External migration process in the Turkish cinema

İİİ ABSTRACT EXTERNAL MIGRATION PROCESS IN THE TURKISH CINEMA Filiz GÖKTUNA Division of Sociology Anadolu University, The Institution of Social Sciences, May 2005 Advisor: Prof. Dr. Bilhan KARTAL The Western European Countries showed a fast development in industrial area after the World War n. As a result, these countries were in urgent need of labour force. These countries signed bilateral agreements in order to obtain the necessary labour force from abroad. Immigration movements started towards Western Germany in 1961, then following years towards to other Western European countries. During the worldwide economic crisis started at 1970, laws that prohibit foreign worker employments from outside of OECD countries ceased the immigration movement based on transformation principle. Nevertheless, this immigration had continued by either illegal ways or new laws permitting family union. Thus, countries that employed foreign labour and supplied labour, had to face cultural, social and political problems. Today about four million Turkish immigrants who live in Western European Countries form the largest group among immigrant labour force. External Turkish migration process brought important social changes in personal and family level. As one of the most important mirror of social facts, Turkish cinema has not been uninterested to migration reality. Forms of immigrations, family, woman, adaptation, identity, xenophobia etc. have been subject to Turkish films since 1970' s. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how Turkish external migration process, problems and social changes revealed in Turkish cinema. A content analysis method was used by functional sampling from roughly 30 Turkish films focused on migration from Turkey, which are produced by Turkish directors.