Abstract
Since the official declaration of the start of COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey in March 2020, the Syrian refugees’ already precarious situation in Turkey worsened. Discrimination and stigmatization against them as “virus-spreaders” increased considerably. Many of them lost jobs during the economic crisis, which is partly caused by the quarantine measures. Because of the inadequacies in the COVID-19 statistics, how many Syrian refugees, out of a registered 3.5 million, got the virus is still unknown. However, it is known that many of them had the virus, living in crowded, dilapidated houses in the major cities, like Istanbul and Izmir. Moreover, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which many Syrians benefit from for their health, educational and legal needs, either scaled down their face-to-face services or functioned totally online for several months when the pandemic peaked. Based on a survey filled by 850 Syrian refugees in Turkey, and netnographic research, which includes the Syrians’ comments and questions on the web page of the survey and other similar web pages, this talk explores how the pandemic and measures against it affected everyday social interactions, health and illness conceptions and health-seeking behaviors of Syrians in Turkey. Since the state provided masks in the early months of the pandemic in accord with the citizenship ID number, and organized vaccinations , many Syrians had trouble reaching these services. The talk will also cover how Syrian refugees formed new informal networks of solidarities online and cooperated with the formal NGOs and Turkish municipalities in order to solve their problems brought by the pandemic and quarantine measures.
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