Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the self-making aspect of Islamically-oriented humanitarian practices that enable humanitarian workers to constitute themselves both as good persons and as good citizens as embodying the state's "benevolence" towards Syrians within a certain imaginary of the state.

Paper long abstract:

In the Turkish migration regime, Islamically-oriented humanitarian actors have claimed a significant place, especially after the coming of Syrian refugees. In their practices, they have often combined the statist discourses of migration and border regime with Islamic teachings of migration and humanitarianism. In doing so, Islamically-oriented humanitarian actors have engaged in solidaristic relations to the refugees through humanitarian aid while, simultaneously reproducing state-centered approaches to migration. Such a relation allows me to go beyond the dichotomy between state as the figure of sovereignty and the non-state actors engaging in solidaristic practices, in this case through humanitarian practices. Challenging this dichotomy between sovereignty and solidarity enables a framework for a more nuanced and relational understanding of humanitarianism and how the humanitarian actors constitute themselves.

Based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Denizli, Turkey, with Islamically-oriented humanitarian actors, in January-December 2017, this paper seeks to discuss two relational aspects of humanitarianism. The first aspect pertains to how humanitarianism has become a platform of sociality through which new solidaristic relations are established within the boundaries of goodness and morality as understood in Islamic teachings. The second aspect discusses how these solidaristic relations humanitarianism enables have become a language that operates to constitute "good and moral citizens" through embodying and carrying out the morality of the state's "benevolence" towards (Syrian) refugees within a certain imaginary of state. Finally, the paper offers a how these two figures -good (moral) person and good (moral) citizen- interact with each other in a given context.