Abstract:

There are an estimated 90,000 – 120,000 German citizens living in Turkey. While laws and regulations pertaining to Turkey’s immigration regime mainly stem from the early years of the Republic, they have increasingly come under scrutiny. In an effort to keep up with the transformation of Turkey from a country of emigration into a country of immigration and at the same time, to align Turkish laws with the EU’s acquis communautaire, a reform process started in the late 1990s and is still going on today. This paper provides an overview of the heterogeneity of German citizens in Turkey, the general parameters shaping their transnational life-worlds and participation strategies, as well as citizenship issues and networking activities. The main conclusion is that there are heterogeneous groups of German citizens in Turkey with respect to their length of stay, civil and employment status etc., who have developed unique patterns of integration corresponding to their particular transnational life-worlds

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