Demonizing the syrian refugees in everyday life practices: A case of Önder neighborhood

Due to Syrian Civil War, millions of people have been forced to leave their country and seek refuge in other countries. However, forced migration is regarded as a problem by the nation-states which aim to create a homogenous nation on the geography of their domination. Therefore, the nation-states apply various strategies to prevent refugee flows. Besides this, international agreements and conventions also address forced migration within the frame of security issues, instead of addressing humanitarian needs of refugees. Turkey is one of the countries with a high number of Syrian refugees. The state policies regarding the refugees have been addressing the forced migration in terms of national borders security at a macro level and thus ignoring everyday life experiences of the refugees. Consequently, refugees are indicated as a "threat" to national borders through the dominant discourse. Construction of refugees as "the other" as a "threat" within the minds of the national subjects, leads to xenophobia toward refugees within everyday life encounters. This study is a product of an ethnographic field research conducted in Önder Neighborhood in Ankara, which is populated by a high number of Syrian refugees. And within the frame of this study, it is aimed to understand how the everyday encounters are experienced by both refugees and residents. Keywords Nation-state, boundaries, forced migration, banal nationalism, everyday life, demonization