Transnational Influences on Migrant Identities and Social Cohesion: A Study Protocol

Elif Sandal-Önal,Andreas Zick,Aydın Bayad,N Ekrem Düzen

doi:10.3390/genealogy6010009

Abstract

This project examines how Turkish postmigrants in Germany position themselves against the influences of the German state’s integration and the Turkish government’s diasporic policies. We argue that the double influx of host and home states lures Turkish postmigrants into an identity trap subjecting their in-between position to exploitation in transnational negotiations. As their own perspective is poorly addressed in literature, this study fills this gap by reference to postmigrants’ standpoint. We hypothesize that the positioning of Turkish postmigrants in Germany is reflected through identity expressions and priority of belongings. We will carry out an exploratory assessment with three work packages. Study 1 will decode the Turkish postmigrant figure addressed by both states. Major media outlets most attended by postmigrants will be analyzed to display the imagined figure. Study 2 will inform the trajectory of the Turkish national identity narrative across important milestones over the migration chronology. A structured archival study will unearth the discursive mutations through political leaders’ speeches. Finally, Study 3 will exclusively confer postmigrants’ viewpoints against both influences. The project consults a conceptual framework in terms of diaspora generating, diaspora shaping, collective nostalgia, and social cohesion to expand on understanding how Turkish postmigrants express their identities and prioritize their belongings across their in-between existence.

Highlights

Social cohesion is a hard-to-deliver service for decision-makers when endorsing participatory democracy in a society where major and minor issues of conflict among discernible communities is a matter of fact
Since the majority perspective tends to equalize the idea of social cohesion to a homogeneous unity, diversity could be perceived as a concurrent threat (Hewstone 2015; Putnam 2007; Zick and Küpper 2012)
22% of Turkish postmigrants have been naturalized to date (Yildirim-Sungur and Schwarz 2021), even though their average duration of stay (32.3 years) remains the highest among all other minority groups and enables 97.8% of them to fulfil the requirements of naturalization (Destatis-Statistisches Bundesamt 2020)

Summary

Introduction

Social cohesion is a hard-to-deliver service for decision-makers when endorsing participatory democracy in a society where major and minor issues of conflict among discernible communities is a matter of fact It refers to a multidimensional and multilevel construct pronouncing a peaceful coexistence of diverse sociocultural groups (Schiefer and van der Noll 2017; Watters et al 2020) and characterized by positive attitudes, trust, belonging, and interconnectedness between the majority and minority groups In response to the majority perspective, a closer examination from a pluralistic angle allows us to see that disengagement of minorities from the majority constitutes an acute obstacle to cohesion (Braddock and Gonzalez 2010; Uslaner 2012) This emphasis illuminates the need to pay systematic attention to the positioning of minority groups in a society in order to arrive at a holistic understanding of social cohesion. In conformity with the reasons to initiate the present study, migrants are exposed to diasporic processes influencing their positioning themselves in the society and form a basis to have their say apropos their precarity and negotiability

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Conclusion