German Politics and Society

Despite decades of official denial, modern Germany has always been a

country of immigration. From Poles migrating to the Ruhr in the late nineteenth

century, to German refugees and expellees after World War II, to

Italians and Greeks in the 1950s, to ethnic Germans from the former

Soviet Union and refugees from Bosnia in the 1990s, the country has a

long history of attracting newcomers. In fact, according to the recently

released 2011 census data, approximately 19 percent of the Federal Republic’s

population of around 80 million has a “migration background.”1 Of

course, this national average masks substantial variation at the state or city

level—places like Hamburg, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg have shares of

residents with such a background of a quarter or more, whereas the eastern

Länder have proportions under 5 percent. This sizeable population is

also very different than a generation ago—increasingly rooted and diverse:

60 percent of this group has German citizenship and about half of this subgroup

was born in Germany. Regarding countries of origin or ancestry,

17.9 percent have origins in Turkey, 13.1 percent in Poland, and about 8.7

percent in both Russia and Kazakhstan.

The year 2011 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the bilateral recruitment

agreement that the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) signed with

the Republic of Turkey in 1961. According to official figures, the immigrant

group with roots in Turkey and its offspring make the second largest

group currently after ethnic German emigrants (resettlers) in Germany.

Understanding this migration experience and the broader issues of immigration

in Germany is the motivation behind this special issue.

This article explores the changing perception of "diversity" and "cultural difference" in Germany and shows how they were central in the construction of "self" and "other" throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries affecting minorities such as Jews, Poles, and others. It examines different levels of legal and political action toward minorities and immigrants in this process and explores how the perception and legal framework for the Turkish minority in the past sixty years was influenced by historical patterns of such perceptions and their memory. The article tries to shed some light on how the nature of coming-to-terms with the past ( Vergangenheitsbewältigung ) and the memory of the Holocaust have long prohibited a broader discussion on inclusion and exclusion in German society. It makes some suggestions as to what forced Germans in the postunification era to reconsider legislation, as well as society's approach to "self" and "other" under the auspices of the closing of the "postwar period" and a newly emerging united Europe.

Scholarship on citizenship-in its definition as nationality or formal membership in the state-has been both the basis for evaluating and comparing national citizenships as "ethnocultural" or "civic," and used to imply the meaning of citizenship to prospective citizens, particularly immigrants and non-citizen residents. Doing so ignores a perspective on citizenship "from below," and oversimplifies the multiplicity of meanings that individuals may attach to citizenship. This article seeks to fill this gap in scholarship by examining young adult second-generation descendants of immigrants in Germany. The second generation occupies a unique position for examining the meaning of citizenship, based on the fact that they were born and grew up in Germany, and are thus more likely than adult immigrants to be able to become citizens as well as to claim national belonging to Germany. Among the varied meanings of citizenship are rights-based understandings, which are granted to some non-citizens and not others, as well as identitarian meanings which may depend on everyday cultural practices as well as national origin. Importantly, these meanings of citizenship are not arbitrary among the second generation; citizenship status and gender appear to inform understandings of citizenship, while national origin and transnational ties appear to be less significant for the meaning of citizenship.

This article invites scholars of race and migration to look at the visual arts more closely within the framework of comparative race theory. We argue that within a neoliberal multicultural context, the marketing of art relies on the commodification and circulation of racial categories, which are reproduced and distributed as globalized racial knowledge. This knowledge is mediated by the racial logic of neoliberal multiculturalism. Specifically, we look at the ways in which the global art market functions as a set of racialized and commodified power relations confronting the “migrant“ artist within an orientalizing curatorial framework.

This article describes and analyzes the complex relationship between Turkey, Germany, and the European Union over the past half-century. It asks why numerous other countries have jumped the queue and managed to gain entry, whereas Turkey has been left knocking at the door, presented with increasing obstacles through which it must pass. The role of Islam is examined as a motivating factor in the exclusion of Turkey. Also, the historical memory of the Ottoman Empire's relationship with Europe is discussed. The mixed reception and perceived problems of integration of the large population of people from Turkey and their descendants who arrived in the 1960s as "guestworkers" is put forth as a key obstacle to Turkey's admission to the European Union. Contradictions in policies and perceptions are highlighted as further impediments to accession.

