#Home Across the Border: Syrian Journeys of Displacement and Belonging
Janifer Yasmin
For some people, home is a house, a street, a neighbourhood or a familiar landscape. For others, home is found in family, language, memories and everyday routines. But what happens when a person is forced to leave all of these behind?
For many Syrians, displacement has meant much more than moving from one country to another. It has meant leaving behind homes, relatives, work, schools and familiar communities, while trying to build a new life somewhere else. For those who crossed into Türkiye, the journey did not end when they crossed the border. In many ways, another journey began: the journey of finding safety, rebuilding everyday life and asking what it means to belong to a new place.
This is the story of movement from Syria to Türkiye—not simply as a story of crossing a border, but as a story of people trying to rebuild a sense of home.
Leaving Syria
Before displacement, people had ordinary lives. They worked, studied, raised children, visited relatives and lived within communities that were familiar to them. The places they called home were not simply geographical locations. They were connected to memories, relationships and a sense of identity.
The conflict that began in Syria in 2011 changed these everyday lives. Violence and insecurity forced millions of Syrians to leave their homes, either becoming displaced within Syria or seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and beyond.
For those who left for Türkiye, the decision to move was often connected to the search for safety. But leaving was rarely simply a decision to start a new life elsewhere. It could also mean uncertainty about what would happen to family members, homes and livelihoods left behind.
A journey that might appear simple on a map—Syria to Türkiye—could therefore carry a much greater emotional weight.
People were not only crossing a political boundary. They were moving away from a place that had shaped their lives.
Crossing the Border
Türkiye shares a long land border with Syria, and its geographical proximity made it an important destination for Syrians fleeing the conflict.
But a border is more than a line separating two states. For people crossing it, the border can become a moment of uncertainty and transition. On one side is a familiar country, even if that country has become unsafe. On the other is an unfamiliar place where safety may be possible but where life has to be rebuilt.
The routes people followed were not all the same. Journeys depended on where people lived in Syria, when they left, security conditions and the possibilities available to them at the time. Some travelled with family members, while others experienced separation from relatives along the way.
The crossing therefore needs to be understood as part of a longer journey of displacement rather than as a single moment.
Once in Türkiye, people had to begin answering new questions: Where will we live? How will we find work? Where will our children go to school? How will we communicate? Can we bring other family members to safety?
The physical border had been crossed, but many uncertainties remained.
Finding a Place in Türkiye
For many Syrians, arrival in Türkiye marked the beginning of another stage: settlement.
Where people settled was influenced by many factors, including geography, employment opportunities, family and social networks, housing and connections with communities. Southeastern Türkiye is particularly interesting because of its proximity to Syria and its historical and cultural connections with the wider region.
Cities and provinces such as Mardin, Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa provide different settings for understanding Syrian experiences.
In these places, settlement is not simply about finding somewhere to sleep. It involves creating an everyday life.
A family needs a home. Adults may need employment. Children need education. People need access to healthcare and other services. They also need relationships—neighbours, friends, relatives and community networks.
These ordinary parts of life are often overlooked when migration is discussed only through numbers and policies. Yet they are central to understanding what happens after displacement.
Mardin: Living Close to Home
Mardin offers a particularly interesting setting for thinking about Syrian experiences.
Located in southeastern Türkiye and relatively close to the Syrian border, Mardin has its own complex history of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. For Syrian residents, geographical proximity can also mean that Syria does not feel completely distant.
Living close to the border can create a complicated relationship with home.
Syria may be only a relatively short distance away geographically, but political boundaries and the circumstances of displacement can make returning much more complicated.
For someone living in Mardin, everyday life may take place in Türkiye while memories, family relationships and emotional connections remain connected to Syria.
Can someone feel at home in a new country while still feeling that their original home is somewhere else?
There may be no single answer.
Some people may gradually develop a strong attachment to the place where they have rebuilt their lives. Others may continue to think of Syria as home. For others, especially younger generations, belonging may become something more complicated, extending across both places.
Gaziantep: Building a Life Through Work and Community
The city is an important economic centre in southeastern Türkiye and has become home to many Syrians. For people rebuilding their lives after displacement, employment can be central to settlement.
Work is not only about earning money. It can provide independence, routine, social relationships and a sense of stability.
Syrian residents have also established businesses and community networks in different parts of the city. These networks can help newcomers find information, accommodation and employment.
