"Ben mülteci değilim": İstanbul'daki Suriyeli profesyoneller

The Syrian refugee population of three million in Turkey consists of a wide spectrum of people that includes low-wage workers to wealthy businessmen setting up factories, from conservative Islamists to radical leftists. By acknowledging this diversity, this thesis focuses on unpacking the multi-layered and differentiated experiences among those more "fortunate" refugees, (a paradoxical-sounding and often overlooked category), namely, Syrian professionals in İstanbul and their self-perceptions that center on forced mobility experiences. Based on the qualitative research, which includes 19 formal in-depth interviews and participation in many social activities such as home-gatherings and social outings, the argument is twofold: first, that the interlocutors exhibit a particular type of class-based management of refugee-ness by strategically drawing on their previous economic resources, social networks and cultural competencies while also striving to accumulate new ones. Building on this argument, this thesis claims that the interlocutors do not want to be perceived as a part of the larger Syrian refugee community. This becomes a way of escaping from the precarious refugee situation as well as -deliberately or indeliberately- asserting their differences based on cultural competencies and wealth. These arguments are not a refusal to acknowledge the shared difficulties and anxieties of forced mobility and the ongoing war in Syria among Syrians, but rather, they highlight the differential vulnerabilities, concerns and ways of dealing with refugee experiences.