Muslims, or Turks. There is no standard measure of “religious education,” and Muslims and Turks are no more or less “educated” than members of any other religious or ethnic group. But, the idea that Europeans are more “educated” is a widespread image facilitated through the Germany-Turkey transnational social field. For example, if you ask many Turks, they will tell you: “Europeans have a better education system” or “Unlike Europeans, Turks don’t read books very much.” However, unlike Leyla, most Turks think that they are more religious than Germans and thus more educated about their religion than Germans. Nevertheless, for Leyla, using these stereotypes facilitates her belonging work, as part of projects to assert that she is a self-educated, good Muslim and that Turkish Muslims can and should find belonging in Europe. She declares that Muslims should self-educate and actively practice their religion like she thinks Christians do in order to be better Muslims. In part, Leyla’s views of Christian religious education and practice stem from the time period of her migration (1974–1988), when Turkish Islamic practice was less institutionalized in Germany than it is today. Her location in a small town with few other Turks and her own family circumstances involving neglect and abuse are also likely to have contributed to her perceptions and judgments. Other migrants who attended school in the 1990s and 2000s in Germany complained about their exposure to Christian religious education. For example, Meral, who attended school between 1983 and 1997,

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explains, “Nobody paid attention to the fact that I was a Muslim girl, and maybe Santa Claus would not bring presents to my house.” Meral claimed that she now wants her own children to grow up with a strong understanding of their religion, and she does not want them to learn about Christianity in school. This is a key reason for her return to Turkey. Esra and Yavuz, who returned to Turkey in 2006, also claimed that they were deeply disturbed by Christian religious education in German schools. Yavuz said, “We wanted to return to Turkey in large part for our children’s religious upbringing.” When I lived with them, I often saw Esra and Yavuz instructing their children in Islamic beliefs and prayer. Though Leyla blames Turks for not educating themselves sufficiently in Germany, like Meral, Esra, and Yavuz, she also thinks that Muslim religious education is easier to undertake in Turkey. And it is very possible that Leyla and other returnees’ ideas stem from conversations and experiences that they have had in Turkey, not Germany. In Leyla’s case, she began learning about Islam several years after returning from Germany to Turkey. But, it is clear that remembering her experiences in Germany and reflecting on her own cultural and religious milieu also prompts Leyla, as it does other returnees, to reflect on religious ideas. No matter where Leyla’s and others’ ideas originate, they often attribute them to time in Germany and draw conclusions about religious education from observations of Germans and Turks. Though Leyla believes Christians may be more religiously educated and active, she does not mean that she literally learned about religion from Christians. It is only when she returns to Turkey that Leyla is able to begin learning about Islam by reading books in Turkish. It is also important to note that Leyla is advocating a religious technology that she labels “Christian”— self-education through reading—but not learning about Christianity per se. While Leyla relies on some unfounded stereotypes, she does not necessarily want to place Christians in an intrinsically superior position to Muslims. Rather, she wants Muslims to also educate themselves. She wants to position herself as a self-educated Muslim who is able to act as a good parent and to educate other Muslims in her community. After meeting with her son, Recep, and his friends, Leyla decided to consult her neighbor, Sami Öztürk, about what the boys shared with her. Under most circumstances in Turkey, it would be unusual for a middle-aged, married woman like Leyla to seek advice about religious matters from an unrelated middle-aged, married man like Sami, especially if the man is not officially a religious teacher or an imam (Muslim religious leader). But, Leyla told me that Sami’s family is “different,” and therefore she feels comfortable asking him questions. “In their family, men and women sit together. And I know that whatever I tell them, they will take to their graves and not gossip and tell other people. I can trust them and feel comfortable with them.” Leyla

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believed that Sami and his family shared her own philosophy about religion in which education is emphasized. As she put it, “as scientific knowledge advances, we will come to see that it supports religious understandings.” At Sami’s house, his mother, wife, younger brother, uncle, and I all sat on blue couches in the living room and sipped tea. Leyla told them about her conversation with Recep and his friends. The others listened attentively while Sami advised Leyla that it was important for her son to never feel “forced” into any religious practice, even if the practices are required for Muslims. The actions of the person running her son’s dormitory are completely against Islamist teachings, he assured her. “You should try to talk with the superior at Recep’s dormitory, because those managing the house are ignorant.” The others listened and nodded their agreement. Sami also agreed with Leyla that her son should educate himself about Islam by reading the Qur’an in both Turkish and Arabic and reading other religious books. “That’s what I thought you would say,” Leyla exclaimed. “Be patient with Recep,” Sami said. Dormitories like the one in which he is staying “are very positive institutions, which will ultimately give him a good religious understanding and keep him from going down a bad road.” As we walked back to her house, Leyla shared with me how comfortable she feels with the Öztürks. “They try to combine scientific understanding with religious belief like I do. People talk badly about my neighbors, the Öztürks. They say, ‘They think that they are better than other people.’ But, just because people are educated about religion like me and them, and men and women sit together and discuss important issues, does not mean that I am an Almancı (German-like) and they are trying to show-off. We just educated ourselves.” Clearly, Leyla feels a sense of belonging with the Öztürks, stemming from their mutual difficulties with neighbors and their shared convictions about ethical Muslim practices. As this interaction demonstrates, no matter what Leyla or other returnees may say, education is not a “Christian” or “German” idea, but an extremely important idea for many Turkish Muslims. In particular, education is an important aspect of the Islamic revival movement in Turkey. Leyla’s ideas about education are thus not a “foreign” import but help her to find inclusion with some of her neighbors. In attempting to make sure that Recep finds faith and becomes a good Muslim, Leyla is continuing her goal of increasing religious education and understanding of Islamic belief. Personal beliefs and private practices are not sufficient for being a good Muslim, for Leyla. It is also necessary to bring one’s insights to others—to one’s children, extended family, neighbors, and a broader community of Muslims. Just as she has negotiated her Muslim identity through interaction with others over time, she also initiates conversations: her project of self-education is coupled with a project to educate others.

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Like many return migrants to Turkey, Leyla’s feeling of being a Muslim permeates her story, even though her ideas have changed over time and are continuing to change. Leyla’s religious knowledge didn’t come through a single moment of education or understanding but developed over time. Now religious ideals are critical to her everyday life, where the desire to live as a good Muslim structures her understanding of right and wrong as an individual and a neighbor. No matter how her beliefs and associations transform, religiosity remains tied to her self-work and her work on belonging. Experience in Europe does not make return migrants more religiously reactionary or more tolerant as much as it opens up new vistas from which they can understand Islam. Migration is not sufficient to explain Leyla’s religious growth over time. Her life experiences and ongoing relationships are also key. Migration changes her worldview but is not the sole factor affecting her world. She moves through life events as well as between physical places. notes 1. As various groups may come under state scrutiny at different times, to protect Leyla, I am not naming the specific Islamist groups Leyla mentions by name throughout this chapter. 2. For more information on Islamist groups in Turkey, see Çarkoğlu and Bilgili (2009), Hart (2013), Tuğal (2009), and Walton (2017). 3. An estimated 30 percent of Turks are Alevi, a sect within Islam with historical connections to Shi’ah Islam. Though not officially recognized as a religious sect by the Turkish government, historically, Alevis have been associated with secularity and leftist politics in Turkey. Many Alevis fled from Turkey to Germany during the military coup in 1980 and afterward, but my research focuses on Sunni return migrants, who are the largest group of returnees. For more information on Turkish Alevis, see David Shankland’s The Alevis in Turkey (2003). For more information on Alevis in Europe, see Besim Can Zihr (2008). 4. For more information about headscarf practices and perceptions in Germany, see Mandel (2008): Chapter 11; Rottmann and Ferree (2008); Weber (2013): 77–136. 5. See for example: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11880622. 6. In 2016 and 2017, many Gülen group members were convicted of terrorism in Turkish courts for attempting to undertake a coup to overthrow the government. 7. Minority ethnic and religious groups such as Armenians, Greeks, Suryanis, Jews, and Muslim minorities such as Kurds and Alevis faced the curtailing of their legal and cultural rights and sometimes violence (Aktar 2000; Ari 1995; Bali 1999; Neyzi 2002). 8. Scholars have shown that there is not one definitive form of secularism or modernity, nor is Islam “un-modern” or “un-Western” (e.g. Asad 2003). 9. For more information on the Danish Cartoon Controversy, see: http://topics.ny times.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/d/danish_cartoon_controve rsy/index.html. Accessed 1 March 2012.

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10. For more information on the Pope’s speech, see: Ian Fisher, “Pope’s Regrets Over Statement Fail to Quiet a Storm of Protests.” New York Times. 19 September 2006. www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/world/europe/19pope.html?scp=19&sq=po pe+benedict&st=nyt&gwh=123132D121A9623D6A71F4703061909E. Accessed 1 March 2012. 11. For more information on the “Leitkultur” controversy, see: Jürgen Habermas, “Leadership and Leitkultur.” New York Times. 28 October 2010. www.nytimes .com/2010/10/29/opinion/29Habermas.html?pagewanted=all. Accessed 1 March 2012. 12. From the article: “İslam Almanya’ya ait değil.” NTVMSNBC. 19 April 2012. www .ntvmsnbc.com/id/25341676/. Accessed 19 April 2012. 13. For more information on anti-immigrant protests in Germany, see: Melissa Eddy. “Big Anti-Immigration Rally in Germany Prompts Counterdemonstrations.” New York Times. 12 January 2015. www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/world/europe/biganti-immigration-rally-in-germany-prompts-counterdemonstrations.html. Accessed 14 January 2015. 14. CHP refers to the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) (Republican People’s Party). This is a leftist-secularist political party in opposition to the ruling AK Party. 15. An abbreviated discussion of this event appeared in Rottmann (2014). 16. Exact figures and additional information can be found at: www.eurel.info/EN/in dex.php?pais=20&rubrique=135; www.dbk.de/zahlen-fakten/kirchliche-statistik/; and www.ekd.de/english/4329-service_workship_holy_communion.html. Accessed 2 February 2011.

