Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 5(11), pp. 941 - 953
DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.051104
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From Gun Barrel to Passport: Smuggling on the Turkish-Syrian Border

Ayşe Yıldırım ^*
Department of Anthropology, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Turkey

ABSTRACT

Syria, which has witnessed a war that has been going on for many years now, is a country founded by the French after the Turkish War of Independence in the early 20th century, and the border between Turkey and Syria was drawn up during the French mandala. One of the characteristics of this border line—which is also valid for most of the newly-founded Middle-Eastern and African nation-states—is that historic and ethnic continuities have not been calculated, and that it was drawn up as if with a ruler. This characteristic has revealed various border fancies in terms of the states with political borders and the people or groups living on the border line. Undoubtedly, one of the areas in which political borders are visualized differently by the state and the border people is the cross-border trade. In this study, the economic action, defined from the perspective of the state as 'smuggling' between Nusaybin, a county in Mardin and the city of Qamishli in Syria, which are situated oppositely in the Turkish-Syrian border region, has been handled. The conversion of land, which has a traditional use value, into a territory for modern states, can problematize a 'natural' economic activity by making it 'illegal'.

KEYWORDS
Border, Smuggling, Turkey, Syria

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Ayşe Yıldırım , "From Gun Barrel to Passport: Smuggling on the Turkish-Syrian Border," Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 11, pp. 941 - 953, 2017. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.051104.

(b). APA Format:
Ayşe Yıldırım (2017). From Gun Barrel to Passport: Smuggling on the Turkish-Syrian Border. Sociology and Anthropology, 5(11), 941 - 953. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.051104.