Remembering across the border: Postsocialist nostalgia among Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria

Abstract

ABSTRACT“Postsocialist nostalgia” among Turkish immigrant women from Bulgaria is not just strategic performance to negotiate the challenges that face working women in Turkey but is also cross‐cultural analysis based on the migrants’ experiences of distinct gender regimes on the two sides of the border. I explore why the competition between established residents and newcomers over scarce resources becomes, in this instance, the ground for negotiation over proper gender roles. I also suggest that the migrants’ appeal to the communist legacy posits an alternative to either “normalizing” or “Orwellizing” communism and that it offers a more nuanced understanding of the norms and practices of gender and labor under communism, as experienced by this particular group of minority women.