CONCLUSION In Pursuit of Belonging

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ BREAKFAST WITH FRIENDS

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ne muggy summer day, Leyla invited her neighbor, Şebnem, and me over for breakfast. This was a meal she frequently prepared for me, consisting of eggs, bread, cheese, and a fresh tomato-cucumber salad. We chatted companionably for an hour, and the topic of the book came up. I was quite friendly with Şebnem, having visited with her on several occasions, and thought it would be acceptable to ask her directly how she viewed Leyla, if she saw her as a “German-Turk.” Obviously, I knew that her response would be shaped by the fact that Leyla was present, but I still wondered what she would say. She replied, “When Leyla first came back, it was as if she was a space alien (uzaydan gelmiş). I was just seven years old when she came. I was a little girl. But, Leyla wasn’t snobby or rude (kibir) like some German-Turks. She is one of us.” As I’d found in so many cases while conducting research on German-Turkish return migration, Şebnem’s answer showed her assumption that the label “German-Turk” was negative, signifying outsider-ness from a community. She naturally assumed that I was asking if Leyla could be lumped into that category, and wished to say clearly “no.” However, that was not the question I wanted to ask. I tried my question again: “I don’t mean to ask if Leyla acts like a German-Turk in a bad way,” I clarified. “I mean is Leyla different because she has lived in Germany— because she has seen two cultures?” Before Şebnem could answer, Leyla immediately interjected: “Yes, I am different, but it is not from living in Germany, as if I don’t still care about Turkish religion and language. Our traditions (adet) and culture are very important to me. But, yes, I can see two cultures and see the difference that makes, and I make choices because of

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that.” Leyla confirmed that migration has been an experience of increasing her awareness of alternatives for action. She went on to give an example of what she meant by “tradition” and “culture.” “I would not want to raise my children in Germany while they are small,” she explained, “because it is difficult to teach them about Turkish culture if you live there. But, when they’re all older, I would like living in Germany, because there are a lot of opportunities there for education and for a disabled child like Hande.” Not surprisingly, when considering where she might like to live and why, the education and welfare of her children were among her first considerations. Leyla is aware of cultural differences between Germany and Turkey, but, more than this, she is conscious of the fact that this awareness impacts her choices, such as her parenting decisions. As I’ve stressed throughout the book, Leyla’s ethical habitus is articulated in her interactions with friends and neighbors like Şebnem and me. Belonging is never complete, but, in her view, and in Şebnem’s view, she is successful. In my view, too. I feel enriched, grateful, and inspired by knowing Leyla. I hope that readers have learned as much from thinking with her about being and becoming a good person as I have learned by writing about it. Leyla’s story shows that ordinary people sometimes undertake extraordinary journeys. This book has focused on Leyla’s extraordinary journey of belonging to reveal how migration can change a person and a community. The tale of her life story has been used to illuminate how a macro-level social context, the Germany-Turkey transnational social field, affects people’s everyday lives and religious and national identities over time. Leyla’s story is not singular: she shares a great deal with other return migrants who are impacted by European-Turkish connectivity, with Turkish citizens who, like her, are concerned about education and rights, and with mothers everywhere who are trying to raise children who will flourish. This chapter further elucidates these connections to explore the significance of Leyla’s story for scholars and students, for people in Turkey and Europe, for return migrants and for people who never intend to leave home.

ETHICS DILEMMAS AND PLURAL BELONGINGS Returning home is not easy. Transnational migration creates ethical dilemmas for return migrants. They find themselves pushed into challenging social positions and often feel like outsiders. German-Turks must confront the hopes and fears they and their fellow citizens have about Turkey’s belonging in Europe, as well as concerns about how transnational experiences may impact interpersonal relationships at home. Women transnational migrants

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face particular dilemmas regarding mothering, marriage, and community roles. In some employment situations, like illegal transnational call centers, migrants face dilemmas regarding workplace norms, Muslim principles, and gender expectations for working women. In their communities, as transnational neighbors, migrants face dilemmas surrounding educational, religious, and citizenship aims. But, being a transnational migrant is not only a “problem” causing difficulty, exclusion, and lack of belonging; it can also open up an array of possible options and ethical positions to be considered, debated, and, ultimately, accepted or rejected. Migrants are exposed to a wide variety of ethical perspectives or resources that they can use to shape selves and communities in unique ways, and, potentially, to transform both. Leyla shows us how German-Turks can creatively combine ideas and practices pertaining to work, motherhood, truth, honor, shame, equality, independence, education, rights, and active citizenship. These are discourses from two cultural milieus—Germany and Turkey—that are shaped by the social and political context of German-Turkish migration. Migrants weave these discourses into combinations of diverse and sometimes even contradictory discourses—that facilitate connection, respect, and trust. In fact, using these discourses, migrants can transform the ethical dilemmas resulting from migration as well as those arising out of other life experiences, such as abuse, motherhood, and loss. In resolving their dilemmas, return migrants can transform environments characterized by stigma and shame into ones characterized by honor, acceptance, understanding, and intimacy. Researching how transnational mobility affects ethics for migrants alters significantly our understanding of returnee reintegration. Moving beyond the positives or negatives of migration, this approach focuses on nuance, on the complexity of life and on future emergences. Many studies of return migration describe nostalgic attempts to recapture a lost past (cf. AntebyYemeni 2004; Pattie 2004; Zetter 1999). Likewise, scholars have noted a past-oriented “return mythology” (Rückkermythos) for Turks in Germany (Wolbert 1995: 26). My research demonstrates how migration and ethics are future-oriented projects of hope (cf. Stefansson 2004). Return migrants are not aiming to simply recapture a lost earlier time period, but are engaged in hopeful projects of establishing belonging in the present. Migration experience seems to give returnees a different sense of possibility—of freedom. Leyla accepts very few external constraints; for example, neither from religious or state leaders nor from strict community social norms. Rather, she firmly believes that she can achieve the life she wants through her own efforts, and her experiences of mobility are a key to fueling her efforts. German-Turks often vary regarding which ethical issues matter most to them. For example, wealthy and lower class, young and old migrants have

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differing ideas about work, marriage, and parenting. Some migrants maintain strong transnational ties with Germany, while others lose all cross-border connections. The ethical values that many German-Turks share (for example, ideas of honor or rights) and the meaning of belonging in their communities may be different from return migrants in other countries. But, Leyla’s story is similar to many others: a story of the struggle for a good life and ethical aims—a story that is ongoing and open ended. Belonging for migrants is shaped by many factors: their specific migration and individual life experiences, their personal reflections, and ongoing interactions with others. Homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and social and political contexts are not stable or uniform spaces. Belonging in these spaces changes over time as certain actions become acceptable or unacceptable to others, bearable or unbearable to oneself. The problems and the solutions associated with transnationalism emerge and change gradually because selves, needs, and situations are constantly changing. For example, we saw how Leyla struggled with being kind to her call center customers, how she decided to sell or not to sell certain “sinful” products, and how she eventually stopped working at the illegal call centers as soon as her finances improved. We observed how Leyla worked to transcend her sad childhood and to gradually change her husband Selim’s ideas about marriage—to create a happy childhood for her children and to negotiate greater marriage equality for herself. Leyla’s Muslim religiosity is far from stable, changing repeatedly in response to life experiences, political developments, and neighborhood interactions. The notion that ethical paradigms change due to the effect of religious movements, violence, or other cultural upheavals is nothing new in scholarly studies (cf. Robbins 2004; Zigon 2008). But, this account of Leyla’s life shows us that change need not be quite so dramatic. Ethical change also takes the form of long-term, gradual evolutions on a personal level. Leyla’s story vividly highlights ethical complexity and conflict. It is possible to hold opposing ethical principles as equally important and to have to choose between ethical positions that are both unsatisfactory. For example, it is possible to value women’s roles in Germany and Turkey and to have to choose between lying at work and not feeding one’s children. Within Turkey and also among return migrants, individuals can have very different views of what makes an ethical life. The only claim we can really make about the content of “the good life” is that people value different ethical aims. The significance of relating Leyla’s story is to show how ethical challenges manifest themselves not only among migrants and citizens as a group, but also within the life of a single migrant, who must continually navigate amidst conflicting ethical norms.

