Journals / Kafkasya Çalışmaları / 2026 / Sayı: Özel Sayı/Special Issue Özel Sayı

The Gendered Experiences of Return to Adygheya and Abkhazia: Dual Transnationalism Between The Caucasus and Turkey

Adıgey ve Abhazya'ya Dönüşün Toplumsal Cinsiyet Bağlamında Deneyimleri: Kafkasya ve Türkiye Arasında Çifte Ulusötesilik

Jade Cemre Erciyes(ISTANBUL AYDIN UNIVERSITY)0000-0002-4186-8901
Pages
103–132
Publication Date
2026-02-14
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The aim of the article is to bring the gender lens into analysis of return and dual transnationalism revealing how contested statehood and border regimes are experienced, navigated and seen differently by women and men.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:This article analyses the gendered experiences of ancestral return migration from Turkey to Abkhazia and to Adygheya.
📊
Key Findings & Data:The study is based on data collected between 2005 and 2014 through qualitative research, in-depth interviews, participant observation and ethnographic research.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The aim of the article is to bring the gender lens into analysis of return and dual transnationalism revealing how contested statehood and border regimes are experienced, navigated and seen differently by women and men.
🔬Design:Araştırma Makalesi
📍Scope:2005 Verileri
⚙️Variables:toplumsal cinsiyet · çerkes · geri dönüş

Abstract

This article analyses the gendered experiences of ancestral return migration from Turkey to Abkhazia and to Adygheya. There is an ongoing transnational movement of diaspora and return migrants between Turkey and the Caucasus. With strict and conflicted border regimes families are divided, having less opportunities to travel back and forth. Though in much fewer numbers than men, there have been women in constant mobility between their two homes, being involved in trade, keeping two halves of the family intact, or being part of diaspora political groups. Their migration and mobility are considered as a challenge to the traditional image of women in the community and to social norms. However, it is also seen as a ‘courageous act’ due to the policy restrictions on mobility and the limited knowledge of the homeland conditions by the diaspora. The study is based on data collected between 2005 and 2014 through qualitative research, in-depth interviews, participant observation and ethnographic research. The aim of the article is to bring the gender lens into analysis of return and dual transnationalism revealing how contested statehood and border regimes are experienced, navigated and seen differently by women and men.

Özet

Bu makale, Türkiye'den Abhazya ve Adıgey’e geri dönüş göçünün toplumsal cinsiyet bağlamındaki deneyimlerini analiz etmektedir. Türkiye ve Kafkasya arasında diasporanın ve Kafkasya’ya dönüş yapmış olanların süregelen bir ulusötesi hareketliliği bulunmaktadır. Katı ve çatışmalı sınır rejimleriyle aileler bölünmekte ve gidiş geliş fırsatları azalmaktadır. Erkeklere kıyasla çok daha az sayıda olsa da, anavatan ve diasporadaki evleri arasında sürekli hareketlilik içinde olan, ticaretle uğraşan, ailenin iki yarısını bir arada tutan veya diaspora siyasi gruplarının parçası olan kadınlar bulunmaktadır. Bu kadınların göç ve hareketliliği, toplumdaki geleneksel kadın imajına ve sosyal normlara bir meydan okuma olarak görülmektedir. Ancak bu durum, hareketlilik üzerindeki politika kısıtlamaları ve diasporanın anavatanın koşullarına dair sınırlı bilgisi nedeniyle aynı zamanda “cesur bir eylem” olarak da değerlendirilmektedir. Çalışma, 2005-2014 yılları arasında niteliksel araştırma, derinlemesine mülakatlar, katılımcı gözlem ve etnografik araştırma yoluyla toplanan verilere dayanmaktadır. Makalenin amacı, dönüş ve çifte ulusötesilik analizine toplumsal cinsiyet perspektifini dahil ederek, tartışmalı devlet statüsünün ve sınır rejimlerinin kadınlar ve erkekler tarafından nasıl farklı şekillerde deneyimlendiğini, bunlarla nasıl başa çıkıldığını ve nasıl görüldüğünü ortaya koymaktır.

🔖

Cite This Article

Erciyes, J. C. (2026). The Gendered Experiences of Return to Adygheya and Abkhazia: Dual Transnationalism Between The Caucasus and Turkey. Kafkasya Çalışmaları, Sayı: Özel Sayı/Special Issue Özel Sayı, 103–132. https://doi.org/10.21488/jocas.844189

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (33)

