Understandings of particularism and social communication processes of Turkish people living in Belgium: A research on Turkish people who have Emirdağ and Posof origins

This study investigated the Turkish migrants? involvement to the host and ethnic social communication processes and their reflections of the immigrants? views on particularism and identity perceptions in the context of social communication processes. The study was designed as mixed research involving both qualitative and quantitative methods such as interivews, survey forms, participatory observations used to collect data. The study was conducted in Flandres and Brussels regions of Belgium with nine months fieldwork. The sample of the study included 210 participants who have Posof origin and 214 Emirdag origin for survey and 55 participants (33 from Emirdag, 20 from Posof and 2 from other cities) for interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed by Chi-square, t-test, ANOVA; and the interviews were analyzed in light of observations. Findings suggest that there is no significant differences with regard to involvement to host communication and ethnic communication between Posof and Emirdag origined immigrants. They strongly participate in the ethnic social communications as their involvement to the host social communication is quite limited. Their understandings on particularism considerably shape their communication processes. High identification with the Turkish identity, living in Turkish neighborhoods, usage of Turkish in daily life, limited social environment consisting mostly Turkish people, fellow townsmen and relatives are salient characteristics of their social communication processes. They generally think that Belgians? thoughts about immigrants negatively affect their involvement to the host social communication.Keywords: Social Communication, Particularism, Turks in Europe, Belgian Turks