Migration stories of Turkish women who have migrated from Bulgaria

This thesis focuses on the story of migrant Turkish women who had migrated from Bulgaria in different periods. How women are affected from migration is tried to be understood by this research and the changes they go through in terms of their social and gender roles are revealed in this study. It is claimed that these women?s struggle to keep their family safe and healthy, might be the reason for the changes they go through in terms of their gender and social roles. This study attempts at analyzing the stories of migration these women tell particularly by showing the similarities and the differences of gender and social roles they perform. The methodological frame of this study is based upon oral history method. The memories of the first generation of Bulgarian Turkish migrants, who had migrated in different periods (1930?1950, 1960?1970 and 1989) were collected through close interviews. The snowball method was adopted in order to reach the participants. These interviews took place between 2006 and 2009. The 45 oral history interviews have been analyzed. After transcribing the recorded interviews a content analysis was made and the main titles and subjects are formed accordingly. These titles are decision for migration, surname selection, religion, belongings that are brought with and left behind, rurality-urbanity, communism, gender, nationalism, citizenship, stragglers, expectations and so on. Immigrant Turks are upset for ?Bulgarian? word. They believe they are pure nationalists. After moving to Turkey, migrants determined their new sirnames under nationalist feeelings. The results derived from this study indicate that, Turkish women who migrated from Bulgaria are hard-working women. They believe that they can only survive by working hard and this is one of the most important principle they have. Migrant women do not approve the house-wives who do not work and earn money in order to support their family financially. These women's identity and life concept are built on