On the Boundaries of Whiteness: Racism Against Foreigners in Bosnia and Turkey in a Worldwide Setting
A blogpost by Ege Anbar
The influx of migrants has ignited long-dormant social hierarchies and prejudices in Bosnia and Turkey. Both nations provide a rich environment for examining how regional expressions of racism are influenced by and contribute to a global system of racial borders, despite the stark differences in their geopolitical and cultural settings. According to Elissa Helms’ study “Race in place: scales of difference along the Balkan Route of migration,” E. Tendayi Achiume’s theoretical framework in “Racial Borders,” and the anthology “Migration Studies in Turkey from a Gender Perspective,” this blog post examines how local racism against immigrants in Southern Turkey and Bosnia reflects larger, neocolonial structures of exclusion.1
Southern Turkey’s Local Racism

Refugee camp in Nizip, near Gaziantep, Turkey. © European Union 2016 – EP – Photo: Yasin Akgul (Source EC). Used in accordance with EU reuse policy; identification of origin mandatory; https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/photo/turkey-gaziantep-refugee-camp-in-nizip-turkey-45-kilometers-away-from-syrian-boarder_P030722000501-944053.
Local perceptions of Syrian refugees, especially women, in Southern Turkish cities like Gaziantep and Hatay are frequently tinged with racialized and gendered judgments, as documented in “Migration Studies in Turkey from a Gender Perspective.” Syrian women are often the focus of moral scrutiny, viewed as both extremely visible and invisible in public, praised for their alleged submissiveness and held accountable for moral decline. Even though Syrians occupy an ambiguous space within a country with a majority of Muslims, these perceptions contribute to a larger narrative that portrays them as racially and culturally inferior.2
This is an important ambiguity. Turkish racism frequently uses culturalist and nationalist framings, in contrast to traditional North-South racial dynamics that depend on phenotypic differences. However, Achiume contends that racial boundaries are based on constructed hierarchies of modernity and civilization as well as skin color. Despite religious or regional similarities, the Turkish state racializes Syrian refugees by reproducing Western-centric notions of progress and backwardness in its positioning as a modern nation-state and regional power.3
Furthermore, racism is institutionalized through the structural restrictions placed on refugees, which range from segregated access to social services to restrictions on work permits. Although they may be accepted as temporary workers, refugees are not granted citizenship. The community does not accept them, but the economy does. This dichotomy promotes cultural exclusion while maintaining economic dependence.
The Bosnian Case: Migrant Othering and Peripheral Whiteness

Bihać, Borici camp before renovation, photographed during the migrant crisis. Photo © Dariusz Kalan, 2018. Used with permission (not in the public domain!) .
According to Elissa Helms’ ethnography of Bihać, Bosnia, residents actively participated in racializing discourses against migrants stranded at the EU border while also denying the existence of racism (“We don’t have racism here”). South Asian, Middle Eastern, and African migrants are portrayed as racially and culturally distinct, and occasionally even as dangers to European identity. Bosnians use what Helms refers to as “peripheral whiteness” as a means of claiming their distance from the racialized migrant Other and their closeness to Europeanness.4
It is interesting to note that while many of Helms’ informants encountered Islamophobia while visiting Western Europe, they were able to re-inscribe comparable forms of exclusion against migrants from outside of Europe. Achiume’s assertion that race serves as border infrastructure is best illustrated by this paradox: even people who are racially marginalized in one setting may end up acting as border enforcers in another. Local institutions in Bosnia frequently support the EU’s externalization of its border regime, thereby empowering citizens to enforce racially discriminatory border control.
The precarious position of post-Yugoslav countries in the European racial hierarchy is also reflected in the Bosnian case. Bosnia’s postwar development is complicated by its dual identities as a victim and an enforcer of border violence. EU funds encourage securitized border controls while simultaneously supporting humanitarian efforts, resulting in a moral economy where compassion and control are difficult to balance. This paradox traps migrants—helped and rejected, housed and evicted, criminalized and humanized.
