Strategies to cope with negative social identity for sub-Saharan African migrants in Istanbul: The attempts to build new strategies between being sympathetic migrants and being subjected to racism

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Strategies to cope with negative social identity for sub-Saharan African migrants in

Istanbul: The attempts to build new strategies between being sympathetic migrants and

being subjected to racism

This study focuses on sub-Saharan Africans' strategies to cope with negative social

identity perception as migrants in Istanbul. Using a qualitative approach to analyze these

strategies, this research aims to show how sub-Saharan Africans subject to stigmatization and

racism. As violence and hostility towards Syrian refugees have been a hot subject in Türkiye,

the problem of sub-Saharan African migrants in Istanbul has been brought to the public's

attention by political leaders' populist discourses ahead of the 2023 Türkiye Presidential

Elections. During the election season, the court judgement in the case of Nigerian Festus

Okey (who was shot killed by the police) that has been ongoing for 15 years was modified in

favor of the accused. As a result of the debate about immigrant workplaces, most of sub-

Saharan restaurants in the capital city of Ankara were forced to close. The police blocked an

anti-racist protest organized by African migrants after a Togolese immigrant was stabbed to

death in the street.

The perception of negative social identity is the result of individuals' negative social

comparison between their own group and out-groups. In such cases, group members begin to

develop strategies to cope with this perception. Social identity literature suggests three types

of coping strategies: individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition. This study

was carried out in Istanbul's Kumkapı area, which has a high concentration of African

migrants. The paper presents the results of a thematic analysis of data collected through focus

group interviews in Turkish, English and French with 20 sub-Saharan Africans throughout the

years 2022 and 2023. Participants range in age from 20 to 50 and are mostly from West

Africa (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Somalia, and Nigeria).

The data was gathered under three themes: Being African in Türkiye through the eyes

of Africans, the preference of Kumkapı and the shifting from African identity to national

identity as a strategy of having a positive social identity. The findings show that according to

sub-Saharan Africans, they were found sympathetic but not taken seriously by the locals.

I argue that when exposed to racist and discriminatory behaviours as a result of the

countries economic and social structure environment, African migrants' social creative

strategies are no longer sufficient for them to have a positive social identity. As a result, sub-

Saharan Africans are seeking new strategies that would provide them to be taken more

seriously by locals while maintaining their sympathy, such as the collective actions which

have two ends of the spectrum: one with locals and one against locals.

Keywords: sub-Saharan African migrants, Istanbul, social identity theory, thematic analysis