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ANXIETIES AND HOPES FOR A EUROPEAN TURKEY The story of German-Turkish return migration is a story about Turkish citizens’ anxieties about belonging in Europe. Stigmatization and stereotyping of return migrants and the ethical debates that emerge during interactions between migrants and non-migrants display Turks’ clear discomfort with how Europe impacts Turks’ ideas and expectations for themselves and others. For example, migrants and non-migrants do not simply discuss honesty, education, and women’s rights; they discuss “European honesty,” “European education,” “European women’s rights,” “Turkish women’s roles,” and “Turkish families.” Why do the ethical discourses that migrants and nonmigrants use have national labels? Because ethical aspirations and worries are also national aspirations and worries. These discourses form and sever ethical relationships between “European” and “Turkish” lifeworlds. GermanTurks symbolize Turkey’s uncertain future in an enlarged Europe and Turkish Muslim belonging amidst European Christians. How German-Turks act comes to stand in for what all Turks may do in the future. Unquestionably, the Middle East is an important social and political realm for Turkish leaders and citizens who dream of a return to Ottoman hegemony, to empire. But, the European sphere still holds ideological and symbolic significance as well. Many returnees hope to improve Turkish society. Specifically, they hope for increased equality, freedom, and justice for Turkish citizens. Although some return migrants get involved in political activism, others, like Leyla, work on issues in small ways on a local level. She is a subtle but material force for social change. But, Leyla does not think of herself as a politically minded. One time, in an interview, Leyla told me that she did not follow politics and never discussed politics with others. She related, “In this society, sharing your ideas is difficult. When you talk with friends or neighbors, different sides always blame the other sides (leftists and rightists). People are blaming and judgmental towards each other. When politics comes up, I say, ‘I’m stupid. My brain cannot handle such things’ (‘kafam ermez boyle şeyler’).” Her statement was not exactly true. As I described in Chapter 4, I observed Leyla commenting on how the AK party had tried to improve state services to her gün attendees (who likely were also AK Party supporters). In Chapter 1, when she was working at the call center run by Erol, I observed Leyla disagreeing with her boss and asserting that girls should be allowed to wear headscarves in schools. At these moments, Leyla clearly displayed a political position and, in general, support for the ruling party’s policies. Despite her claim that she is “too stupid” to understand politics, she clearly did follow political developments and did understand many of Turkey’s political cleavages. In fact, to my mind, what Leyla expresses by claiming to not “talk politics” is concern about those political divisions in Turkish society. Leyla

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doesn’t want to be perceived as belonging to “a side.” She wants to be able to express her views about “the good” things she hopes for her country without alienating others. Migrants often seemed frustrated with perceived polarization in Turkey. Filiz, a returnee to Istanbul with only an elementary school education, explained during an interview: “Religion, language, and race do not matter. There should be brotherliness (kardeşlik). If we look at the situation in Turkey, people are scared of each other on the street. At the time of the war for Turkish independence, there was no Kurd or Turk. People came from outside of Turkey to attack us and everyone rose up. Everyone fought together. Why is there this division now? I don’t understand. . . . We are all people. If you are Kurd, Turk, Alevi, Sunni, or another religion, Christian, Muslim, it is not important. Are we not siblings? Do we not live under the Turkish flag? I’m not interested in your religion. You are not interested in my religion. But we are siblings.” Many scholars rightly describe Turkey as an extremely divided nation (cf. White 2012). Yet, in my view, there is much to be learned from examining how average Turkish citizens are critiquing societal divisions in daily life. Migrants, in particular, seem eager to call for an end to the many deepseated conflicts fracturing Turkish society. Although scholars have noted that Turkish political and social cleavages cross the border into Germany (cf. Kosnick 2011), I believe it is also possible that return migrants, with their long removal from the everyday divisive debates in Turkey, might be subtle, but persistent, voices for change. Because migrants have been exposed to alternate sociocultural milieus, they are sometimes able to imagine alternate relationships—of respect, equality, rights, and services—between the state and citizens and among citizens who hold different views. Their discourses are centered on national spheres, on an idea of “German” or “Turkish” ethics. Yet, migrants advocate for an ethical freedom, for a just and democratic system beyond any nation, so that they can to create better selves. This research ultimately contributes to the study of “hope as an ethical object” (Lambek 2010b: 36), showing that it is not foolish to hope that societal tension and fear may someday be overcome. Leyla’s success is not based on her ability to achieve an abstract ideal, but rather on her skills and persistence in deftly navigating among differing worldviews on a daily basis and in maintaining the creative space necessary to imagine that the world could be a different way. Leyla is successful because she keeps difference and different perspectives alive. Whether return migrants are struggling for interethnic and religious equality or simply for their children’s schooling, they are joining growing calls for greater equality and rights in Turkey. Many are living with expansive worldviews, and this is certainly a source of hope.

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RESPONSIBILITY, HOPE, AND MODERN LIFE Studying ethics and belonging in this way also enables us to rethink how we theorize “agency.” Anthropologists are increasingly attempting to push beyond concepts of “agency” and “structure,” which have dominated disciplinary debates for years (e.g. Keane 2007; Mahmood 2005). We want to show that individuals act creatively (agentively), but that overarching power systems and cultural norms (structures) shape lives. The problem we face is how to study agency and structure without reproducing Western conceptions of self, choice, intentions, and individuality or, conversely, emphasizing culture as a static, essentialized trap. Theoretical propositions include the study of “becoming” (Biehl and Locke 2010), the study of the “will” (Murphy and Throop 2010) and actor-network theory (Oppenheim 2007). This ethnography examining links between ethics and belonging offers a more holistic approach to this issue. Such an approach mediates between action and interaction, subjectivity and intersubjectivity and inserts individuals into their social groups, which give their actions meaning. Anthropologists studying ethics have already begun pointing to the relevance of ethics for understanding this debate. For example, James Laidlaw (2010) shows that the ethics of responsibility highlights the consequences implied in acting. Focusing on the link between ethics and hope, Michael Lambek (2010b) argues that interlocutors are affected by power, but also engaged with positively valued work on self-other relationships. Leyla’s story is fundamentally a story of responsibility and hope, a story of agency with and through power structures. For example, Leyla is very concerned with maintaining female and family honor, which is a structuring discourse of power in her world. She is concerned about gossip concerning her daughters and seeks to prevent them from engaging in behavior that might damage their perceived sexual honor. On the other hand, she also challenges honor discourses, for example, by engaging in ethical projects regarding the education of her children and neighbors that brings her own honor into question. It would be possible to theorize her actions as attempts to assert her agency and to resist oppressive gender discourses. Her story could be used to examine women’s liberation in patriarchal societies. But, conceptualizing her story in terms of ethical work, instead, points to her agency as part of the structural configurations of her social space—national and personal—not in opposition to them. Leyla is creatively renegotiating norms of honor and engaging in gradual struggles to change the terms of responsible womanhood. The gradual but substantial transformations she achieves do not come simply through resistance, but through daily efforts of hopeful work on herself and others. She sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails, and most often falls somewhere in between in her endeavors to estab-

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lish connections and understanding and to be responsible and hopeful. She is an agent, but also enveloped in overlapping layers of communities, working on being and becoming a good person. What does Leyla’s life story have to do with those of us who are neither Turks nor Europeans, neither German-Turks nor return migrants? Looking closely at migrants’ life stories highlights the utter universality of ethical quests, quarrels, and questions. We are all moving through life, weighing the importance of self-respect with being respected by others, working on education and religiosity, and figuring out how to make a living. Despite our ethnic, cultural, religious, or class identities, we all need to figure out how to lead the right kind of life. By focusing on return migrants negotiating a place for themselves in a country in a little corner of Europe and the Middle East, this study illuminates pervasive issues about modernity. In an increasingly interconnected world, confrontations with other lifeworlds and with unfamiliar ethical paradigms confront many of us on a daily basis. Examining how German-Turks navigate the challenges posed by moving among diverse ethical paradigms provides insights into processes of negotiating ethical difference anywhere. Modern life is sometimes characterized as a state of homelessness. Instead of belonging, many of us feel unmoored from roots (e.g. Rapport and Dawson 1999; Said 1984 [2001]: 159–160). For this reason, the concept of migration has deep significance. “Migration becomes a mechanism for theorizing how identity itself is predicated on movement or loss” (Ahmed 1999: 332). For some people, homelessness has ironically become the basis for a sense of home—community is found through sharing a lack of home (cf. Seaman 1996). But, while some find home in rootlessness or in a rooted cosmopolitanism (e.g. Appiah 1998; 2006), others feel adrift, struggle for recognition of their identity, and lament a troubling lack of democratic solidarity in cosmopolitan projects (e.g. Calhoun 2002: 86–87). This research examines this conundrum of our era: embracing rootlessness but longing for roots. In examining how return migrants forge an ethical life at home, this book provides insight into how we all might find comfort, hope, and home as we pursue our own belongings. Leyla wanted us to feel hopeful after reading her story. She ended her memoir with: “No matter what life has brought me, I try to see the glass as half full. We are human and we are flawed. No matter what, we will keep making mistakes. I try not to hurt others and, from now on, I am not going to let other people hurt me either. I will strive to lead a peaceful and fulfilling life with my husband and children. Despite the bleeding wounds within my soul, I SUCCEEDED. I wholeheartedly wish everyone success in this life!” Despite her many difficult challenges, Leyla sees her

story as a success story. She knows that she has suffered more than others:

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She often discussed how difficult it was for her to trust others after her childhood abuse and also noted how the loss of her child made her question her religious faith. But, Leyla feels that she has triumphed over her difficulties. Her advice to others would be: the only way to endure hurt and loss is simply to keep on going, to remain optimistic and ultimately hopeful. She sees her community, her country and her life getting better every day. She asks others to hope, and she models hope.

A PPE N D I X

1 L E Y L A’S M E M O I R ST U DY GU I D E

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬

L

eyla and I both have a story to tell you. The first part of this book was my story of Leyla’s life. What follows is Leyla’s story of her life, unedited, translated from Turkish to English. She considers this to be a summary and is currently expanding the text for publication in Turkish. My story is an ethnography, hers is a memoir. Read together, there is much that can be gleaned about anthropology, life writing, ethics, belonging, and truth. I encourage you to compare and contrast both texts and to consider the following questions: 1. What do we learn from Leyla’s own telling of her life that is different from my telling about her life? How does each narrative enrich or complicate the other? 2. Which text sheds more light on Leyla’s ethical ideals, motivations, and goals? 3. Which text more clearly explains causation, context, and the reasons for the unfolding of events? 4. Which text is more true, accurate, objective, or authentic? Why? 5. Based on the texts, what values or ideals do Susan and Leyla seem to share? 6. What information is excluded from both stories? What questions remain about Leyla’s story after your reading? 7. How is Leyla represented or portrayed in each of the texts? Do you find her more or less relatable in either of the stories? Why?