Achiume’s Theory of Racial Boundaries: Linking the Dots
Achiume’s idea of “racial borders” offers a common framework for comprehending these apparently different local manifestations of racism. She contends that a neocolonial global system that values whiteness and Western mobility is ingrained in modern national borders.5 Both the Turkish state’s unequal treatment of Syrian refugees and the conflicting racial positioning of Bosnians serve as examples of how international migration governance functions as racial governance.
The cultural and racial othering of Syrians in Turkey is made easier by their alignment with European modernity and development discourses. Locals in Bosnia reproduce and internalize the racialized hierarchy created by EU external border politics, particularly pushbacks and camp governance. In both contexts, bureaucratic, humanitarian, and media narratives normalize the suffering of immigrants and make them highly visible as economic or security threats.
The structural role of race—not just as an issue of identity, but also as an organizing principle of the global migration regime—is what Achiume’s theory critically reveals. Despite their seeming neutrality, legal classifications like refugee, asylum-seeker, and irregular migrant are influenced by colonial and imperial histories. These classifications perpetuate a society in which the racialized poor are condemned to immobility and mobility is a privilege of whiteness.
Overcoming the Racial Divide
There are several ways to oppose these racialized systems. Alternative narratives and forms of support are offered by local activists, transnational networks, and civil society organizations in both Bosnia and Turkey. To combat xenophobia and sexism, for example, local women’s organizations in Gaziantep have organized their communities to close the gap between Syrian and Turkish women. In a similar vein, some citizens of Bihać challenge popular perceptions by welcoming migrants, providing food, or opposing state violence.
However, resistance comes at a price. In both nations, activists experience social exclusion, criminalization, and surveillance. Furthermore, solidarity actions are frequently presented as exceptional rather than systemic, which serves to further the notion that inclusion is a deed of charity rather than a right. As Achiume would contend, this moral economy of migration does not undermine racial hierarchy but instead reinforces dependency.
It is impossible to comprehend local racism against immigrants in Bosnia and Turkey separately. These beliefs are embedded in a global system of racial boundaries that is both affective and structural, social and legal. Racial borders, according to Achiume, maintain global hierarchies long after official colonialism has ended. Helms and the authors of “Migration Studies in Turkey from a Gender Perspective” both demonstrate how race is ubiquitous, contextual, and enduringly unfair.6
It takes more than localized anti-racism to comprehend and address these dynamics; it calls for a critical reexamination of the ways in which national imaginaries, racial histories, and global migration regimes interact to create and justify exclusion. We can only start to envision genuinely inclusive and just futures for all migrants by connecting the local to the global. To achieve this, academics, decision-makers, and activists need to embrace frameworks that prioritize racial justice as a fundamental component of international human rights, rather than as a domestic concern.
Ege Anbar is a Master’s student in Media, Society and Communication at the University of Innsbruck. He combines academic studies with professional work and community engagement and is interested in sharing research with broader audiences.
Diesen Artikel zitieren: Anbar, Ege: On the Boundaries of Whiteness: Racism Against Foreigners in Bosnia and Turkey in a Worldwide Setting, in: Migration and Belonging, 14/11/2025, https://belonging.hypotheses.org/6845 [Abrufdatum].
- Achiume, E. Tendayi: Racial Borders, in: The Georgetown Law Journal 110 (2022) 3, 445-508; Helms, Elissa: Race in Place: Scales of Difference Along the Balkan Route of Migration, in: Ethnic and Racial Studies (2024); Biehl Öztuzcu, Kristen / Danış, Didem (eds.): Toplumsal cinsiyet perspektifinden Türkiye’de göç araştırmaları [Migration Studies in Turkey from a Gender Perspective]. İstanbul 2020. [↩]
- Biehl Öztuzcu / Danış 2020. [↩]
- Achiume 2022. [↩]
- Helms 2024. [↩]
- Achiume 2022. [↩]
- Cf. footnote 1 as well as the following blogposts: Invisible Lines: The Racialized and Gendered Boundaries of Syrian Women’s Migration in Turkey and Wie zeigt sich Rassismus in zwei unterschiedlichen europäischen Kontexten: Finnland und Bosnien?. [↩]
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Ege Anbar (14. November 2025). On the Boundaries of Whiteness: Racism Against Foreigners in Bosnia and Turkey in a Worldwide Setting. Migration and Belonging. Abgerufen am 6. Februar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/155ae
