Doğuş Şimşek
This chapter examines how global racial hierarchies are reproduced, resisted, and reconfigured in Türkiye, focusing on the experiences of African migrants. It traces the historical roots of racialisation from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Republic, highlighting how associations between Blackness and servitude have shaped enduring racial imaginaries. The chapter also explores Türkiye’s expanding political and economic engagement with African countries since the late 1990s, showing how these relations have reshaped migration flows, settlement patterns, and migrants’ socio-economic positions, often within informal economies. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, and collaborative storytelling, it analyses how African migrants navigate everyday life, negotiate belonging, and make sense of racism in a context where it is often denied. I argue that experiences of exclusion and waiting are rooted in these historical and geopolitical processes, positioning waiting as a racialised form of governance within Türkiye’s migration regime.