Work

Scalar entrapment and the multiscalar geographies of refugee (im)mobility

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article examines how refugee spatiality is governed and experienced through scalar entrapment, which we define as the recursive immobilisation of refugees through intersecting global, national, and urban regimes. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Istanbul, we demonstrate how international containment agreements, national asylum laws, and local bordering practices co-produce spatial injustice. Using a mutiscalar and relational approach, the analysis reveals that refugees are immobilised both through formal governance structures and everyday bordering, stigma, and embodied fear. However, spatial agency persists through survival strategies, solidarity networks, and gendered practices. We argue that Istanbul is an illustrative site for theorising how refugee spatiality is produced through multiscalar, embodied, and politically structured processes of scalar entrapment.

Source: Mobilities

DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2026.2647166

Authors: Necmettin Doğan, Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, Edip Asaf Bekaroğlu, Melis Cin

Institutions: Istanbul Commerce University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul University, Lancaster University

Language: English

Topic: Migration and Exile Studies

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W7147230241

FWCI: 12.4

Cites: 68

Cited by: 1

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