December 27, 2019, Thursday, 18.00-20.00, Cezayir – İstanbul

Being a Migrant in Syria and Lebanon in the Inter-War Period by Dr. Seda Altuğ

In this presentation, Dr. Seda Altuğ will analyze the refugee issue in Syria, the country which accepted the largest number of refugees from the Ottoman Empire and Turkey during WWI. Syria which was under the French mandate in the interwar period, became the host country for approximately 500.000 people until the 1950s; the primary group was the Armenians who sought refuge in Syria after 1915. Refugee issues became a complicated issue for the various sectors of the society, the French administration, and, of course, for the refugees themselves. This presentation will address topics such as refugee politics of the French administration and socio-political and economic relations between the refugees and the local community as well as how different sections of the society addressed the refugee issue in Syria under the French mandate.

Seda Altuğ is an instructor at Boğaziçi University Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History (ATA). She completed her PhD in University of Utrecht. Her PhD dissertation is titled “Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: Community, land, and violence in the memories of World War I and the French mandate (1915- 1939)”. Her research interests include state-society relations in Syria, land issues, ectarianism, empire, borders, and social memory. Altuğ is a fellow researcher in Berlin Forum Transregionale Studien during 2018-2019 AY.