Germany in Transit:
Nation and Migration 1955-2005
Edited by Deniz Göktürk, David Gramling, and Anton Kaes
(Forthcoming in 2006, UC Press)
In this age of global trade and traffic, mass migration and expanding media networks, our planet seems to have shrunk considerably, while rifts between groups have grown deeper. According to UNESCO’s 2000 World Culture Report, cultural diversity, conflict and pluralism are now central categories in debates about politics and policies on both national and transnational levels. In the US , multiculturalism has become a fiercely contested concept, prompting some critics (David Hollinger, for example) to propose conceptualizations beyond ethnicity, beyond multiculturalism or even beyond between, thus promoting the rediscovery of universalism in pluralism to avoid total fragmentation. In the European context, processes of supranational integration are engendering different, yet comparable tensions. The changing landscape of reconfigured borders and competing regional, national and post-national identities is further complicated by the incorporation of large migrant (or post-migrant) populations. The reality of living in multicultural and multilingual societies has become the object of heated debates and is generally seen as a major challenge for policy-makers. (See for example the British ESRC funded research program “One Europe or Several? The Dynamics of Change across Europe”:
http://www.one-europe.ac.uk.)
We believe that debates about diversity must be evaluated against a broader international perspective. It is our contention, however, that questions of culture and rights, difference and integration, education and equality are still primarily framed within national institutional frameworks. The now famous Pisa Study, a comparative survey of educational goals among European states, published by the OECD in 2002, came as a shock to Germans, as it showed dramatically low standards at German schools, especially for migrants. National institutions are thus scrutinized on international platforms, and sovereign states face challenges arising from increased migration and globalization. Solutions, however, are mostly sought in national terms. Multiculturalism, too, is still primarily discussed within the parameters of the nation. Research on the topic therefore must engage with the specificities of national debates as well as global implications.
While “multicultural Germany may sound like an oxymoron, the foreign-born population in Germany has reached 10%, a number comparable to foreign-born residents in the USA . The urgency of debates about Germany as an “immigration country cannot be disputed. It is the aim of our project to research and document the evolution of debates on multiculturalism in Germany and make them known in the United States, not only to promote a more differentiated picture of contemporary Germany, but also as a critical mirror of issues that are not all that different from those discussed elsewhere in Europe or indeed in the USA. We see Germany as a paradigmatic case for the ways in which European countries cope with migration and multiculturalism as these phenomena threaten national identity and a homogeneous environment that is far easier to navigate. The case of Germany , in other words, will serve as an example to develop ideas about diversity in the New Europe.
The proposed sourcebook “Multicultural Germany will introduce an English readership to debates surrounding migration and multiculturalism in postwar Germany . Although questions of citizenship and the position of minorities in Germany have been discussed since the arrival of the first guest workers in Germany in 1955, these debates have only begun to dominate the news in the last decade. What to do with the “floods of foreigners ? How is one to distinguish between guest workers needed for the economy in the 60s and 70s and economic refugees from underdeveloped countries in the 80s and 90s? Do “ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and Russia merit a different status than hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers? Has Germany become a land of immigrants? Should they become German citizens? What are the implications of dual citizenship? Can people not born to German parents become German citizens? Do they need to be “integrated into German culture and society, and if so, how can this be accomplished? How much “assimilation is necessary? Is there such a thing as a German identity, and if so what is it? Does the increasing emphasis on difference and diversity in the realm of culture obscure questions of social rights, inequality and poverty?
These are some of the questions that seem to us of utmost importance, and not only for Germany . Anti-foreigner and anti-immigration sentiments are increasingly voiced in France , the Netherlands , Italy , Great Britain and in the United States , where debates about the danger and liability of “foreigners have periodically emerged over the last century. Even physical violence against “foreigners is not endemic to Germany as recent race riots in England have shown. Nevertheless, attacks against non-Germans in Germany evoke the horrific memory of Nazi persecutions. Debates in Germany about what is German will never be perceived as innocuous.
It will be the task of this collection to be both general in its questions and specific in its documents. By documenting how German society has been engaging with these larger issues we hope to cast new light on the contested ground of identity politics. The material will show how identification is nuanced and anchored in specific, ever-changing historical contexts. Migration, diversity, and identity have, in our opinion, a powerful symbolic dimension, and it is exactly at the intersection of social and political theory and cultural practice that we locate our project.
Despite the importance of this topic, no comprehensive collection of material exists which could be used as a resource and textbook in German and European cultural studies as well as in history and social science courses. The growing number of scholarly books and conferences on Germany ’s “foreigner problem attests to the urgency of the subject matter as does the increased number of university courses devoted to the interaction between Germans and Germany ’s large foreign population as expressed in literature, film, and journalism.
The material will be organized around debates, rather than portraying individual minority cultures. Our aim is to present a polyphonic diversity of voices in each section (examples of Jewish, Italian, Turkish, Afro German as well as mainstream institutional discourses, both indigenous and immigrant, conservative and critical, old and young, male and female). A certain predominance of Turkish German debates is motivated not only by numbers (with over 2 million people of Turkish origin forming the largest minority living in Germany today), but also by perceptions of this particular group as a particularly visible immigrant population.
The proposed sourcebook is designed to be a new volume in the book series, " Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism," edited by Edward Dimendberg, Martin Jay, and Anton Kaes. Its format will follow the successful The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, which has sold more than 8,000 copies since it appeared in 1994. We believe that this new sourcebook will be equally useful in shaping a subdiscipline in German Studies that has been rapidly gaining interest among academic as well as general readers in recent years. German Departments in the US embrace the topic of multiculturalism for good reason: it allows them to interface with concerns of multiculturalism, postcolonialism and cultural studies that are presently discussed in the American academy; it shows a Germany much less foreign to American eyes than the romantic image of Germany still found in American textbooks, and it appeals to students of German who are interested in pursuing careers in political science, economics, law, and international relations.
The selection includes German documents and analytical commentaries centered around specific debates or discourses. Also included are statistics, caricatures, illustrations, and photographs. We project approximately 300 printed pages with illustrations. The average length of each chapter will be kept to 20-25 pages, containing 10-15 documents. Each chapter is introduced by a brief essay of 2-3 pages that endeavors to contextualize the various documents. A substantial introduction will provide the historical horizon against which the new debates should be read. The introduction will also map out the cultural and political discourses of German identity within an historical perspective, including earlier definitions of nationhood and race as well as other migrations, such as the postwar integration of twelve million refugees from the East.
The working bibliography will contain titles of translations and subtitled films that relate to the topic. An original special feature of the book will be a website that will allow constant updates, corrections, and dialogue with readers. Illustrations as well as statistics and an extensive bibliography will make the sourcebook an indispensable resource for teaching and further research in the field.
Intended Audience
The intended audience of the sourcebook includes undergraduate and graduate courses in German Studies, History, Political Science, Sociology, European Studies, Cultural Studies, and Ethnic Studies. Given the interest in the discourses of migration and immigration, diversity, race, citizenship and integration in this country, we can also count on a sizable general readership. Because of the topics importance we also expect the book to be reviewed in such papers as the New York Review of Books and the New York Times.