Building on a long-term, multi-sited ethnographic research project, this article illustrates and interprets the transformation processes and empowerment strategies pursued by an originally Zazaki-speaking, multigenerational Alevi family in the Turkish-German transnational context. The family, which includes a number of Alevi priests (seyyid or dede), hails from the Dersim4 region of eastern Anatolia, and their family biography is closely bound up with a traumatic mass murder and crime against humanity that local people call “Dersim 38“ or “Tertele.“ Against the background of this tragedy, the family experienced internal migration (through forced remigration and settlement) thirty years before its labor migration to Germany. This family case study accordingly examines migration as a multi-faceted process with plural roots and routes. The migration of people from Turkey neither begins nor ends with labor migration to Germany. Instead, it involves the continuous, nonlinear, and multidirectional movement of human beings, despite national border regimes and politics. As a result, we can speak of migration processes that are at once voluntary and forced, internal and external, national and transnational. 5 In this particular case, the family members, even the pioneer generation labor migrants who have since become shuttle migrants, maintain close relationships with Dersim even as they spend most of their lives in a metropolitan German city. At the same time, they confront moments of everyday in- and exclusion in this transnational migration space that define them as both insiders and out- siders. Keeping these asymmetrical attributions in mind, I examine the family's sociocultural, religious, and political practices and resources from a transna- tional perspective, paying close attention to their conceptualization of identity and belonging as well as their empowerment strategies.

In the ongoing debate on immigrant integration policies, the Sinus study on migrant milieus has attracted much attention for its clear stance as a proponent of a multicultural society. Brushing aside arguments about an ethnic-religious divide in the German social fabric, the study argues that social milieus constitute much stronger markers of difference than ethnicity. This paper provides a critical appraisal of the postethnic vision articulated by Sinus. However, it also raises some methodological issues concerning the collection and analysis of data on immigrant populations. The concluding section discusses the limits of a politics of difference based on milieus. It questions the potential of the Sinus study to move the German immigration debate forward towards a more democratic vision of citizenship, given its de-emphasis of social inequalities rooted in relations of gender, "race" and class.

In the last decade, many descendants of immigrants from Turkey have been grappling with new expressions of their belongingness and workable identifiers to express their place within German society. Those searching are often citizens and young professionals who have been born or raised there. Until recently it had been assumed that incorporation though citizenship would be a sufficient basis for becoming Germans. It was also a political belief that to introduce the territorial right (ius soli) to citizenship would be a step toward Germany recognizing itself as a country of immigration. Whether or not this has been the case is addressed in this article. To do this critical events since the initiation of the settlement process and the messages communicated during this period will be examined. A review of these events and messages suggests that tradition, institutions and public discourse continue to articulate an ethnicized view of citzenship that creates barriers to identification with becoming a German. Two prototypes of responses to this situation are analyzed. Finally, there is a discussion of the understanding of citizenship required in this context.

In diesem Beitrag diskutiere ich die schulische Situation von Jugendlichen

mit einem türkischen Hintergrund im Kontext ihrer (Selbst-) Einordnung als

People of Color bzw. als rassistisch markierte Subjekte. Insbesondere in

einer Gesellschaft die auch stark von der Post-9/11 medialen Berichterstattung

geprägt ist, ist die starke Rassifizierung von Jugendlichen of Color mit

einem türkischen Hintergrund zunehmend deutlich geworden. Diese

Erfahrungen der Rassifizierung führen bei antidiskriminierungsengagierte

Jugendlichen mit einem türkischen Hintergrund, in vielen Fällen, zu Solidarisierungen

mit Schwarzen (Deutschen) Jugendlichen. Rassismuserfah -

rungen vereinen damit gewissermaßen antidiskriminierungsengagierte

Jugendliche of Color. Die Praxis dieser Jugendlichen of Color, betrachte ich

vor dem Hintergrund der offiziellen Diversitätsbekundungen von Berliner

Schulen. Dabei fällt auf, dass Diversität als neues Label offenbar nicht zu

einer Verminderung ihrer Diskriminierung führt. Es geht mir darum, die

anhaltende soziale Ungleichheit, die sich in Bildungsinstitutionen in der Alltagspraxis

beständig aktualisiert zu konkretisieren. Ich beziehe mich auf rassismuskritische

Thematisierungen von hierarchisierter Differenz durch

Schülerinnen of Color. Es handelt sich hierbei um Jugendliche, die sich ganz

bewusst im Sinne einer Antidiskriminierungsarbeit an ihrer Schule

engagieren. Sie lenken durch ihre hegemoniekritischen Diskussionen den

Blick auf vorhandene Formate, Inhalte und Barrieren der Thematisierung

von Heterogenität, sowie auf die diskursiven Intersektionen von Ausschlüssen

an (Berliner) Schulen. Diversität scheint hier als Begriff—auf dem

ersten Blick—gut geeignet, um Fragen der Benachteiligung und der strukturellen

Diskriminierung, die in enger Wechselwirkung mit Heterogenität

bestehen, wahrnehmbar zu machen. Dass solche Bekenntnisse nicht eine

automatische Lösung bedeuten, sondern sogar zu einem Bestandteil des Problems werden können ist eine zentrale Argumentation dieses Beitrags. In

Anknüpfung an dieser Kritik argumentiere ich, dass Diversität als neues

bzw. als neoliberalistisches Label ein oberflächliches Verständnis von Toleranz

und Akzeptanz eingefasst ist, und dass durch ihre plakative Ausrichtung

das Ziel der Gleichstellung als erreicht gefeiert wird, obwohl die Hierarchien

weiterhin fest an ihrem Platz bleiben.