Iranian Refugees in Transit: Exile and the Politics of Survival in Turkey After the 1979 Revolution

Maral Jefroudi presents a comprehensive picture of one of the largest migration waves in contemporary history by analyzing refugees’ interactions with the Turkish State, the UNHCR, and within the community of Iranians in transit after the 1979 revolution.

Iranian Refugees in Transit unveils the rich history of political engagement among Iranian refugees before their arrival in Turkey, contextualised within Turkey’s own landscape of political and ethnic conflicts. Jefroudi expertly examines the intersectional distribution of precarity among refugees. By bringing together interviews with refugees from the period, analyzing cultural products by and on them, and tracing their footsteps in newspapers and scholarly literature, this book fills a significant gap in Turkey’s migration history. Through a critical historical analysis of the international asylum
system, Iranian Refugees in Transit offers valuable insights into the dynamics of the current ’refugee crisis’.

Maral Jefroudi is Co-Director of the International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE), Amsterdam. She studied in Bogaziçi University, Istanbul and received her PhD from the International Institute of Social History (IISH) and Leiden University in 2017. She is a co-editor of Iran in the Middle East: Transnational Encounters and Social History (2015, I.B. Tauris).