Humanity on Hold: Transformation of Migration Governance in Türkiye and Russia

Authors : Ata Taha Kuveloğlu
Pages : 110-123
Doi:10.30803/adusobed.1803158
View : 69 | Download : 111
Publication Date : 2025-12-29
Article Type : Research Paper
Abstract :This article examines the intertwining of migration with identity formation and state power policies in Türkiye and Russia. These two similar political structures have historically mobilized narratives of belonging and exclusion to demarcate their national imaginaries. Drawing on constructivist and post-structuralist theoretical frameworks, this study conceptualizes migration discourse as a constitutive field through which political elites continually articulate the boundaries of national membership and hierarchies of otherness. In Türkiye, migrants are situated within the discursive frameworks of \\\"religious solidarity\\\" and \\\"hospitality,\\\" while in Russia, especially Central Asian migrants are simultaneously represented as indispensable economic actors and culturally alien subjects. These strategies demonstrate how each state manages identity through a complex interplay of inclusivity and otherness. Using a comparative discourse analysis of political discourse, media representations, and legal instruments, the study argues that migration governance in both contexts operates as a discursive arena in which issues of sovereignty, legitimacy, and nationhood are constantly negotiated, beyond their demographic and economic dimensions. Ultimately, the article concludes that migration narratives function as state legitimization mechanisms, reproduce exclusionary national myths, and that contemporary states redesign concepts of belonging and identity within the global circulation of people and meaning. Although there are many other parameters in the realpolitik of both countries regarding migration and its consequences, this study has been prepared within the confines of the theoretical framework. The main question of this study explores the ways in which Türkiye and Russia employ migration narratives in order to reinforce national identity, justify state authority and define the boundaries of belonging through dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.
Keywords : Göç, Türkiye, Rusya, Söylem, Dönüşüm

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