Kurdish speaking Cologne: from guest workers to asylum seekers

Ibrahim Sirkeci, European Business School London

Abstract

Migration from Turkey to Germany has displayed a pattern which is responsive to changing admission rules and needs in European migratory regimes, as well as shifts in political tensions within Turkey. Hence, the composition of flows in relation to ethnicity and mechanisms of migration has been evolving from guest workers in the 1960s to clandestine migration in the 1990s. The most recent flows from Turkey was dominated by ethnic Kurds, largely facilitated by the armed ethnic conflict the country witnessed during the 1980s and 1990s, involving clashes between the Turkish Army and the PKK.

This paper highlights the changes in immigration patterns of Turkish Kurdish immigrants in Cologne, Germany with particular reference to ethnic conflict’s influence on international migration. Along with dynamics of ethnic conflict, changes in admission rules are also linked to shift in types and mechanisms of migration during the last four decades of Turkish migration to Germany. A brief account of Turkish migration to Germany and Cologne and immigrants residential distribution is given following the reflections on the field research in Cologne.