Migration and informal work in the new Berlin: new forms of work or new sources of labour?

This article focuses on the growing informalization of work, which refers to the strategies that aim to avoid state control and its identification with new migration streams in Berlin. The growth of unemployment and low-waged precarious jobs in an informal or shadow economy is said to be a result of the influx of new illegal migrants. Although Germany does not consider itself as a country of immigration, continuous exceptions have been made to permit the restricted access of temporary workers. The major patterns for new migration were shaped by policies adopted during post-war reconstruction. Programs were started in connection with the asylum compromise and the transformations in Germany and eastern Europe. The informalization of work has gained a new significance in the post-unification era. In conclusion, the diverse processes of re-structuring, deregulation, and migratory labor movements combined with the total lack of acceptance of the notion that Germany is a country of immigration, have created new sources of undocumented skilled and unskilled labor for an expanding informalized sector of the labor market.     

Aussiedler and Ausländer:* Transforming German national identity

Abstract

I analyse the changing conceptions of German national identity since the idea was first articulated after the French Revolution. I distinguish between universalist concepts of national belonging and particularist ones, specifying at the same time their respective class articulations. Within this context, I address both historical and contemporary politico‐legal conditions for German citizenship. These conditions for German belonging entail differential treatment for ethnic Germans coming from beyond the borders of the German state (Aussiedler), whether West Germany before unification or united Germany since, and foreigners living under direct German jurisdiction (Ausländer). The claimed bases and inclusionary/exclusionary effects of these differentiations are interrogated, and their contemporary political implications assessed.     

National Identity Formation in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire: The Skerst Family in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

The modern history of the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire has essentially been written from an ethnic/national perspective. It is basically the story of the formation of the Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian and German 'communities', of their 'specific' national identities and eventually of nation states. With those who acquired a German identity, the focus has essentially been upon the landed nobility, the so-called 'Baltic Barons', the traditional elite that formed a minority even of the ethnically German population. The existence of other German groups has been recognised, such as the 'literary estate' (Literatenstand), which in the nineteenth century 'brought into Baltic higher culture, rationalist viewpoints and represented a potential threat to noble control of local politics.' However, such groups have received comparatively little attention from historians, especially among those publishing in English. Even then there is limited acknowledgement of their possessing distinctive cultural and other forms of self-identification. A recent study by a Canadian scholar of the Germans of Riga before 1914 tends to impose the values of the landed elite upon them. In works published in post-1945 (West) Germany by emigres from the region, there is an inclination to present a distinctive 'Baltic German' identity that is largely derived from the experience of the landed elite.     

‘Refugees welcome?’ The interplay between perceived threats and general concerns on the acceptance of refugees – a factorial survey approach in Germany

The on-going migration of refugees to Europe has fuelled debates about the indigence of refugees and the perceived legitimacy of individual claims for asylum in different receptive countries. With a substantial body of research that has investigated the antecedents of attitudes towards immigrants, evidence on whether those underlying assumptions hold true for refugees as well remains scarce. The paper applies the framework of Intergroup Threat Theory to arrive at competing hypotheses with regard to the acceptance levels of refugees. We use pooled data from two probabilistic samples drawn in the German city of Dresden and apply a confounded factorial survey design to extend previous research on attitudes towards refugees. We find that natives perceive political persecution and war as justified reasons for seeking asylum in Germany, while socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and refugees are of minor importance. Foremost, the individual level of respondent’s fear of crime represents a crucial moderator of the perception of refugees as threatening.     

