Powered by Secrecy: Contesting Imaginaries of Migration Governance in Turkey

ABSTRACT

In light of a growing body of literature on migration and border governance engaging with the legal and institutional production of heterogenous forms of non-knowledge, this article aims to contribute to this scholarship by attending to the role of secrecy through the case of Turkey. This paper turns the spotlight on the migration governance in Turkey by investigating the ways in which secrecy is perceived, contested, and reconfigured by civil society actors. The article argues that the extensive use of secrecy engenders perceptions that vacillate between two opposing imaginaries: the central migration authority as an incompetent entity and as a security agency with an aura of omnipotence. By drawing on and subverting Luc Boltanski’s notion of domination as a reality-stabilising function, we propose that the undecidable nature of the migration governance enables a form of domination hinging on the destabilisation of reality in the eyes of subjects that are paralysed, disarmed, and disabled to cope with the policies in practice.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank our respondents, who were extremely generous and willing to share their unique knowledge and experience in the field. This article could not have been written without their crucial contribution. We are also grateful to Istanbul Policy Center – Sabancı University – Stiftung Mercator Initiative for providing generous resources and infrastructure during our fieldwork. We also would like to state our gratitude for Mahmut Kaçan and Jindar Uçar for their significant support throughout our fieldwork in Van, Turkey. We want to thank E. Zeynep Işık, who worked as a research assistant, for her massive efforts, and Dr. Patrick Lewis for his kind support. Finally, we would like to thank our special issue editors Claudia Aradau and Lucrezia Canzutti, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Please visit for more details, https://dtm.iom.int/reports/turkiye-migrant-presence-monitoring-situation-report-february-2024.

2. https://help.unhcr.org/turkiye/information-for-non-syrians/registration-rsd-with-unhcr/.

3. The official figures are taken from https://www.goc.gov.tr/duzensiz-goc-istatistikler.