How do Syrian refugee workers challenge supply chain management in the Turkish garment industry?
There is an increasing interest in the working conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Apart from the Turkish government, many agencies of the UN, as well as various non-governmental organisations and transnational corporations implement programmes and projects to tackle the varying needs of Syrian refugees. Rather than solely objectifying refugees as a vulnerable group, paying attention to their contribution to industrial relations is crucial in order to acknowledge refugees as active agents capable of changing their lives and the structures within which they operate. Syrian refugees follow a survival strategy based on their social networks that also affects and changes the living and working conditions of local people, and existing labour relations. This presentation focuses on the relations between the informal and formal sectors in Turkey and how such relations have affected the survival strategies of Syrian refugees. In turn, it also attempts to assess how the participation of Syrian refugees in the informal economy has changed these historical relations between formal and informal employment. The presentation will initially provide a general picture of the employment of Syrian refugees in Turkey and then share fieldwork observations.

Please note this talk was previously scheduled to take place on 24 May
Date: 17 May 2017, 13:00
Venue: Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road OX1 3TB
Venue Details: Seminar Room 1
Speaker: Emre Eren Korkmaz (University of Oxford)
Organising department: Oxford Department of International Development
Organiser contact email address: imi@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Part of: International Migration Institute Seminar Series
Topics:
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Jenny Peebles