  1. Allen, William Edward David. & Muratoff, Pavel Pavlovich. Caucasian Battlefields: A History of the Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border 1828-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
  2. Ameen, Juan. ‘Home’and ‘Return’–the Experience of Second-Generation Iraqi Kurd Returnees to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Diss. University of East London, 2018.
  3. Besleney, Zeynel Abidin., The Circassian Diaspora in Turkey: A Political History. Oxon: Routledge, 2014.
  4. Bilgili, Özge, Katie Kuschminder, and Melissa Siegel. "Return migrants’ perceptions of living conditions in Ethiopia: A gendered analysis." Migration studies 6.3 (2018): 345-366.
  5. Chirikba, Viacheslav.A. (2006) Abkhaz Community Abroad [Abkhazskaya obshina za granitsei]. Available from: http://www.apsny.ru/community/community.php?page=content/community_a/community_a.htm [accessed in 2010].
  6. Christou, Anastasia. “Migrating Gender: Feminist Geographies in Women’s Biographies of Return Migration.” Michigan Feminist Studies, Special issue: Gender and Globalism, 17. 2003.
  7. Christou Anastasia and King Russell. “Gendering Counter-Diasporic Migration: Second Generation Greek-Americans and Greek-Germans Narrate their ‘Homecoming’ to Greece.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 20(2) 283-314, 2011.
  8. Conway, Dennis. Transnationalism and Return: 'Home' as an Enduring Fixture and 'Anchor'. In: Conway, Dennis. & Potter, Robert.B. (eds.). Return of the Next Generations: 21st Century Transnational Mobility, Farnham, England; Burlington, VT Ashgate, pp. 263-281, 2009.
  9. Doğan, Setenay Nil. Diaspora Nationalism as a Gendered Discourse: The Circassian Diaspora in Turkey. In Özgür, Ergün. (ed). The North Caucasus: Histories, Diasporas and Current Challenges. The Social Science Research Council, pp. 106-122, 2009a.
  10. Doğan, Setenay Nil. Formations of Diaspora Nationalism: The Case of Circassians in Turkey, unpublished PhD thesis submitted to Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2009b.
  11. Doğan, Setenay Nil. “We Left Our Skirts to Men as We Went to the Front”: The Participation of Abkhazian Women from Turkey in the Abkhazian War, in Altınay, Ayşe Gül and Petö, Andrea (eds.) Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories: Feminist Conversations on War, Genocide and Political Violence, Ashgate (forthcoming), 2015.
  12. Dumont, Jean Christophe, & Spielvogel, Gilles. Return migration: A new perspective. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Migration Outlook, Annual Report. 2008.
  13. Erciyes, Jade Cemre. unpublished PhD thesis submitted to Sussex University, Brighton, UK. 2014
  14. Flynn, Moya. Reconstructing ‘Home/Lands’ in the Russian Federation: Migrant-Centred Perspectives of Displacement and Resettlement. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33 (3), pp. 461-481. 2007
  15. Flynn, Moya., Münz, Rainer & Ohligher, Rainer. Returning Home? Approaches to Repatriation and Migrant Resettlement in Post-Soviet Russia. In: Münz, Rainer & Ohliger, Rainer (eds.). Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective, London: Frank Cass Publishers, pp. 173-187. 2003.
  16. Girma, Hewan. "The salience of gender in return migration." Sociology Compass 11.5 (2017): e12481.
  17. Kaya, Ayhan Political Participation Strategies of the Circassian Diaspora in Turkey. Mediterranean Politics, 9 (2), pp. 221-239. 2004.
  18. Kılınç, Nilay. (2014). Second-Generation Turkish-Germans Return 'Home': Gendered Narratives of (Re-)negotiated Identities, Master thesis in the Lund University European Studies. http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/4006903
  19. King, Russell, & Christou, Anastasia. Of Counter-Diaspora and Reverse Transnationalism: Return Mobilities to and from the Ancestral Homeland, Mobilities, 6(4): 451-466. 2011.
  20. Kushabiev, Asker V. Circassians Abroad: From the history of the Circassian community in Syria [Adygckoe zarubeje: Iz istorii cherkesskoi obshiny v Sirii] (in Russian). 1991.
  21. Mahler, Sarah. J., & Pessar, Patricia R. Gender matters: Ethnographers bring gender from the periphery toward the core of migration studies. International migration review, 40(1), 27-63. 2006.
  22. Miyazawa, Eiji. Memory Politics: Circassians of Uzunyayla, Turkey. London: University of London, unpublished PhD thesis in the School of Oriental and African Studies. 2004.
  23. Oeppen, Ceri. A Stranger at ‘Home’: Interactions between Transnational Return Visits and Integration for Afghan-American Professionals. Global Networks, 13(2), pp. 261-278, 2013.
  24. Olsson, Eric. Diaspora, Transnational Engagement and the National Regimes: Introduction. In: Moksnes, Heidi & Melin, Mia (eds.). Global Civil Society: Shifting Powers in a Shifting World, Uppsala: Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development, pp. 177-180. 2012.
  25. Oxfeld, Ellen & Long, Lynellyn. Introduction: An Ethnography of Return. In: Long, Lynellyn & Oxfeld, Ellen (eds.). Coming Home: Refugees, Migrants, and Those who Stayed Behind. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 1-15. 2004.
  26. Perez, Gına M. A Gendered Tale of Puerto Rican Return: Place, Nation and Identity. In: Potter, Robert B., Conway, Dennis & Phillips, Joan (eds.). The Experience of Return Migration: Caribbean Perspectives, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 183-205. 2004.
  27. Piper, Nicola Gender and migration: A paper prepared for the policy analysis and research programme of the global commission on international migration. Geneva: Global Commission on International Migration. 2005.
  28. Shami, Seteney. Circassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus. Development and Change, 29 (4), pp. 617-646. 1998.
  29. Shami, Seteney. Prehistories of Globalization: Circassian Identity in Motion. Public Culture, 12 (1), pp. 177-204. 2000.
  30. Shenfield, Stephen D. The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide. In: Levene, Mark & Penny, Roberts, (eds.). The Massacre in History. New York: Berghahn Books. 1999. [online] Available from: http: //www.circassianworld.com/Articles.html [Accessed in 2010].
  31. Valentin, Karen, and Laxmi Dhungel. "Gendered mobilities and return migration: A study of highly skilled female returnees in Nepal." European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 48.Winter (2016): 77-102.
  32. Vishnevsky, Anatoly. The Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Ethnic Migration: The Return of Diasporas. In: Buckley, Cynthia J., Ruble, Blair A. & Hofmann, Erin Trouth (eds.). Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, pp. 155-172. 2003.
  33. Wesselink, Egbert. The North Caucasian Diaspora in Turkey, WRITENET, 1 May 1996, Available from: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a6bc8.html [Accessed in October 2013]. 1996.