Temporary Protection Responses to Syrian Displacement
The Canary in the Coal Mine? Reflections and Lessons Learned
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24211892 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Feyzi Baban (Global Justice and Development Trent University Peterborough Canada), Suzan Ilcan (0000-0003-3809-261X, Sociology and Legal Studies University of Waterloo Waterloo Canada), Kim Rygiel (0000-0003-3314-2403, Political Science Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo Canada) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Migration (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7985 • E-ISSN: 1468-2435 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/imig.70205 |
| OpenAlex | W7214574581 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
This article reflects upon lessons learned from Turkey's use of temporary protection as a policy preference to manage large numbers of Syrians who arrived in Turkey after the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011. This article argues that while TP allows governments to quickly resettle and offer temporary protection to large numbers of refugees, it leaves people without a permanent pathway to citizenship and resettlement, often placing their lives in limbo, with precarious living and employment conditions, and subject to the changing whims of governments, shifting public sentiment and electoral politics. More than 10 years later, the Turkish case of TP to meet the protection needs of Syrians offers long‐term lessons today as European and other governments shift towards TP as a policy preference to respond to other refugee groups such as Ukrainians' protection needs following Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
citizenship pathways · precarious living conditions · refugee employment · refugee policy · refugee protection · refugee resettlement · Russian invasion of Ukraine · Syrian refugees · temporary protection · Turkey · Ukrainian refugees · Migration and Exile Studies · Migration, Racism, and Human Rights · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
The Death of Asylum
The Institutionalization of “Voluntary” Returns in Turkey
Protecting Syrians in Turkey
The Making of Semi‐Regularity Among Migrants in Türkiye
The Syrian refugee crisis
Symbolic boundary work among Syrian refugees
How safe is the zone, and how voluntarily are the returnees? Turkey’s project for a ‘safe and dignified’ voluntary repatriation of Syrian refugees and the potential implementation of R2P on behalf of returnees
Constrained paths
Street-Level Justifications’
But we have to be realistic’
The Making of a “Lost Generation”
Loss and xenophobia in the city
How Turkey has governed Syrian refugees over a decade
Residual temporariness and the limits of citizenship for Syrian doctors in Turkey
A knife with two sides
Syrian refugees in Turkey
| Highly cited | No |
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