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8. What are the goals of ethnography? What are the goals of memoir? How does each text fulfill or fail to fulfill these goals? 9. Which text is more enjoyable to read? Why? 10. If you were to write an ethnography of Leyla’s life experiences based on her memoir, which parts of her story would you most want to explore?

A PPE N D I X

2 L E Y L A’S M E M O I R

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ SUFFERING TRANSFORMED INTO HAPPINESS By Leyla Was it a stormy day in autumn? Was it a breezy spring evening? I’m not sure. . . . It was one of those days that got me thinking to myself. . . . Despite having a rather large family, I often felt lonely and melancholic. I would write down what came to my mind on pieces of paper, only to burn them a short time later. Doing this made me feel somehow relaxed and free of burdens. One day, in front of a mirror, I questioned myself, wondering why I always turned to writing instead of confiding in someone I could trust like my spouse or a close friend. The answer was right there actually: I didn’t trust anybody, and I was somehow right in not doing so given my experiences. My birth parents divorced and each remarried to strangers. They started new homes and of course never asked their children about it. I was a half lucky child: although I was unlucky with my biological parents, I was very lucky with my stepparents. The path that fate chose for me was a tough test, all in all. My father remarried and took me and my brother to Germany with his new wife. He was an irresponsible and indifferent father, and she was a caring stepmother. I began attending school. As a primary school child, one doesn’t understand much about one’s situation, however, as the years go by, not only your body devel-

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FIGURE A.1. Original pen and ink drawing of Leyla. Artist: Linda Rottmann (2018).

ops, but also your mind and your perception improves, allowing you to see your world more clearly. A child’s love is pure. I used to be envious of my friends’ families. They were talking about the concept of home and the bond of family, things that were nonexistent in my own life. I spent my primary school years yearning, and in middle school the reality became apparent. I started to comprehend what was happening around me.

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Like all Gastarbeiter [guestworkers], summertime meant traveling to Turkey. My first year in middle school, the preparations were underway at home for this summer holiday. Since my [step]mother was working two jobs, she couldn’t spend much time at home. Every now and then she had a few days off. On one of those days, she prepared for a fancy afternoon tea. I had a little sister and brother, whom she sent off to a neighbor. Then, she called me and my brother saying she wished to talk with us. We were very curious. “What’s wrong?” we wondered, looking at one another. Sitting down, my [step]mother didn’t know how to begin, she struggled to find the right words. She started off by saying “It’s summer time again children and time to head to Turkey, but it will be slightly different this year.” At this moment, she laid two photographs on the table, one of a woman and one of the same woman holding hands with a man. Every time we went back to Turkey, we would stay with the eldest daughter of our stepmother. During our time there, we always heard brief snatches of conversation, such as “Do they know? Did you tell them? They are old enough, when will they learn?” Our stepmother continued: “My dears, I am aware that you have been hearing things all this time. Now listen carefully to what I have to say, and then you can ask questions. This summer you will meet your biological mother and the man she married. However, your father can never know because you know what would happen if he found out that you knew.” My brother and I looked at each other and froze for a moment. We didn’t know what to think, what to ask, what to say or what to do in a situation like this. What a strange twist of fate! My real father was sick in the head with sadistic tendencies and an inclination towards beating and torture. And, here was my stepmother who was the sweetest mother a person could want, generous and valiant, shouldering every single burden on her own. She continued: “I am not telling you this to upset you. You are old enough to know truth. I met your father when I was working in a factory in Turkey. We were both married then, but in the middle of divorcing. We started seeing each other and soon after, we fell in love. In the meantime, I applied to go to Germany. Eventually my divorce was finalized. With your father’s personality the way it is, I could never leave you or get rid of you, but it is your and your birth mother’s natural right to get to know each other. This summer in Turkey, you will meet your biological mother and your stepfather. Now, ask whatever you want to ask.” I couldn’t ask anything. But my brother said: “Mom, please take us through the whole story from the beginning and tell us all of the

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details.” Our [step]mother started telling the story, often in tears. We listened to her as if she was telling us a fairytale. What painful days we all experienced! I thought to myself, and I wondered what else was awaiting us. Already puzzled, we got even more confused. I held onto my biological mother’s photo and kept it under my bed. Every night, I looked at that photo, and then went to bed. My brother never asked where the photograph was so I kept it as if it was my own. Roughly 10 days later, my father (who can be considered a bad mannered man), found the photo by chance. He waited until my [step]mother got home and pandemonium broke out. First, screams and tears, then beating and wailing. The only thing to do was to keep quiet and try to get through it. School was over, and we left for Turkey three days later. The only thing I thought about after we arrived in Turkey was my birth mother. I had a lot of questions. “Who was she? What did she look like? How was she going to greet us?” We arrived at my [step]mother’s daughter’s house, and we had to wait. The big day arrived. The next day after breakfast my father had to be somewhere far away, so he left. My biological mother and her husband arrived and waited for us on the third floor of the building next door. My stepmother got us into clean clothes and took us there. When the door opened, all I remember is my biological mother’s cry. “My children!” she cried in a high pitched voice. Is that right or is that what was supposed to happen? We didn’t understand anything. We sat together for about an hour. During this time, my stepfather (may he rest in peace) hugged us. That was all. It was just meeting for the first time and getting to know one another. What was going on, though? How should this first encounter have been? Words like “mother” and “father,” and the concept of “family” meant nothing to me. Did I have emotions? Was I able to feel? Both my brother and I were overtaken by emptiness. That’s the way we felt—everything seemed meaningless. At that point, we realized how difficult it was to figure some things out—even by thinking very long and hard. All of a sudden the idea of being beaten popped into my mind. We left the house, thinking about the possibility of getting caught and punished by my father. I had experienced a variety of feelings, but I never got the chance to ask my real mother how she felt about the meeting. Eventually, our so-called holiday came to an end, and we went back to Germany. Again, it was time for school, and we were ready. About two months after school started, my brother and I were watching TV on the weekend when (my!) father came home. Upon seeing dirty dinner dishes in the sink, he began kicking my brother. My other siblings ran to the garden. My brother’s lips started to bleed from the beating

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he was receiving. He eventually escaped from the house, and shortly thereafter the police showed up at our door. I later found out that he had sought shelter at the police station. My father didn’t speak German well, so the police interrogated me in another room. I told them what had happened. They decided to place my brother in an orphanage. Meanwhile, another police officer brought my [step]mother home from work. At that moment, I looked at my [step]mother. I didn’t want to leave her alone in such pain and suffering, so I decided not to leave with the police even though I could have done so. But, my brother left. My sister was simply crying; my younger brother was staring at my father with rage. From that point on, we were only three siblings in the house. It is safe to say that my father was irresponsible. He didn’t work, gambled, and got involved with other women. I had to start working after school on an hourly basis and all day on the weekends because we needed extra income. I got a full-time job at the hotel where my [step] mother was working as a seamstress. One of my most bitter memories is that I had to go through the whole winter with only one tartan skirt despite working so hard. We had no means to purchase what we needed; sometimes our neighbors gave us their worn-out clothes. What do you expect from an indifferent father lost in women and gambling? That winter I swore that I was never going to get married. My perception of starting a family and having a spouse was tied to what I experienced in my own family. Years later, following countless incidents of torture, my [step]mother filed an official complaint with the police, and my father was deported. Thank God! I felt relief and a sense of peace; however, how were we supposed to forget what had happened to us? How would we get over the numerous moments of torture that damaged our souls and mental wellbeing? What about the wounds bleeding inside of us? Who could understand us? What did “father” mean to us? Look at the father! Look at the father we had! Inflicting unimaginable suffering on his children. Of course, there were some good memories and enjoyable moments when my father was not around, but they were unfortunately overshadowed by our horrific experiences. In spite of all the years that have passed, why can’t I speak about what is buried inside me? From afar one sees a large, happy family, but every single member is unhappy. Everyone suffers, but why do I have to suffer more than others? Now I have a happy family of my own, with my husband and children, but I still haven’t let go, can’t let go of what’s inside of me. Maybe I’ll find release when I’m laid to rest in the grave. . . . My father was deported, leaving my [step]mother high and dry with four children. She was a strong and capable woman, my dear step-

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mother. Every day she worked at a factory for eight hours and for another four hours as a seamstress at the hotel. She used to knit at home in the evenings. She was a rather skillful seamstress. When neighbors placed orders, she also made cakes and pastries [börek] for them. My sister and brother were very young, and my older brother was in the orphanage. I was the only one capable of helping my [step]mother, and I didn’t complain because there was no father. The sadistic person banging my head against the wall or hitting my back with his belt when I made a mistake was no longer there. After he left, we were comfortable, and finally there was joyful laughter in our house. It was my senior year in high school. One day, just after returning from shopping and having dinner all together my [step]mother suddenly said: “My dear child, you are a grown-up now. You went through a lot. Don’t you want to get to know your birth mother and her family? Do you wish to go to Turkey and live with them for some time? I don’t want you to blame me in the future for not encouraging you to do this. I am not saying that you should go forever. As you know, your brother is here under the government’s protection. Sleep on it, and make up your mind. But always remember that you are my daughter.” After she finished her words, I can’t even remember how I swallowed that last bit of food. My siblings started to cry. “Mother, please don’t send our sister to Turkey. What will we do? Please don’t send her away.” They were worried and begging my [step]mother. She said, “My dear children, this is just temporary, for a few weeks, that’s all.” At that moment, I realized that it was my time to go. What or who was pushing my [step]mother to say all this? Why didn’t anyone tell me the truth, I wondered to myself. As I told you before, I was working as a housekeeper on an hourly basis at the hotel where my [step]mother was a seamstress. The hotel was owned by a woman and her sister-in-law. Since they were familiar with our family situation, the hotel owners registered me as a tourismhospitality student. I am still grateful to them for this favor. I am not sure exactly who pressured my [step]mother, but she decided to send me to Turkey in November before I finished my last year of high school. I didn’t know what to think or say when I found out about her decision. The next day at school I didn’t participate in the lessons. I just said goodbye to everyone and left. I spent my last few days with my siblings and cried myself to sleep at night. The weekend arrived, and we headed to the airport. Following a short farewell, I was on the plane to Turkey. The three-and-a-half-hour flight felt like a century as there was a lot to ponder. Who or what awaited me? I now had a stepfather. What was I going to say to him? I landed in Turkey, but I was scared.

