Iraqi Yazidis: Their Migration to Europe and Its Motives
Abstract
The paper deals with internal migrants from the Yazidi minority in Iraq. It is
a case study based on a field research conducted in March 2016 on the
territory of the Kurdish regional government in Northern Iraq. The paper is
based on thirty semi-structured interviews with refugees both inside and
outside refugee camps, and it discusses the motivations that the refugees
take into consideration while making decisions about their possible future
migration (their lack of trust toward the central and the Kurdish regional
government, their Arab neighbours, and their elites, the situation in the
camps, the economic crisis, etc.). This case study provides a perspective of
the Yazidi refugees themselves that is in some respect specific for this
minority but also contributes to the general discussion about motivations
of refugees from the war zones in the contemporary Middle East.
Keywords
Yazidis, Iraq, refugees, emigration to Europe, failed state, Islamic extremism
Author Biography
Karel Černý
Karel Černý born in 1980, he is a sociologist working at the Department of Historical
Sociology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. He has
been a Fulbright Fellow and a researcher at the University of California in
Santa Barbara (2011–2012) and also has experience from studying at St.
Petersburgh State University in Russia (2005). Černý focuses on civilization
analyses, and theories of social change and conflict. His research interests
are the roots of the instability in the contemporary Middle East, including
the so-called Arab Spring, and also Muslim migration and integration in
Europe and the United States in a comparative perspective. Černý has
published a monograph titled Instability in the Middle East: Structural
Changes and Uneven Modernisation 1950–2015 (Charles University Press
and Chicago University Press, 2017).