Those Who Cannot Get a Grip on the City: Substance Abuse and the Migration Relationship in the Case of Konya

Author/s: Hatice Arslan

Year: 2020 Vol: 2 Number: 2

Abstract

Internal migrations performed with the hope of finding work and living in better conditions also brings along problems such as urbanization gone askew, squatting, unemployment, lack of education, and cultural conflict. People who cannot find what they are looking for in the city, who maintain their own way of life, who cannot adapt to urban life, and who cannot break away from their own culture are excluded and marginalized. In other words, these migrants who cannot get a grip on the city sometimes use substances and remain faced with the risk of becoming addicted. This study intends to research the impact the phenomenon of migration has on drug use in families that have migrated to Konya from the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian regions between 1980 and 2000. The province of Konya, where the dimensions of substance use and the problem of addiction increase day by day, is a province that both receives and provides migrants. The vast majority of migrations made to Konya are seen to be from the Southeastern and Eastern Anatolian regions. In this context, my study focuses on the relationship between substance addiction and migration. The qualitative research method has been adopted within the scope of the study, and life history interviews will be held using the semi-structured interview technique with 10 substance-addicted youths who will be determined through snowball sampling. In Turkey, studies performed in this field on the increasing number of addicts and the age of becoming addicted getting younger with each passing day becomes ever more important. No study is encountered in the literature to have researched the impact migration has on substance use or to have researched in depth migration and the problems it brings; this study will contribute to the literature related to this topic. Alongside this, the study carries additional importance due to being the first study that will research the impact internal migrations made to Konya have on substance use.

Keywords
Internal migration, Konya, Adapting to the city, Addiction, Substance use

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