Commodi ication, exploitation and vulnerability: (Un) documented Afghan migrant workers in Istanbul

Abstract

Turkey has witnessed a tremendous migration wave of Afghan migrants infiltrating from the Eastern political territorial borders of the country in the last decade. Most of these young migrants’ only hope is to gain better life conditions either in Turkey or Europe to support themselves and their families. On the way from Afghanistan to Istanbul through agency of human traffickers, they have suffered and coped with many difficulties during which many of their friends lost their lives leaving their dead bodies on the smuggling paths in the mountainous Kurdish region on the Iranian- Turkish border. Based on the data of an ethnographic oral history project, this paper aims to document how these male and female migrants develop survival tactics in the job market as documented and undocumented workers where they have been subjected to diverse forms of exploitation. Their dignity is constantly being violated and their bodies are seen and treated as “docile bodies” that can be consumed any time. The rise of human rights violations ad xenophobia has expanded a ground of necropolitics for migrants in Turkey where precarity, fear, despair and waiting become new ways of life. Focusing on the life story Ahmad who lost one of his legs while working in a harsh working place, and narratives of many other male and female workers, this paper tries to analyze and shed light on the violent circumstances of (un)documented migrant workers in Istanbul and their struggle and hope for a possible “future”.