Refugee men's representation in public discourse

What is it about?

This article analyzes political leaders’ speeches, news articles, and opinion pieces published in mainstream media outlets and social media about displaced people from Syria and Afghanistan in Turkey since 2016. We build on and contribute to feminist geopolitics and refugee studies. Using the concept of embodied geopolitics, we show how the dominant anti-refugee discourse in Turkey produces depictions of refugee men’s bodies, appearance, and behavior that simultaneously masculinize and feminize them. These portrayals present refugee men in three main ways: as overly masculine threats to the nation, as cowards who do not fit into Turkish understandings of masculinity, or as backward/uncivilized men who do not know how to behave in modern urban spaces. We argue that gender is central to these representations and these gendered and racialized representations animate geopolitical narratives about the nation, its territory, and relationship to other nations.

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Why is it important?

This article makes important contributions through its focus on refugee men and masculinity and its analysis of how gendered and racialized representations of refugee men and masculinities construct the the threats to the nation or who belongs and who doesn't in that nation.