Migration, citizenship and naturalization : Turkish immigrants in Canada and Germany

Abstract

Very few studies among migration, citizenship and nationalization literatures focus on the individuals and their ideas about recent migration motivation, naturalization decisions and conceptualization of citizenship. Based on in-depth interviews with highly skilled and business Turkish immigrants (HSBTI) in Canada and Germany, the study seeks the recent reasons of people to move and tries to understand whether the recent migration motivation of people is affected by citizenship and migration policies of host countries. Additionally, the study intends to build a typology for understanding the meaning of citizenship in the literature and to include individuals into the discussion by seeking how the individuals (mainly immigrants) define the concept citizenship in recent times. Lastly, the study tries to find out why some immigrants decide to receive the citizenship of country of destination while others do not. The study also tries to understand whether citizenship and migration policies of host countries as well as citizenship conceptualization of immigrants affect their decision-making process.