Abstract:

Turkey has been experiencing a rapid urbanization process since the 1950s. In the 1950s, 75% of the population lived in the provincial and district centers; this number has grown to 92% today. As a result, there has been an extreme population pressure in urban centers. Together with immigration, urbanization problems have arisen and hometown associations have been established which serve as a buffer mechanism for resolving these problems. There are opinions that the hometown associations slow down the process of urban adaptation of the immigrants in the later periods while facilitating adaptation in the early periods of migration. Trabzon, a coastal province in the Blacksea region of Turkey, is an important source area for immigration to the Turkish capital city, Ankara. Immigrants from diverse subprovinces of Trabzon province have a large number of  hometown asscoiations in Ankara, however, the ones related especially to Of subprovince are ranking the top among such associations. This is the main reason why I focus on the immigrants from Of in this article. How these associations affect the process of urbanization of immigrants during and after immigration. In this context, it is aimed to discuss the role of associations in the development of urban belonging of immigrants in relation with the origin region, the rural practices of the origin region in the urban cultural transfer, and the change of the quality of this transfer, considering generation-based differences. For this purpose, in-depth semi-structured interviews were made with 10 of the members of the associations established under the name "Of" in Ankara. Among these, there are three association managers as "key interviewee". During the interviews, voice recordings were made and content analyses were made. This study seeks to explore the role of associations in the process of urbanization This study does not claim urbanization as a whole, reading through associations. But these associations were an effective intermediate mechanism, especially in the early days of migration, suggesting that the migrants offered a framework that determines their primary position in the city. As a result of the study, it is understood that the people from the subprovince Of hometown association in Ankara is functioning as an intermediary in the process of urbanization. In particular, this process has caused clusters of first immigrants in certain urban areas and business areas. As the educational levels of the group members increase, their ties with the hometown association also decrease.

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