Abstract
Iran and Turkey both experienced mass rural-to-urban migratory movements that resulted in part from land reform policies, agricultural mechanization, and industrialization. This thesis explores the historiography of rural-to-urban migration in Iran and Turkey with a focus on migrants who lived in squatter-settlements. It asks how the English-language scholarship about rural-to-urban migration in Iran and Turkey has changed over time in light of historical shifts and analyzes scholarly perspectives about the migrants’ contributions to social and political change. This was achieved through a careful comparative analysis of English-language monographs, journal articles, and newspaper articles about rural-to-urban migration in Iran and Turkey. The scholarship was categorized chronologically using of the 1979 Revolution for the Iranian Studies scholarship and the 1980 military coup for the Turkish Studies scholarship as historical markers in order to observe the thematic trends of the scholarship before and after these years. This study can provide insight into the perceived relationship between urbanization and the rise of political Islam, the affinities between the poor and Islamist organizations, and the explanations for revolutions and political shifts.