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My [step]mother had asked the old lady next to me to take care of me on the plane, and, bless her, she did. At the airport I saw my birth mother, two uncles on my mother’s side and my stepfather who were all there to pick me up. I claimed my luggage and headed towards the exit with fear. What if my so-called father found out about my arrival in Turkey? What if he came to harm me? A well-built man with green eyes approached me and told me he was my uncle. By the time he approached me, I had already prepared my fists to punch him. I was relieved to hear the word “uncle.” I followed my uncle to the exit to meet my biological mother. It was sort of a reunion scene from a Turkish soap opera of the 1980s full of tears and sentimentality. I was in my new home. It was a three-room flat resembling a small box. Two new faces were staring at me—my half-brother and -sister. Meeting the whole family and other relatives took until the late hours of the night. I didn’t know how to feel. Sometimes I think I don’t know how to feel any emotions. I still can’t tell the difference between thinking and feeling. The first night in that house I wanted only one thing. It is going to sound funny, but all I wanted was a tomato salad. I asked my mother, and she prepared it right away. I devoured the whole salad by myself, and to this day I still enjoy a good tomato salad even for breakfast. We were chatting about random stuff and all of a sudden the word “father” came out of my mouth. Yes! I said the word “father,” and I have used it to address my stepfather ever since. I wish my stepfather was still alive; God bless him. Interestingly, my stepfather treated me with love and compassion, so much more than my birth mother. My new siblings and I got on quite well. I refer to my stepfather as “father” because we were very close. My [step]father wanted me to complete my education, but it was futile. Students coming from abroad had to deal with a lot of formalities, so my school life was over. Thanks to my stepfather, I was trained in typewriting and computerized accounting. I completed the training courses with flying colors and passed with distinction. At that time, my uncle was working for a factory owned by a big company, and he got me hired as his secretary. I really loved my job there. I got used to living in Turkey. Good days were finally here thanks to my cousins, aunts and uncles, and I have good memories of this time. They were all kind and sincere people. They loved me a lot. A year and a half passed, and I quit my job. My uncle resigned about a month later, because the factory was going to be shut down. The owners had to lay people off one after another. I got a new job at a construction firm while my uncle started working as a truck driver at a stone quarry. At his new workplace, my uncle ran into someone from his home town and they all came over for dinner one night. My

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uncle turned to my mother and said to her, “Look sister, this is Enes. We are from the same village.” The grownups talked and talked for hours. During their chats, Enes mentioned the difficulties of working on a construction site, and explained that he had also worked as a driver with his brother. My stepfather interrupted and said: “I am having a new house built. Part of it is going to be a shop. If you like, you could go and settle there for some time.” The weekend arrived and my uncle came home with Enes, but this time Enes’s brother was there, too. My mother and I prepared dinner, and I served tea. That was when I first met Selim. My [step]father liked Selim. Enes and Selim managed to transform the shop into a cozy little home with a cupboard, pull-out sofa, rugs, curtains and a few household items. Two weeks later, they started to live there full-time. My [step]father would invite the brothers to our house for dinner every night. They would say that they were ashamed to come over because they had their own stove and that they were fine by themselves, but they could not resist us. One weekend, Enes and Selim’s parents grew curious as to where their sons were living, and their father came over to our house for dinner. He enjoyed our company very much. During one conversation, we realized that he and my mother grew up in the same village. He told Selim that my family was a very decent family full of sincere and caring people. He also mentioned that we were very hospitable and that he approved of me as a young woman. Selim’s father left two days later. Back in the village, he told his wife about me and how good a bride I would be for their family. Of course, I learned about all of this later. On my way to work on Monday morning, I bumped into Selim. He was moving rubble in his truck. He stopped and asked, “Where are you going?” I said I was going to work. Then, he asked me to get into his truck. He pulled over near the grassy area by my workplace. He was quite nervous, but he finally started talking. He said “I don’t know how to start, really. You have met my father. You have let us into your home. My father liked you. When I first saw you, I had a funny feeling in my stomach, but I was cautious because I didn’t know what my parents would say. Now that my parents have given their blessing, will you marry me?” I was flabbergasted as marriage was the last thing on my mind. In fact, I never wanted to get married, especially with the bleeding wounds inside my soul. Starting my own family, having a husband and home were just a dream for me. I really struggled a lot to make it to the good days I am living now. Pain, beatings, lovelessness, agony . . .

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if you can imagine it, I lived it. Who would want to marry a person crying on the inside, but smiling on the outside? There he was. It was him. I was running late for work. I looked at Selim and said to him “You have seen me multiple times; I don’t wear a headscarf, I put on makeup and I can’t live without working. I don’t like monotony. Your father is a haji [someone who completed the required pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims], and I can’t cover my head with a scarf or something like that. Village work is not my cup of tea. They call me Almancı since the day I came back. Think long and hard. Take a week to consider everything. On the weekend, we can go to a tea house and talk things through.” Then we parted. That week wasn’t easy for me. My dear stepfather quite liked Selim. He thought he was very hardworking and that he would make a great family man. Marriage and me! As I said, marriage was just a dream for me. How would my spouse treat me? Would he beat me? Swear in the house? And the biggest question of all: how would he treat his children if he were to become a father? Would he torture them? Was he going to understand me? Or would he run off without listening to my painful memories? That week was extremely stressful because Selim’s sister was also in town. Their father had told her to go and check me and the rest of our family out. Finally, the weekend arrived. Selim and I went out together with the blessing of my family. We sat at a tea house by the sea. The tea came. I asked him to get some simits [bread covered in sesame seeds], and he did. We were both looking away towards the sea. “So, what are you thinking? Are you willing to accept me for who I am?” I asked. “Not just you, but also your family.” He looked at me for a moment, took a sip from his tea, and said “My father liked you a lot. My sister has seen you, and she is fond of you as well. But most importantly, I like you the way you are. Yes! I want to marry you no matter what!” My hands started to tremble. There were butterflies in my stomach. I was at a loss for words. I took a sip from my tea and turned my head to the sea. I said, “Please listen to what I have to say without interrupting.” I let him in on what I went through in my past and told him about my expectations. He listened to me patiently. We lost track of time. While I was talking, I didn’t look at his face, not even once, because I was embarrassed. That day was a first for me. I realized that I had feelings, too. For the first time in my life, I was able to share how I felt with someone. It felt like pulling out a dagger that had been stuck in my chest for a very long time. I was surprised to see that I was capable of sharing my emotions. We couldn’t stay any longer and decided to walk

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around. One moment he put his arm around my shoulders, and my body shook, showing that I still had some fear of being beaten. It was all momentary and I relaxed shortly thereafter. He gave me a sense of trust. I don’t know what he was thinking, but in about 20 minutes, he said, “I can’t give you everything you ask for, but I love you so much!” It’s funny that someone like me who had already made up her mind about not getting married, changed her mind and decided to get married. Before dusk, we made it home in time for dinner, walking hand in hand. Late at night when everybody was in their rooms, my mother, my future sister-in-law, and I got to talking, and I announced our decision to get married. They were happy. A few days later my future sister-inlaw went to their village. Their side of the family discussed everything and let us know that they were going to come for the engagement ceremony in about a month. On March 5th, we got engaged. Both families got to know each other. We remained engaged for a year and a half, during which time my future sister-in-law also got engaged. A few months later my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, and he wanted the weddings to happen as soon as possible. Both weddings took place one after the other within one month. A year later I had a son and three months after my baby boy’s birth, my father-in-law passed away. God bless him. We weren’t doing very well in terms of finances, but we knew how to be happy and stay positive. During the winters, my mother-in-law would come to live with us, and, in the summers, she went to the village and did some farming. I really loved my deceased father-in-law and I can’t thank him enough for his support throughout the wedding arrangements. The years passed with bittersweet memories. Whenever my stepmother and siblings came to Turkey from Germany, they stayed at our house. I love both of my mothers a lot, and we get together quite often. Thankfully, my husband always welcomed them. Of course, we had our differences and quarrels, but people’s emotions and ways of thinking change when they become a mother. You see life from a different perspective or maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. I had different thoughts when I first held my son. I prayed for him to become a decent adult. When I had my daughter, I grew anxious because I wondered if my children were going to turn out the way that I did. I always tried to bring up honest children with good characters. I suppose I succeeded, thank God! I have always been scared of being alone. I also liked children very much, which is maybe why I have five kids of my own. During my

