Home feeling of Turkish diaspora in Gaggenau, Germany: A cross-generational case study


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Şehir Ve Bölge Planlama Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2023

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Öğrenci: AYŞEGÜL SARI

Danışman: Zübeyde Müge Akkar Ercan

Özet:

A feeling of home represents a necessity encompassing the fundamental concepts of human life, such as security, comfort, shelter, meaning, identity, and social life. Home feeling contains the individual’s personal living space and extends beyond. In

this sense, achieving a home feeling varies for immigrants who left their homes and neighborhoods to establish a new life. The lack of this feeling, closely associated with the urban environment, holds significance for the city planning discipline. In this study, sense of home, containing both the sense of home in the personal living space and the neighborhood, has been examined within the broader framework of the sense of place. A comparison between the levels of sense of place among three different generations of the Turkish diaspora residing in Gaggenau, Germany, is provided.


Two research questions investigating the difference between the level of sense of place at home (1) and in the neighborhood (2) among three different generations of the Turkish diaspora are formulated. The sample group comprises a total of 30 participants from three generations, determined through convenience sampling. The quantitative measurement of sense of place is conducted through the survey questions regarding three sub-scales of sense of place which are place identity, place attachment, and place dependence. Answers depend on a 5-point Likert scale. A variance analysis is conducted through IBM SPSS 26 Software. Following this, a mapping method is employed, and both analyses are correlated. When comparing the three generations, the sense of place at home does not reveal a statistically significant difference between the three generations. However, sense of place in the neighborhood reveals a significant difference between the first and third generations, with the third (youngest) generation representing a higher mean value than the first. Relatedly, the neighborhood experience of the third generation spreads to a wider scale.