JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES 7 I conducted narrative interviews and participant observation with 30 displaced individ­ uals: 15 Syrian, Afghan, Turkish and Iranian refugees in Frankfurt and 15 Syrians in Istanbul. All had fled their country of birth since 2011 but now held a variety of legal, mostly temporary statuses. Half were female. I also conducted 22 narrative interviews with neighbours of primary interlocutors, and 21 semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders working in refugee reception such as staff of the municipality and civil society organizations. Most interviews were conducted with individuals, except in three instances in Istanbul when interlocutors explicitly asked to be interviewed together with partners or friends. Interviews sought to understand experiences and challenges of settlement in the new state and neighbourhood, acquiring and renewing legal status, access to formal and informal support systems, and interactions and meaning of social relations with locals, family members and friends. During participant observation, I accompanied individuals in their everyday life and observed how social relations were practised amongst family members and in the neighbourhood. This paper draws on the formal interview component with Syrians with and without citizenship of Turkey of the Istanbul section of the study. As I was interested in nego­ tiations of temporary status, I did not initially focus on experiences of naturalization. However, in Turkey, naturalization emerged as a core topic of concern, both in inter­ views and informal conversations. Indeed, when asking interlocutors about other ‘Syrian refugees’ who might be interested in participating, these often turned out to also hold Turkish citizenship, opening questions of the validity of the refugee-citizen binary. I thus included questions on naturalization and citizenship in subsequent inter­ views, both with naturalized citizens and temporary protection holders. This allowed me to explore whether and how status made a difference to individuals. Below I refer to the perspectives of Syrians both with and without citizenship of Turkey. Of 15 Syrian interviewees in Istanbul, eight had become naturalized citizens of Turkey. Three of these were Turkmen Syrians who spoke Turkish as a first language; all others were of Arab origin. Three were women. While I speak advanced Arabic, two early inter­ views in Arabic were supported by a translator; later, I conducted all interviews by myself in English (1) or Arabic (12). The interviews were transcribed and translated by a research assistant; all translations were double-checked by myself. Interviews were coded using NVivo 14 and analysed through memo writing and abductive reflexive the­ matic analysis that considers themes within the broader study, social and research context (Braun and Clarke 2006). Interlocutors were recruited through snowball sampling with multiple entry points (Morgan 2008). In Frankfurt, I volunteered in two temporary refugee shelters and invited residents to participate in my study. Interlocutors in Istanbul were recruited via referral from participants in Frankfurt, through local civil society organizations, and pre­ vious research contacts. After the interviews, I asked interlocutors to suggest other partici­ pants who might be interested in the study. Potential interviewees were informed about the objectives of the research, use of research outputs, benefits and drawbacks, and withdrawal procedures via information sheets and a verbal explanation recorded on voice messenger. All interview participants signed a consent form. The research design was approved by the Ethical Review Committee of the University of Birmingham (ERN_20-1003). To ensure the confidentiality of interlocutors, I use the pseudonyms chosen by the participants