Homeland visits of diasporas: A field study on Germany Turkish Federation Turkey culture trip 2013

People have been on the move for different reasons since the dawn of man, individually or together they have migrated or immigrated. When the migration of Turks over the last fifty years is examined, there is a 5-million Turkish diaspora in Europe, the continent where the majority of Turks immigrated. Germany houses roughly 3 millions of Turkish presence in Europe. The visits that these diasporas, coming into existence because of these immigrations, make to their homelands are investigated within the scope of diaspora tourism. With this study it was aimed to determine the expectations of the people who become a diaspora in the countries they live as a result of their immigration from their homelands of the culture tours to their homelands and the socio-cultural effects of these tours on them. Therefore, a field study was conducted over the "Turkey Culture Trip 2013", which was held by Germany Turkish Federation. The researcher participated the tour, made observations for nine days, handed out a data-gathering diary to 28 people who were chosen according to the maximum variation technique of purposive sampling and these 28 people were asked to write what they felt for the each day of the trip. After the trip, the researcher went to Germany and made interviews with 28 participants in nine different cities of Germany. Everything said during the interviews was transcribed as it was and without changing the dialogue order. The obtained data was first coded with a code list to create meaningful sections. The sections constituting a meaningful whole were named by the researcher. The data which was meaningfully related to each other was brought together and associated. After this coding process, nine main themes and twenty-two sub themes under these main themes were created. That such trips contributed to strengthening of the bonds between the people of Turkish Diaspora, Turkish Culture and Turkey; that these trips affected to increase their nationalistic sentiment and belonging to Turkishness; that these trips aroused curiosity of Turkish history and culture and that these trips made them admire their ancestors were among the results of this study. Keywords: Diaspora tourism, tourism sociology, Turks in Germany, immigrations, Germany Turkish Federation Turkey culture trip.