Yet settlement can also involve difficulties. Housing costs, employment conditions, language barriers and legal or administrative processes can make everyday life challenging.
This shows that displacement does not end when people arrive somewhere safe. The process of rebuilding a life can take years.
Beyond Survival: Everyday Life
It is easy to describe refugees only through crisis: war, displacement, borders and uncertainty.
But people also live ordinary lives.
They cook meals, go to work, send their children to school, visit friends, celebrate important occasions and communicate with relatives. They create new routines while maintaining connections with the past.
For Syrian families in Türkiye, these everyday activities can become ways of rebuilding a sense of normality.
Food, language, music, family traditions and religious or cultural practices can help people maintain connections with Syria. At the same time, living in Türkiye can introduce new experiences, relationships and identities.
Over time, the boundary between an old life and a new life may become less clear.
A person can remember Syria while building a future in Türkiye.
Children and the Meaning of Home
A child who left Syria at a young age—or was born in Türkiye after their family's displacement—may have a very different relationship with Syria from their parents.
For parents, Syria may be remembered through childhood, family homes and personal experiences.
For their children, Syria may exist partly through stories, photographs, language, food and relatives.
This raises another important question:
What happens when the place your parents call home is a place you know mainly through their memories?
Young Syrians growing up in Türkiye may develop identities that connect more than one place. Their understanding of belonging may not fit neatly into the categories of “Syrian” and “Turkish”.
Instead, belonging can be shaped by family, language, education, friendships and everyday experiences.
Between Returning and Staying
For displaced people, the future can remain uncertain.
Some may hope to return to Syria. Others may want to remain in Türkiye after building a life there. Some may consider moving elsewhere.
These decisions are not simply about geography. They can involve questions of safety, employment, children's education, family circumstances and the possibility of rebuilding a stable life.
For someone who has spent years in Türkiye, returning to Syria may also mean returning to a place that has changed.
The home remembered before displacement may no longer exist in the same form.
This is one of the deepest contradictions of displacement: you can miss home while knowing that returning to the home you remember may no longer be possible in the same way.
What Does Home Mean?
The journeys of Syrians in Türkiye show that home cannot always be understood as a single geographical location.
Home can be a place.
It can also be a memory.
It can be a language spoken within a family.
It can be the people who remain connected across borders.
It can be the neighbourhood where a person has started a new life.
For some Syrians, home may therefore exist across the border—partly in memories of Syria and partly in the lives they have built in Türkiye.
Migration changes people's relationship with places. A person can leave a country without leaving behind every connection to it.
Beyond the Border
The story of Syrian displacement is often told through borders: who crosses them, who is allowed to enter, and how states manage migration.
But behind every border crossing is a person.
There is a family deciding when to leave.
A parent worrying about children.
A young person adapting to a new school.
A worker searching for employment.
A family trying to maintain relationships with relatives who remain elsewhere.
And there is a person trying to answer a simple but difficult question:
“Where is home now?”
The journey from Syria to Türkiye is therefore not only a journey across geographical space. It is also a journey through uncertainty, adaptation, memory and belonging.
For those who have crossed the border, movement may have changed where they live, but it does not necessarily erase where they come from.
Perhaps home is not always a place we leave behind.
Sometimes, we carry it with us.
References
https://www.unhcr.org/tr/sites/tr/files/2025-04/syrians_barometer_2023_0.pdf
https://www.unhcr.org/tr/sites/tr/files/legacy-pdf/SB-2022-EN-d1-2.pdf
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/turkey/publication/turkeys-response-to-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-and-the-road-ahead
https://help.unhcr.org/turkiye/information-for-syrians
https://help.unhcr.org/turkiye/information-for-syrians/temporary-protection-in-turkey
https://www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/stories/syrian-children-living-turkey-participate-child-rights-workshops-five-provinces
https://www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/stories/circus-training-creates-magical-place-where-two-cultures-connect
https://sites.unicef.org/generation-covid/stories/turkey
https://www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/stories/circus-training-creates-magical-place-where-two-cultures-connect
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category%3AMaps_of_Syrian_Civil_War_refugees_in_Turkey
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMardin%2C_Turkey.JPG?utm_source
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category%3AMardin
https://www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/stories/ccte-programme-helping-safaa-family-keep-their-dreams-alive
https://www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/press-releases/syrian-children-and-adolescences-turkey-talk-about-their-hopes-4th-year-anniversary
https://sites.unicef.org/generation-covid/stories/turkey
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