Turkey's diasporas and diaspora policymaking in flux: an introduction

Turkey constitutes one of the most significant and historically salient cases in diaspora studies. Turkey’s current 6.5 million diaspora population, of which 5.5 million reside in Europe, spans multiple continents ranging from the USA to Oceania. Further, millions of people have been forced out of Turkey since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. This opening chapter of the handbook provides readers with an overview of the key socio-economic and political developments that have induced large-scale flows out of Turkey since the inception of the Republic. It investigates how these population movements have shaped Turkey’s demographic and societal composition within and beyond the country’s borders over the past hundred years. The chapter introduces the core themes and contributions of the chapters included in the volume, foregrounding the handbook’s originality and interdisciplinary nature. It concludes with a number of recommendations for future research on Turkey’s diasporas and diaspora policymaking.