Unveiling Structural Challenges: The Headscarf and Employment Integration in Germany

“Unveiled or Unemployed”—that is the verdict for many women with Muslim migration background in the German employment sector. Since the infamous “headscarf case” of Fereshta Ludin, who was denied a teaching position at a public school in the state of Baden-Württemberg due to her wearing the headscarf in 1998, institutional actions by the legislature and the judiciary on religiously affiliated clothing, such as the headscarf, have framed debates on immigration, integration, and employment in the country. This article examines the German employment sector as a space for integration and makes suggestions for an optimization of employment integration for women with Muslim migration background. I propose that optimized employment integration necessitates a holistic approach that begins with a coherent legal–institutional framework and a corresponding unified enforcement thereof. I argue that the current legal–institutional framework and its enforcement present significant structural challenges in the employment integration of women with Muslim migration background, especially as it concerns the headscarf. Integration to the employment sector can only begin with and be sustained upon an “integration friendly” legal–institutional framework that does not allow for unequal treatment under exceptional circumstances and that is not enforced on an ad hoc basis. My claim is premised on the understanding of integration as a structural matter that requires a legal–institutional framework upon which state accommodation, considerate of a diverse society and demographic changes, can take place.     

Impostors of themselves: performing Jewishness and revitalizing Jewish life among Russian-Jewish immigrants in contemporary Germany

In the early 1990s, Germany officially opened its gates to the immigration of Russian Jews as part of the politics of repentance and restitution for the Holocaust. The immigration of Russian Jews seemed to offer an opportunity to strengthen and revitalize Jewish life in the country, even to restore it to its pre-war scale and condition. For the Russian-Jewish immigrants, that task has proven a difficult challenge. Tracking the stumbling blocks and difficulties of the project of revitalization and recreation of Jewish life, this article moves through different arenas of the immigrants' performance of Jewishness – artistic, ritual, and mundane, individual as well as communal. It examines the situation in which role-playing or ‘passing’ as Jews fails to be perceived as credible and is interpreted as ‘imposture.’     

Immigration Through Marriage: A Case Study of Bangladeshis in Toronto

People living in developing countries want to migrate to developed countries because of increasing economic disparities. They are attracted to migrate because of material affluence, economic prosperity and political stability of the developed world. Canadian immigration laws restrict immigration for people of different social classes in developing countries like Bangladesh and, therefore, it becomes attractive for both Bangladeshi men and women to migrate to Canada through marriage. How restrictive is the Canadian immigration policy in limiting international migration? How does individuals’ immigration or citizenship status in Canada transform them into desirable brides or grooms? What are the expectations of immigrant brides and grooms? How is marriage used as a strategy to immigrate to Canada? I focus on Bangladeshi immigration to Canada and argue that both Bangladeshi men and women are interested to migrate to Canada through marriage due to restrictive Canadian immigration policies.     

试论明代青海河湟地区人口迁移

本文着重论述了明代河湟地区的移民活动状况,描述了人口迁移活动的历史过程,较详细考证了移民的来源、迁入区以及移民的方式等相关问题。在一定程度上填补了青海移民史的空白,对全面了解明代河湟地区的社会活动有着重要的意义。     

The (surprising?) nonchalance of migration control agents

ABSTRACT

This paper sheds light onto the processes of controlling irregular migration in Germany, based on ethnographic fieldwork with immigration officials, police forces, home office bureaucrats and non-state actors. Several studies have examined the policies and tools of migration control available to state officials and contracted third parties and generally found a trend towards greater restrictiveness and securitisation with regard to irregular migration. However, relatively few analyse their actual implementation. This paper seeks to fill this gap, and to act as slight corrective by highlighting the relatively limited nature by which migration control was exercised. In fact, the practice of detecting, identifying, detaining and deporting irregular immigrants was far removed from the politicised discourse that surrounds it in the public sphere and academia, and instead influenced by pragmatism and nonchalance. However, in contrast to explanations that see lenience towards irregular migrants as motivated by economic factors, here the limits of migration control were directly related to officials’ sense of duty, as well as working conditions and a lack of institutional oversight. In this sense, the enhanced possibilities of control through new means of surveillance and data collection are in fact restricted because officials might just not be bothered to use them.     

