A linguistic ethnography of the sense of belonging: Iraqi Turkmen women refugees in Turkey

Abstract

This article is concerned with the construction of a sense of (non-)belonging in the context of forced migration. It is based on linguistic ethnographic fieldwork carried out in a Turkish town with a group of Iraqi Turkmen women refugees. Using data from audio-recordings of spontaneous interactions in Turkish in informal social gatherings, interviews, and home visits, this research seeks to understand how the sense of belonging and the experience of the sense of otherness are expressed through the Iraqi Turkmen women's discursive accounts. The findings reveal that their perception of foreignness and display of belonging lie on a dynamic continuum, which may reflect the qualities of a liminal stage.