Iranian Asylum Seekers and Refugees in the Contradiction of Conservatism and Secularism: The Case of Denizli, Turkey

This research aims to discuss the socio-cultural dynamics of Iranian asylum seekers’ and refugees’ working and living conditions in Denizli, Turkey. The establishment of the Sharia regime in 1979 led to repressive practices in Iran. Many Iranians having been oppressed by the reactionary regime, forced to seek for asylum and settled in various European cities. Similarly, people from Iran being political opponents of the regime, LGBTs, Christians, Baha'is and other secular Muslims having fled from Iran because of their identity conflict, sought asylum from Turkey in recent years.

Denizli is one of the satellite cities in Turkey being a transit country for Iranian refugees and asylum seekers aiming to migrate to Europe. The city is located between secular coastel and central Anatolian cities having strong conservative characteristics. Existing in a complicated modernity paradigm in which conservatism and secularism intertwine, Denizli differs from other designated satellite cities. Thus, the main problematic of this research is to explore the socio-cultural conditions procreated by the complex features of late-capitalized Denizli for Iranian refugees and asylum seekers. Besides, the capacity of Turkey’s asylum policies with regard to providing advantages for Iranians is a matter of interest.

Based on this problematic, a qualitative, ethnographic and explorative field research is going to be conducted with fifteen Iranian refugee and asylum seeker residing in Denizli. In order to analyse the cultural, political and sexual characteristics of respondents, their life stories should be regarded. Hence, unstructured, in-depth interviews are going to be used as data collection techniques. The study has importance due to its capacity of finding out the ontological disengagement arising from the cross-cultural experiences of Iranian refugees and asylum seekers in the complex social structure of Denizli.