Curbing Xenophobia? Testing the Contact Theory Through COVID 19’s Mobility Curbs

• In Event: Migration and the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

In Turkey, we know that negative sentiment toward refugees has gone up over the last few years while opinions have become very diverse—and rather polarized (M. Erdogan 2020; Lazarev and Sharma 2017; E. Erdogan and Semerci 2018). This trend was expectable as the “forced cohabitation” of displaced and hosting communities reached substantial proportions since the beginning of the crisis in 2011. By 2019, almost all Syrians lived outside refugee camps and made up roughly 4.36% of the Turkish population, therefore creating a de facto “social shock” for the country (M. Erdogan 2020, 200).

In early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic added on to an already complicated situation for refugees worldwide, both in terms of material condition and acceptance in host communities. The virus at the heart of this pandemic is suspected to have started in late 2019 in the Wuhan province of China but only started to be diagnosticated in most countries around March 2020. Quickly and one by one, most countries implemented confinement orders for their non-essential workers. What more, the quick return to normal most had hoped for never came—by late 2020, a second wave of infections was taking place worldwide with no end in sight, neither for the pandemic nor for the curbs put in place to stop its spread.

In fact, none were spared the havoc caused by COVID 19—of note is the impact of mobility curbs, quarantine policies, and rising death rates on the social psychology of nations. In the span of mere days, most of the world came to a gradual stop, with most workers transitioning to a form of home-based, online work they were never really prepared for. Naturally, whole sectors of our economies were devastated by the economic downfall of mobility curbs and stay at home orders—restauration, retail, real estate, and so on. In late 2020, we still remain rather far from completely understanding the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on the world, as scientists suggest that it is here to stay for the foreseeable future and most countries remain severely affected by the pandemic (Altig et al. 2020; Nicola et al. 2020; Rose-Redwood et al. 2020; Renjen 2020; Duclos and Palmer 2020).

High refugee per capita countries are far from being spared the dire downfall of the pandemic, in particular due to the heavy mobility curbs that were enforced on populations in order to stifle the spread of the COVID 19 virus. Many expressed concerns for properly implementing confinement policies in refugee camps, considering the cramped nature of the space available there, while also expressing concerns that refugees would be further scapegoated and/or isolated (Islam and Yunus 2020; Kluge et al. 2020; Orcutt et al. 2020). In Turkey, the material and psychological stress of the mobility curb added on to an already complicated situation. Indeed, the devaluation of the Turkish Lira in 2019, along with simmering anti-refugee sentiments only served to make matter worse (Dushime and Hashemipour 2020; Demir Seker, Nas Ozen, and Acar Erdogan 2020; “Turkey’s Recovering Economy Will Lack Resilience” 2020).

Aside from their importance in stifling the pandemic, mobility curbs serve as a quasi-natural experiment in testing the contact theory of anti-refugee sentiment in high refugee per capita countries. Originally postulated by American Psychologist Gordon Allport, the contact theory holds that casual contact with refugees—in particular short encounters where the members of the other group are encountered in situations that fit the stereotype—serves to reinforce xenophobia while sustained contacts—defined as intimate relationships and friendships—serve to improve acceptance (Dovidio, Glick, and Rudman 2008, 262–64). Because any casual interaction is virtually prevented by stay-at-home orders, while sustained contacts can survive through cellphone usage and social media, mobility curbs should logically serve to reduce casual interactions altogether and therefore reduce negative sentiment toward refugees. As a result, the mobility curbs of the COVID 19 pandemic should serve to improve sentiment toward refugees in high refugee per capita countries according to the postulates of the contact theory.

In this paper, I explore the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic’s mobility curbs on sentiment toward refugees in Turkey in order to test the contact theory of refugee acceptance. To do so, I use six variables for mobility in Turkey during the COVID 19 pandemic made available through the Google Mobility Report and I measure sentiment using 7,988 tweets collected for Turkey during the February 15th to August 31st period in this country. Statistical tests aggregated at the country and region levels lend credence to the contact theory—the more people stay at home, the more positive sentiment toward refugees on Twitter discussions of refugees. As a result, this research adds on to the growing body of literature that lend support to the contact theory in explaining anti-refugee sentiment worldwide.

Author

• Amir Abdul Reda, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, African Institute for Research in Economics & Social Sciences