The effects of forced migration on generations and societies: A historical and analytical approach to film 'Dedemin Insanlari'

Forced migration, as a source of major problems, leaves significant impacts on societies. Even though there are many problems regarding fundamental rights like housing, health, education, justice, etc., the part that comes to light in the representations is mainly the identity problem, and the problem of belonging created by the problematic identity. The problems experienced via migration have left various traumas in society. Traumas do not merely belong to the first generations that migrated and faced discrimination, injustice and tyranny at first hand, but it also affects the next generations directly and indirectly in a historical process. Social tragedies are transmitted from generation over time, since the memory does not remain as an individual phenomenon that leaks away. Social memory takes place in transmission, as an actor that transfers the historical and social thoughts, needs, pains and longings etc. from generations to next generations, but one of the most important transmitter is the mass media, which transfers the social and historical values and informations to masses with representations is undoubtedly cinema. In this study, the relationship of forced migration on societies and generations, in the context of identity and memory, is examined through representation. The aim of the research is to evaluate the possibility of traumatic recollection in collective memory and to examine the confusion of history, society and identity that creates this trauma through a filmic representation. This purpose also includes examining the construction of the nation-state, which has an impact on this identity confusion, ideological concepts such as ethnicity, racism and nationalism that determine this construction, and the effects of the discourses based on these concepts. The study is based on the film Dedemin Insanlari (Irmak, 2011). The reason for choosing this film is that it can represent the impact of the concepts of migration, memory, and identity on generations through the film's characters, their characteristics, actions, and discourse, reflecting the historicity in cinematic representations. The film is examined with Teun A. van Dijk critical discourse analysis method. The ideological discourses in the films world and characters are examined and explained in detail. Forced migration undoubtedly has left traumatic traces in the memories of societies. The expected result at the end of the study is as follows; The trauma deepens as the characters encounter physical or political obstacles through historical places, which are one of the founding elements of memory. Unless history is handed down to new generations face to face, problems of belonging, remembering and identity grow. The traumatic social trace also shape the stories told, and are reflected in the representations. Keywords: Cinema, Identity, Memory, Migration