Sense of belonging among highly skilled Turkish immigrants in Ireland: The Dublin case

This study examines the factors influencing the sense of 'belonging' and 'identity' among highly skilled Turkish professionals' who migrated from Turkey to Ireland. Today, the process of globalization brings forth questions about our sense of belonging and identity, and also new sense of place and community. This research upholds the globalization process resulted in a rising individualization by reflecting upon self-determination of individuals. This study suggests that constructing belonging and identity among highly skilled Turkish nationals based on achievements, values and desires. Asserting that constructing belonging and identity among Turkish professionals' encapsulates their thought, feeling, perception, sensation and memory, this research adopted a cognitive perspective along with (interpretative) constructivist grounded theory for the analysing of the gathered data. This research conducted in-depth interviews with 31 highly skilled Turkish professionals' working in multinational corporations (MNCs) in Ireland. The results of this study showed that research participants' created an imagined 'comfort zone' established on their personal values in the host country. This study revealed that participants' developed an identity towards cosmopolitan values through involvement in cultural diversity in both the workplace and cosmopolitan society. In conclusion, research participants' developed an 'elective belonging' in their host country based on achievements. This research may contributes to the migration studies by adding cognitive processes of an individual to reveal how migrants' experience and interpret the world through cognition. Key words: belonging, identity, globalization, individualization, self-determination, diversity, cosmopolitan, personal values, comfort zone, elective belonging