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fourth pregnancy, I found out that I was going to have twins when I was seven months pregnant. It took me by complete surprise and shock, and, of course, joy! My extended family reacted negatively to my pregnancy. They were questioning the fact that I might want to have more kids. It made no sense to them. Even my own mother was angry and scornful. The twins were born. One got released from the hospital and the other one had to stay another nine days at the maternity ward. Our house was swarming with relatives. It was the first time that someone had had twins in the entire family. One of them had blue eyes and the other one had one blue and one brown eye. I love my family. I could sacrifice my life for them. They have been my enlightenment and my reason for living. The second twin was discharged from the hospital, but she got sick four days later. We took her to the hospital, and she was readmitted to the ward. The doctors said she needed to stay longer for some treatment. Two more days passed. We woke up the next morning. My husband was home, even though he was a long distance truck driver at this time. I prepared breakfast and the dough for pog˘aca [a bun-like food usually eaten at breakfast]. I also felt like cleaning the house, but part of me was telling myself that I was just doing it out of some obsession. My daughter was ill, and my husband was going to get her some pills that she needed. I had an uneasy feeling all over my body. I decided to clean the house and finish cooking the pastries. After all, it was the big day . . . the day that my daughter was coming home. . . . My husband finally left to go and get her from the hospital. I, on the other hand, was rushing to get the housework done. I made tea, cooked the pastries, and started waiting with great excitement. All I was thinking about was my baby girl. There was knock on the door. My aunt’s daughter-in-law walked in. Just as I was about to sit down, my neighbor and mother appeared one by one. My mother asked if I had already had tea and hastily said that we should all have tea together. In that moment, the idea of my daughter being dead came into my mind. I told them “Cut to the chase; tell me the truth!” They all wanted to speak, but my mother started talking. She said “Look, my child! Everything is possible in this life. People go through a great deal of pain and misery. And it is our duty to be patient and calm. You too will remain patient.” I finally learned the bad news. My mind stopped working. The whole world stopped turning. I was unable to think! When God created mankind, only one name was given to females and that was the name, “mother.” Humans, animals, or plants are no exception to this. A mother’s heart feels everything. There was

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no describing how I felt when I had my first child and when I lost my baby. It was an unimaginable, unfathomable feeling. Deep down, I still cry to this day. For a moment I thought about my husband. What did he do? How did he take all of this? He was at the hospital, but he wasn’t expecting any of this. It turns out that our daughter had died the night before, but no one called us, despite our contact information being available at the hospital. No one bothered to notify us of this heartbreaking situation. I spoke with my husband, and this was how he explained it. “I went to the hospital and looked for the nurse. She took me to the doctor’s room and they explained the situation. I got aggressive and knocked over some furniture. Security guards came and escorted me out. I got a bottle of water and that’s all I remember. I can’t tell you if I actually drank that water or just spilled it onto the ground. I lifted my head up and saw your uncle.” Of course, all of this was discussed later, after everything had happened. My husband and uncle went to the morgue and took the dead body of my little girl to bring her home. Just like the old saying goes, bad news travels fast. Both my mothers were next to me, holding my hands and trying to comfort me. My baby girl arrived, and my husband was unable to hold her, so he gave her to my uncle. I was crying and yelling at the same time. I shouted at my uncle, “Is this how you were planning to bring my daughter back to me?” My mothers were struggling to restrain me. A few hours later, my daughter’s body was covered in a shroud. They left for the cemetery for the burial. My uncle couldn’t stand my pain and agony and almost had a heart attack. People around me could barely calm me down and let my daughter out the door. She was buried in the presence of her father and other relatives. The number of people who came to offer their condolences was immeasurable. My husband’s side of the family, the relatives on my side, neighbors . . . I always thank God for their presence and pray that no other person faces the pain of losing a child. That night was a sleepless night for me and my husband. We were both waiting for each other to fall asleep so that we could go and dig up our daughter’s grave and bring her home. We just couldn’t bear the idea of our daughter sleeping underground and getting wet in the rain. We are still grieving and our pain is still fresh. My dear baby, Biray, didn’t forget to leave her memory with us. Both of her eyes were blue and she left one with her twin, Hande. Hande’s one eye is blue and the other is brown. For that reason, we all think that the twins are now one and together. This helps us find consolation.

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Human beings must endure a great deal of pain and sadness. No matter what happens we must endure. The suffering I went through in my past was terrible, but nothing compared to this, the loss of my child. Regardless, life goes on. I have a husband and other children. My husband is a good father, and we are lucky to have him. You know how I was afraid to get married? I am glad I did. Now I realize that not everybody is the same. A few months passed, and Hande was now 10 months old. My husband was on the road again. He was only able to come home every 15 to 20 days. One night, in the middle of the night, I woke up to Hande’s crying. She turned red, her eyes lost focus, and I thought she was dying. I cried for help from the neighbor next door, saying “My baby is dying,” and they stormed into our house. Luckily, Hande got better. I was relieved. My neighbor didn’t leave and kept me company. Around 9:00 in the morning the same thing happened to Hande again, and we rushed her to the hospital. It turned out to be pneumonia. All of her previous fits were actually an indication of this. We found our own doctor. I was very happy with the way the doctor handled our situation, but I wasn’t happy with the test results. Hande got over pneumonia, and now she had asthma and bronchitis that needed to be treated. On top of that, she began to have seizures . . . . These were the things a 10-month-old baby had to go through. No matter what happens I will always be there for my children. Whether or not one of my mothers or anyone was there for me during one of my childhood illnesses, I will always be there for my own children. . . . Time passed and Hande was just a few months past her one year birthday. I wasn’t home because I had taken her older sister to the doctor. My mother was taking care of the children. When I came home, I realized that Hande’s arm had been twisted. I couldn’t sleep all night, wondering what had happened. In the morning we went to the hospital, and the scan results showed that her right arm was not only broken, but also fractured. The orthopedist who applied the cast also told me that my daughter was hearing impaired. When I asked how he could be so sure about this, he said a person who hears perfectly wouldn’t sound like that. He also noted that the proportions of her body were not right. This conversation determined my route for the next seven years. I was glad that he mentioned all of this because if he hadn’t, maybe my daughter wouldn’t be alive now. I was exasperated. One of my twin girls passed away and her body was sent back home in a cardboard box. The other one underwent treatment for months, stayed in a hospital several times, but not even

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one doctor mentioned the possibility of such a condition. Should it have been a teacher or an orthopedist that is specialized in children who informed me? Who should have done or said something about my daughter’s condition? A winding road to recovery started for us. Following a series of doctor’s appointments, tests and examinations at multiple hospitals over a period of four years, my daughter was diagnosed with Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1. At the same time, she was hearing impaired. She was disabled and suffering from several different disorders. I had a child requiring special attention, but I also needed to take care of my three other children. I believe I handled my relationship with each and every one of my children equally well. I guess I passed this rather tiring and tricky test that life sent my way. Children like Hande need to start their special treatment at a very young age, but unfortunately we were late, due to dealing with her other unfortunate illnesses. Hande started to receive the medical attention she needed after the age of four. By the way, around this time, I was sick and at the same time expecting another baby. When Hande was five, my youngest son was born. After that, I made a full recovery. It was a rough patch, but we made it. Until Hande started school, she completely depended on me. We used to communicate with signs that we established together. She was a very calm and obedient child, not eating or touching anything without permission. Her education started with a call that we received from a psychologist at a rehabilitation center. I am so grateful to all the educators in this country, I can’t even express how much. Hande’s progress always surprises me. She can manage things that I believed to be impossible for her. As she became less dependent on me, I felt very happy. My youngest son, Mert, and I started to learn sign language from her teachers. There is no age limit to what and when a person can learn something new. Old or young, anyone can learn from one another. A language means a person; two languages means two people. And in my case, I was actually learning a third language. I had technology at home and used my computer to teach myself Turkish sign language. And, I am still learning. . . . Each year, tests are run on Hande to check if she is fit to continue her education at her school, depending on her progress. Of course, parents are interviewed during this process. They ask you why you want your child to continue with his or her education. I was surprised at first, but then I explained, “I want my child to be able to support herself if I were to pass away. That is why I am trying so hard.” The question seemed rather silly at first, but in time I realized that there were other

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perspectives, and as I met more mothers, I understood why they asked. They were correct to question people’s motives! My name is Leyla. I’ve tried to summarize everything that I’ve lived, the years full of pain, the wonderful memories. I am a person who has experienced bittersweet, painful, and happy moments. Just like everyone else’s life, my life has been a test. I made it to today. It has never been easy, and who knows what else is awaiting me! My dear husband has been a long distance truck driver for 10 years now. He comes home once every two to three months. And just like the saying says: “out of sight, out of the heart.” It is challenging to raise my children as if their father is there. I guess that is my biggest accomplishment in life. Hande and her brothers and sisters will continue their education as far as possible. You know how in fairy tales three apples of good fortune fall from the sky? In my story, the three apples are my stepmother, my stepfather and my mother-in-law. My fourth good fortune is my five children. My youngest son, Mert, has recently tested as having a high IQ. Now, I am trying my best to get him the education that he needs. No matter what life has brought me, I try to see the glass as half full. We are human and we are flawed. No matter what, we will keep making mistakes. I try not to hurt others and from now on, I am not going to let other people hurt me either. I will strive to lead a peaceful and fulfilling life with my husband and children. Despite the bleeding wounds within my soul, I SUCCEEDED. I wholeheartedly wish everyone success in this life!

