Immigration from Turkey to Sweden began in the 1960s as labour migrants from a small town in Konya province moved to Sweden to work in the expanding Swedish industries. This first wave was followed by family unification in the 70s, and asylum seekers. The latter consisted of Christian and Kurdish minorities fleeing persecution and violence, and political activists fleeing the 1980s coup. How have these diverse groups and their children adjusted to their new home and a life together in Sweden? What are the main challenges to integration and coexistence within this diaspora?
Paul T. Levin is the founding Director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies and a frequent commentator on Turkish affairs in Swedish media. The co-editor (with Bahar Başer) of Migration from Turkey to Sweden: Integration, Belonging, and Transnational Community (2017, London: I.B. Tauris), Dr. Levin is a founding member of the Consortium for European Symposia on Turkey, Research Fellow at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, member of the German Marshall Fund’s Trilateral Strategy Group, and Associate Researcher at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs.