The Changing Faces of Citizenship

Book excerpt: In contrast to most migration studies that focus on specific “foreigner” groups in Germany, this study simultaneously compares and contrasts the legal, political, social, and economic opportunity structures facing diverse categories of the ethnic minorities who have settled in the country since the 1950s. It reveals the contradictory, and usually self-defeating, nature of German policies intended to keep “migrants” out—allegedly in order to preserve a German Leitkultur (with which very few of its own citizens still identify). The main barriers to effective integration—and socioeconomic revitalization in general—sooner lie in the country’s obsolete labor market regulations and bureaucratic procedures. Drawing on local case studies, personal interviews, and national surveys, the author describes “the human faces” behind official citizenship and integration practices in Germany, and in doing so demonstrates that average citizens are much more multi-cultural than they realize.