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INDEX

‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬ activism, 164 Adalet, 133 adet, 160 Adiyaman, 139 adolescence, 53 adulthood, 77, 86–87, 89, 105, 152, 180 agency, 166 ahlak, 27. See also ethics ahlaksız, 49. See also ethics Akın, Fatih, 17, 33 AKP (political party), 41, 128, 130–132, 133n3, 140, 143, 145, 147–148, 159n14, 164 Alamancı, 15. See also German-Turkish return migrants Alevi, 22, 158n3, 165. See also Islam Almancı, 6, 9–10, 15, 20, 88, 115, 125, 157, 179. See also German-Turkish return migrants Almanyalı, 15, 153. See also German-Turk return migrants America. See United States of America anthropologist, 9, 21, 23, 89–90, 114, 166. See also anthropology anthropology study of, 21, 117 and the study of becoming, 166 and the study of ethics, 7–8 (see also ethics) and the study of memoir, 169 and the use of life story methodology, 21–24 arranged marriage, 90–91 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 148–149. See also Turkey atheism, 44, 54, 116–117, 133n1, 138, 143, 150 Auslander, 20

Avrupa, 94. See also Europe Avrupalı, 141. See also Europe belonging in communities, 60, 79, 81–82, 86–87, 100–101, 113–114, 126, 132, 150, 158, 161 conceptualizing, 4–8, 11, 162–163, 166–167 and ethics, 4–7, 11–12, 166–167 (see also ethics) in Europe, 139, 153, 155, 161–162, 164–165 (see also Europe) and life stories, 23 and migration, 10–12, 16, 161 national belonging, 116 in a religious group, 138 and stereotypes, 155 transnational belonging, 127 (see also transnational) in Turkey, 26n7, 153, 161–162 (see also Turkey) boyfriend, 50–51, 91, 98 Caliphate, 147 Çalışma Bakanlığı Yurtdışı İşçi Hizmetleri Genel Müdürlüğü, 14 call centers, 30, 56n1. See also illegal call centers CDU (political party), 18, 148 childhood, 73–79, 80–81, 142, 150, 163, 168 CHP (political party), 132, 149, 159n14 Christians, 8, 44–45, 96, 139, 150, 154–157, 164 Chu, Julie, 10

198

index

circumcision celebration, 57–61, 67–68, 79–80. See also Islam circumcision outfit, 58f2.1 citizenship active citizenship, 127–132, 162 dual citizenship in Turkey, 14 (see also Turkey) European citizenship, 132 (see also Europe) and idea of order, 122 laws in Germany and Turkey, 13–14, 17 (see also Germany) rights, 113–114, 132 world citizenship, 15 civil society, 129, 148 class (social class) class conflict, 19, 125–126 and consumption, 11, 19, 41 and education, 117–118 and gender, 35–36 and honor, 69 and ideas about order, 122 lower class, 35–36, 115, 125 middle class, 35–36, 64, 110, 115 and return migrants, 11–12, 60, 64, 125, 132 in Turkey, 56n3 community. See belonging: in communities companionate marriage, 86, 97–98, 101, 106n6, 112. See also love; marriage cosmopolitanism, 11, 126, 167 coup, 147 courtship, 90–91 crime, 17, 33–35, 71, 78. See also illegal call centers culture cultural corruption, 92, 125 cultured, 122, 125 (see also uncultured) democracy (democratic values), 165, 167. See also citizenship: rights dershane, 64 diaspora, 14, 16 disabled child, 65–67, 82n5, 109, 124, 184–185 discrimination, 6, 13, 155 disrespect, 126. See also respect divorce, 23, 73, 78, 81 102, 171–172 Diyanet Işleri Başkanlığı, 147 East. See Europe; orientalism The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite; Yaşamın Kıyısında) (film), 33

education and order, 117–122 community education, 110–112 (see also belonging: in communities) conceptualizing, 5, 132 idea of education in Germany, 75, 96, 105–106, 176 idea of Muslim education, 8 (see also Islam) importance for German-Turks, 27n14, 63–65 maternal education, 61, 65 neighbors’ education, 113–114 self-education, 114–117, 122–126 uneducated, 6, 75, 122 views in Turkey, 13, 63–65, 96, 105–106, 133n2, 177 emigrant, 10. See also German-Turkish return migrants; migration equality and intimate relationships, 91, 98, 100, 102 (see also gender: equality) inequality, 91, 126, 143 as citizens, 113, 126, 164 ethics aims, 5, 11, 19, 114, 117, 120, 122, 126–127, 163 breakdowns, 9, 81 and citizenship, 131–132 (see also citizenship) changing ethics, 6, 9, 81, 163 conceptualizing, 4–10, 26n4, 26n9 and conflict, 163 dilemmas, 6–7, 23–24, 31, 49, 54, 56, 161–162 for employees, 31, 39 and freedom, 8, 165 and Foucault, Michel, 8–9, 81, 106, 117 ideas of Christian ethics, 45 ideas of Muslim ethics, 44, 151–153, 157 (see also Islam) and Lambek, Michael, 8–9, 165–166 and migration, 7–10, 27n10, 79 (see also migration) and motherhood, 60–64, 67, 81, 105 and patience, 103 pluralities, 7–8, 72 (see also ethics: and migration) reflection, 8, 81, 106 relationships, 9, 12, 39, 161 (see also marriage: and ethics) and Ricoeur, Paul, 9, 114

index and the state, 131–132 in Turkey, 27n11 unethical, 31, 45, 54, 126 and womanhood, 86 (see also gender) and work, 47, 52–53 See also anthropology: and the study of ethics; belonging: and ethics ethnicity. See nation: ethno-nationalism ethnography, 9, 11, 23, 166, 169–170. See also life story methodology ethno-nationalism. See nation: ethno-nationalism etik, 27. See also ethics Europe European imperialism, 56n5 European Union, 18, 28n28, 155 and gender, 96–98 German-Turks and Europeanization, 25, 96, 150, 153 (see also German-Turkish return Migrants) idea of being a “European girl,” 91–95 idea of European modernity, 18, 45, 153 (see also Turkey: and European-ness) ideas about “European-Turkish parenting,” 60, 64–65 moral panic about migration, 7 and religion, 96, 141, 143, 147–148, 155 and rights and citizenship, 127, 131–132 Turkey’s relationship with, 16, 18, 126, 147–148, 164–165 views of Europeans or European-ness, 6, 19, 46–47, 116, 118, 121, 132, 164–165 (see also belonging: in Europe) European Union. See Europe: European Union family, 75–79, 175. See also childhood; fatherhood; motherhood fatherhood, 59, 68, 70, 100–105. See also stepfather female. See gender femininity, 69. See also gender feminism American, 99 and anthropologists, 21 German, 99, 107n8 Middle Eastern, 98–99 Third world, 83n9 Turkish, 72, 99, 107n9 See also gender first-generation migrants, 13, 26n5. See also German-Turkish return migrants

199

Foucault, Michel, 8–9, 81, 106, 117 freedom. See ethics: and freedom friendship, 38, 45–46, 49–51, 102, 111, 114–117 gardening, 116, 118 Gastarbeiter, 173. See also German-Turkish return migrants; guest workers gender in call centers, 30–31 changing roles in marriage, 95–100 (see also marriage) equality, 98–99 and Islam, 106n7 (see also Islam: and gender) and modernization, 96, 99 (see also nation: and gender) norms, 5, 50, 64, 69–70, 72–73, 86–87, 88, 91, 93–94, 97, 105, 153, 162 and second-generation migrants, 98 and social class, 35–36, 64 (see also class [social class]) and Turks in Germany, 70 women and work, 82n3, 92–93 women’s rights, 8 (see also honor) See also circumcision celebration Germans. See Germany German-Turks, 27n11. See also GermanTurkish return migrants German-Turkish return migrants identity and conceptualization, 15 laws governing German-Turks and return migrants, 13–14 migration to Germany and present conditions, 10–15, 27n18 (see also first-generation migrants; secondgeneration migrants) perceptions of, 6, 7, 17, 19, 62–63, 71, 118, 122–127, 143 and work, 55–56 See also education: for German-Turks; gender: and second-generation migrants German-Turkish Transnational Space, 16–20. See also transnational Germany German police, 33, 48–49, 71, 74, 124, 137, 140, 175 Turkey’s relationship with, 16–17 gossip, 3, 5–6, 78–79, 86–87, 100–102, 105, 112–113, 116–118, 123–124, 129, 152–153, 156, 166

200 guest workers, 12–13, 27n13, 173. See also German-Turkish return migrants gün (kabul günü), 108–113. See also neighbors günah. See sin hajj. See pilgrimage Hart, Kimberly, 68, 82n1, 83n12, 90, 142 headscarf (Islamic) perceptions in Germany, 158n4 views of headscarves in Turkey, 130, 133n4 views of uncovered people, 138, 146 See also Islam home (for German-Turks), 4–5, 10–12, 132 homeland, 122 homelessness, 167 honor in call centers, 31, 45, 50 dishonorable, 6, 25, 69–70, 79, 94 and German-Turks, 72–73, 77–79 honor killing, 69–70, 83n10 and marriage, 68–70, 78 meaning of, 3–7, 60, 68–71, 78–79, 82n8 and motherhood, 60 national honor, 5 women’s honor, 8, 50, 55, 67–73 hope, 26, 88, 90, 161–162, 164–168 hospitality, 8, 113–114, 119–120, 127 housewife, 92–93, 116 Huzurköy, 1–2, 26, 61, 116, 120, 136 illegal call centers, 29–33, 35–37, 39, 41–43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53–56 immigrant. See migration immoral, 49, 54, 71. See also ethics independence, 8, 19, 56, 86–87, 91, 95, 97, 99, 101–102, 105, 119, 124, 162, 165 individualism, 91, 106n2, 115, 120, 123, 124–125, 143, 166 Ingold, Tim, 10 integration (or re-integration), 11, 14, 19 interviewees, 28 Islam beliefs and practices, 141–144 and gender, 7 (see also headscarf ) and German-Turks, 5, 131, 146–154 in Germany, 138, 143, 148 Islamist (Sunni Muslim revival movement), 111, 145–148, 150–152, 157, 158n2 and patience, 62, 103 and politics, 41, 131

