Between Placelessness and Place-Giving: Migration as a Social Space of Gap and the Threshold Politics of Identity

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This study examines the phenomenon of migration and refugeedom within the context of Turkey, not solely through the lens of migrants' integration processes, but also by critically focusing on how the host society actively constructs and conditions these processes. In the current literature, migration is often conceptualized through one-dimensional frameworks that position the migrant as a passive subject expected to adapt. However, contemporary migration dynamics entail not merely individual adaptation, but multilayered processes of cultural, political, and symbolic negotiation and mutual transformation. In this regard, the study introduces the concept of the "Societal Void Zone" (SVZ) to describe the uncertain, negotiated, and often resistant space that emerges between migrants and host communities. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in social identity theory, acculturation models, and the concept of liminality. The newly developed notions of displacement and place-giving are employed to conceptualize the two poles of this relational field. Displacement denotes the migrant's struggle to reconstruct spatial and identity-based belonging; place-giving refers to the host society's conditional and regulated forms of inclusion. The threshold space that arises between these poles embodies neither full exclusion nor full acceptance, and constitutes a critical terrain for rethinking migration sociology. The study is based on a mixed-method survey conducted with both migrant individuals and host community members. Data were collected using quantitative (Likert scale) and qualitative (open-ended) instruments and analyzed through the lenses of social exclusion, identity tension, and symbolic boundary production. Findings indicate that integration is not merely a matter of individual effort or institutional policy, but a complex and symbolic process of negotiation, recognition, and spatialized belonging. Taking the case of Turkey as a focal point, this article aims to offer a new conceptual vocabulary for migration studies, challenge linear discourses of integration, and reconceptualize migration as a site of encounter, friction, and transformation rather than as mere movement from one place to another.