Coming out within transnational families: intimate confessions under Western eyes*

This article is about ‘coming out’ and the process of disclosure of queer migrants within their transnational families. Despite debates about the decreasing relevance of coming out in contemporary western societies, we argue that the process of coming out continues to be a central mode of belonging and identity construction for queers in the context of transnational migration. Interviews with migrants from Poland, Russia and Turkey in Germany on their coming out experiences show that people rely on a variety of boundaries, i.e. gender, class and ethnicity, to construct a desired way of life. Theoretically, these insights indicate the need to reframe post-structuralist theories on power, most prominently advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, from an intersectional perspective. The findings in this paper pinpoint to the challenges of transnational social life queer migrants are confronted with through empirical illustrations of perceptions of differences and ambiguities between immigration and emigration contexts. Furthermore, we advocate that sexuality is a crucial dimension of migration processes determining self-definition in relation to people and places, which makes their stories of coming out always also stories of ‘coming home’.     

Moving citizens: citizenship practices among Polish migrants in Norway and the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Following post-EU-accession migration, Poles currently form the largest group of foreign nationals in Norway and the second largest group of foreign born residents in the United Kingdom. Given the considerable volume of new arrivals, there is a growing literature on Polish migration to both countries; however, there is little comparative research on Polish migration across different European settings. By exploring how Polish migrants reflect on the possibilities of settlement or return, this paper comparatively examines the effects that permanent and ‘normalised’ mobility has on Polish migrants’ self-perception as citizens in four different cities. In addition to classic citizenship studies, which highlight the influence of a nation-state based institutionalised citizenship regime, we find that transnational exchanges, local provisions and inter-personal relationships shape Polish migrants’ practices of citizenship. The resulting understanding of integration is processual and sees integration as constituted by negotiated transnational balancing acts that respond to (and sometimes contradict) cultural, economic and political demands and commitments. The research is based on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with a total of 80 respondents, conducted in two British and two Norwegian cities that experienced significant Polish immigration, Oslo, Bergen, Bristol and Sheffield.     

States and standardisation: constructing the co-ethnic migrant story in Germany

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the standardisation of stories about diaspora return (also called ‘co-ethnic migration’ or ‘repatriation’). Using the concept of ‘standards’, the author analyses how the German state distributes certain texts about diaspora history over others, forming a legible and homogenous narrative of co-ethnic migrant identity. The article is based on a critical discourse analysis of texts relating to Russian–German history and analysis of biographical narratives of co-ethnic Germans residing in Germany. The study identifies mechanisms by which states homogenise narratives, and to understand which co-ethnic history and identity constructions are reproduced by the state, and which are silenced. This approach enriches the study of diasporas in two ways: first, it sheds light on how states govern diaspora members who have migrated ‘back’ to their ‘origin’ countries; second, it departs from the state-centric approach prevalent in the study of diaspora governance by focusing on stories told by diaspora members.     

Workers by any other name: comparing co-ethnics and ‘interns’ as labour migrants to Japan

In the field of comparative immigration politics, Japan has been described as a ‘negative case’: despite structural shortages in the domestic labour supply, scholars have commonly pointed to the nation’s extremely restrictive, ethno-nationalist policies as an antithetical case against which traditional migration states can be compared. Applying an approach focused on the viewpoint of the state, I argue that in response to market pressures, Japan simultaneously implemented two schemes: an ethnic return migration programme centred on the discourse of rekindling ancestral ties, and a de facto guest worker programme officially represented as an internship initiative to disseminate Japanese technical knowledge. The perceived failure of co-ethnic migrants to integrate themselves on Japanese terms led to the expansion of the latter programme. Juxtaposing the two, I examine the processes through which the Japanese state ‘learned’ and reacted to differing policy outcomes. In doing so, I argue that policy revisions since the early 2000s have signalled the birth of a Japanese ‘developmental migration state’, in which restrictive immigration policies that uphold a narrow view of a homogenous nation are repeatedly reoriented to accommodate economic and development goals.     

Imagining a Homeland: Constructing Heimat in the German East, 1871–1914

Germany has a long history of political fragmentation, with regional (Heimat) identities playing a critical role in the formation of the national consciousness. The process of rallying local identities to the nation is being examined in the western parts of Germany, but the east remains largely unexplored. Addressing this issue is important because studies of the Heimat movement have challenged received notions about the character of nationalism in imperial Germany. This article illustrates the special challenges Heimat activists—especially Hugo Conwentz—faced in fashioning a regional identity in the German east, and compares their efforts to those in the west.     