index religiosity, 5, 8, 24, 31, 36, 88, 102, 111, 138–139, 143–145, 149–151, 158, 163, 167 and secularism, 45, 138, 147–149, 26, 45, 138, 148, 151, 158n8 and Turkey, 19, 138, 146–154 See also education: idea of Muslim education Jackson, Michael, 56 jealousy, 50, 62, 85, 94–95, 100, 105–106, 131 justice, 164 kabul günü. See gün Kadıköy, 29, 31, 37, 40, 42 Kadıoğlu, Ayşe, 99 Kebap Connection (film), 70 Kemalist, 148 Kurban Bayramı, 43, 136, 141, 151. See also Islam laicism. See Islam: and secularism Laidlaw, James, 166 laik. See Islam: and secularism Lambek, Michael, 8–9, 165–166 Leitkultur, 148 liberal, 25, 36, 147 life story methodology, 21–24 lifeworld, 8, 23, 61, 106, 164, 167 love, 82, 86–87, 89–91, 94–95, 103, 105, 116, 149, 172–173, 177, 180–181. See also companionate marriage; marriage lovelessness, 88, 178 Mandel, Ruth, 13 manners, 65, 118, 120. See also hospitality; politeness marriage and ethics, 8–9 (see also honor: and marriage) fake marriage, 3 marriage partners, 68–70 (see also courtship) and sex, 70, 90 in Turkey, 86 See also companionate marriage; marriage masculinity, 69, 79, 87, 102 memoir Leyla’s memoir, 171–185 as a methodology, 22–23, 28n35 (see also anthropology: and the study of memoir)

index men. See gender; masculinity mentally disabled. See disabled child Mercedes, 2, 17, 40–41, 125 methodology. See life story methodology mevlut, 80, 83n12, 142. See also Islam migrant. See German-Turkish return migrants migration anti-migrant protests in Germany, 17 theorizing, 6–9, 61, 67, 81, 161–164 (see also mobility) See also belonging: and migration; ethics: and migration military military museum, 115–116, 123 military service, 41, 60 Turkish, 147–148, 151 millet, 78, 123. See also nation minority (ethnic), 158n7 mobility, 10–12, 26, 96, 132, 162. See also migration modern idea of German-Turks and modernity, 125 idea of Turks becoming, 64, 96, 99, 147, 153, 158n8 modern life, 166–168 modernity and honor, 69–70 modernity and religion, 137–138, 146, 148, 153 modernization, 64, 96, 99 See also gender: and modernization modest, 35, 61, 69, 93, 105, 108, 137, 141, 148 morality, 9, 26n4, 27n11. See also ethics mosque, 21, 83n12, 102, 135f.5.1, 140–143, 147–149, 155. See also Islam motherhood, 7–8, 60–61, 65, 73, 79, 81, 98, 100, 102–103, 105, 150, 162. See also education: maternal education; ethics: and motherhood; pride: and motherhood multiculturalism, 6–8 museum, 16, 85, 113. See also military: military museum Muslim. See Islam namaz, 141. See also Islam namus, 27n11, 69, 82–83n8. See also honor narrative, 28 nation ethno-nationalism, 7, 11–12, 147 and gender, 99 German nationalism, 13 (see also Germany)

201

national identity, 5–6, 7, 15, 22, 122, 126, 161, 164–165, 166 Turkish nationalism, 18, 70, 164–165 (see also Turkey) neighbors and education and order, 118–122 neighborhood, 2, 8, 50, 67, 109F.4.1, 149, 163 neighborliness, 4, 109–114, 127 (see also gün [kabul günü]) in Turkey, 109–114, 119–120 See also gossip Olwig, Karen Fog, 10, 144 order. See citizenship: and idea of order; class (social class): and ideas about order; education: and order oriental, 18 orientalism, 44–45, 64, 106n7 orthodoxy (Islamic), 142, 145. See also Islam Ottoman, 19, 99, 147 Ottomanism (neo-Ottomanism), 19, 164 parenting. See Europe: ideas about “European-Turkish parenting”; fatherhood; motherhood Parla, Ayşe, 93 patience. See Islam: and patience patriarchy, 69, 92–95, 97–98, 166 piety. See Islam: religiosity pilgrimage, 38, 39, 44, 88, 141–142, 179 politeness, 114, 136. See also manners politics, 41, 63, 149, 164 polygamy, 3 poverty, 12, 17, 23, 39, 142 prejudice, 72 protest, 16–17, 148 pride and motherhood, 50, 61, 64, 81–82, 87 transforming shame into pride, 7, 65–67, 81–82, 90, 101–102, 122 and work, 55 psychologist, 76, 108–113, 119, 121, 184 Qur’an, 140–141. See also Islam racism, 13, 17, 74–75, 143 Ramadan Holiday. See Ramazan Bayramı Ramazan Bayramı, 39, 102, 123, 134–139, 141–142, 149, 151. See also Islam rape, 70, 75, 78, 144. See also sexual abuse; violence

202

index

refugee, 16–17, 27 regret, 51, 92, 101 re-integration. See integration religiosity. See Islam: religiosity respect, 5–6, 36–37, 60, 69, 71, 73–74, 81–82, 86, 91, 95, 101–102, 105, 112–114, 118, 120, 136, 142, 152, 162 return migration. See German-Turkish return migrants; migration returnee, 126, 132. See also German-Turkish return migrants Ricoeur, Paul, 9, 114 rights. See citizenship: rights; gender: women’s rights Rückkehrer. See German-Turkish Return migrants Rückkermythos, 162 rumor, 69, 86–87, 102

state services. See ethics: and the state; Germany; Turkey: state services stepfather, 59, 76–77, 90, 173–174, 176–179, 185 stepmother, 11, 74–77, 96, 171, 173–174, 180, 185 stereotype, 19, 41, 44, 49, 63–64, 71, 73, 91, 97, 122, 138, 154–156, 164 stigma and return migrants, 6, 7, 20, 25, 56, 60, 75, 89, 96, 113, 122, 124, 126, 139, 143, 153, 162, 164 of single motherhood, 102 See also pride: transforming shame; Turkey: shame and stigma suffering, 74, 104, 144, 171, 175, 183–184 sünnet. See circumcision celebration Sunni. See Islam

sabır, 103. See also Islam: and patience sabretmek, 62. See also Islam: and patience sacred, 106 Sacrifice Holiday. See Kurban Bayramı sadism, 74, 87, 106n1, 173, 176 Said, Edward, 44 saints, 141. See also Islam samimiyet, 26 saygı, 27, 118. See also respect saygısızlık, 126 schooling. See education second-generation migrants, 5, 10, 13, 15, 17, 22, 26n5, 86, 90–91, 98, 100. See also German-Turkish return migrants secularism. See Islam: and secularism sex pre-marital, 67, 70, 151 sexual indiscretion, 4, 166 See also honor: women’s honor; marriage: and sex sexual abuse experience of, 61, 73–74, 78, 81, 89, 105, 106n1, 144, 168 and the German state, 71–72, 142 perceptions in Turkey, 78–79, 82n2, 86, 89, 121 See also rape; violence shame. See pride: transforming shame; stigma sin, 46, 48, 54, 141, 152–154, 153, 163. See also Islam social class. See class (social class) society. See belonging: in communities sohbet, 21, 119, 154

taboo, 4, 93 tarikat, 139–140, 145. See also Islam teacher (teaching). See education Tekirdağ, 21, 28, 71, 129 telemarketing, 29, 32–33, 37, 39, 46–51. See also call centers; illegal call centers terbiye. See manners tesettür, 3 tradition, 160 transformation. See pride: transforming shame transmigrant, 10. See also transnational transnational belonging, 127 double consciousness, 8 experience, 5–6, 55–56, 60–61, 65, 67, 86–87, 93, 95, 98, 100, 105–106, 126, 138–139, 146, 150, 161–163 Identity, 10–11, 27, 29, 37, 45, 141 social field, 16, 27n21, 41, 63, 67, 71, 115, 124–125, 143, 155 space, 16–20, 56, 64, 91, 96 transnationalism, 163 workplace, 31, 44–45, 49, 54–56, 60–61, 63–65 See also migration trauma, 5, 78–79 Tuğal, Cihan, 56n3, 145, 147 Turk. See Turkey Türk. See Turkey Turkey dual citizenship, 14 (see also citizenship) education, 61, 64–65, 96 (see also education)

index

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and European-ness, 6 (see also Europe: Turkey’s relationship with) idea of living for society in Turkey, 4, 123–124 (see also neighbors: in Turkey) migration to and from Turkey, 12–14 polarization, 138 politics, 41 national identity, 7, 19, 45, 122, 146–150, 164–165 (see also nation; Ottomanism) relationship with the United States, 115 shame and stigma, 6, 123–124 (see also gossip) state services, 129–131 Turkish police, 86, 124, 140 workplaces, 37, 50, 55, 56n6 See also Germany: Turkey’s relationship with; marriage: in Turkey Türkiye. See Turkey Türkler. See Turkey

views of, 64, 143 unorthodox, 150. See also Islam

umre, 38. See also Islam uncultured, 17, 122, 125 United States of America perceptions of Americans in Turkey, 35, 40, 95, 113–115, 136, 138 Turkey’s relationship with the United States, 115

Yellow Mercedes (Fikrimin İnce Gülü; Sarı Mercedes; Mercedes Mon Amour) (film), 17, 41, 125

vatandaşlık, 28. See also citizenship violence domestic violence, 77, 79, 85–86, 94 father’s violence, 35, 73, 77–79, 94 and perceptions of German-Turks, 17 in the West, 106n4 See also rape; sexual abuse virginity, 69–70, 89 Walton, Jeremy, 145 wedding, 21, 57, 68, 80, 111, 180 West. See Europe Wolbert, Barbara, 112 women. See gender work. See call centers; ethics: and work; gender: women and work; illegal call centers; transnational: workplace; Turkey: workplaces

zekat, 141. See also Islam