The Turkey-Germany migration corridor

In this chapter we examine six different migration phases between Germany and Turkey focusing on their economic and socio-cultural developmental impacts: (1) migration of academics escaping from Nazi persecution to Turkey (1930–50); (2) entrepreneurial small-scale migration from Turkey to Germany (1950–60); (3) guest worker recruitment starting the official labour migration (1961–73); (4) settlement phase with family unification (1973–90); (5) asylum seeking period (1989–2000); (6) contemporary two-way flows (2000–present). We question the concept of the migration corridor and advocate that it is quite restricted because it gives the impression of a homogeneous and often uni-directional flow of people. Therefore, we argue for a nuanced understanding of a migration corridor given the heterogeneity of mobility and two-way flows over the years between cities and regions leading to corridors within country corridors