霍华德政府时期澳大利亚移民人口结构变化及其社会影响——多元文化主义的视角

作为一个拥有悠久移民历史的国家,移民问题贯穿在澳大利亚历史上的每一个篇章中,而霍华德政府时期的移民人口结构则奠定了当代澳大利亚移民人口结构的基本形态,因此研究霍华德政府时期的移民人口结构更有助于认识当代澳大利亚社会。本文从回顾澳大利亚的移民历史着手,分别从移民的类别与年龄、来源国、性别结构、地区分布、受教育水平与英语水平这五方面来研究霍华德政府时期移民人口结构的特点,探寻移民人口结构变化对澳大利亚社会产生的诸多影响。     

South Tyrol: the importance of boundaries for immigrant integration

ABSTRACT

Using South Tyrol as a case study, this article analyses how boundaries between groups and their institutionalisation through power-sharing arrangements affect the politics of immigrant integration. Through a longitudinal qualitative analysis of party manifestos, the article focuses on the period between 1993 and 2013 to evaluate the immigration and integration discourses of political parties, claiming to represent the German and Ladin minorities. It is argued that these parties have deliberately framed immigration as a challenge to the strength of their respective cultures and languages, as well as the array of institutions that support the separate but equal coexistence of South Tyrol's linguistic groups. The consequence of this tendency to ‘think in groups’ is that the main political parties of the German and Ladin minorities are shoring up group boundaries and advancing an assimilationist model of immigrant integration.     

Gender and citizenship in academic career progression: an intersectional,meso-scale analysis in German higher education institutions

ABSTRACT

In tune with the fundamental shift in Germany’s skill-b(i)ased immigration policy since 2005, higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly becoming ‘magnets’ for a skilled migrant workforce. While ‘internationalisation’ is often understood as something to be celebrated and (further) accomplished, some observers speak of clear signs of discriminatory experiences among racialised and migrant academics. This is a new aspect, as social inequalities have by and large been considered in migration studies to be the sole terrain of labour mobility into less-skilled sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, abundant literature on gender and higher education shows that women academics have poorer access to career progression than men, demonstrating gender-based academic career inequalities. However, the insights generated in these two strands of scholarship have seldom been in conversation with one another. This paper takes stock of the lack of an intersectional perspective, focusing on citizenship and gender within HEIs as hiring meso-level organisations that are becoming increasingly transnationalised. It explores the intersectionality of citizenship and gender in accessing academic career advancement by examining three key career stages, that is, doctoral researchers, postdoctoral researchers, and professors, in two case-study HEIs.     

试论美国对墨西哥移民政策的钟摆化

特朗普执政后,美国对墨西哥移民政策越发紧缩。回顾美墨之间的历史,美国对墨西哥移民政策一直呈现钟摆化。表现为美国政府在该问题上的立场钟摆化、法案钟摆化和执法模式钟摆化,导致了一系列墨西哥族裔在美国认同危机和两国关系的恶化。钟摆化对墨移民政策有很多的负面影响,基于三种不同的假设,未来美墨之间在墨西哥移民议题上仍会采取合作大于对抗的模式。美国为了避免对墨移民政策的钟摆化带来的失衡结果,追求稳定连续的措施和对墨友好合作才是解决之道。     

Hispanic Fertility,Immigration, and Race in the Twenty-First Century

In this paper, we systematically describe the connection between immigration and fertility in light of the increasing nativist reaction to Hispanic groups. We follow a life-course perspective to directly link migration and fertility transitions. The analysis combines original qualitative and quantitative data collected in Durham/Chapel Hill, NC as well as national level information from the current population survey. The qualitative data provide a person-centered approach to the connection between migration and fertility that we then extend in quantitative analyses. Results demonstrate that standard demographic measures that treat migration and fertility as separate processes considerably distort the childbearing experience of immigrant women, inflating fertility estimates for Hispanics as a whole. Once this connection is taken into consideration, the fertility levels of Hispanic women are much lower than those reported with standard measures and the fertility-specific contribution of Hispanics to US population growth is much reduced.