When the Girls Still Wore Headscarves: Integration and Belonging in an After-School Center in Berlin

Abstract

This study is centered on a youth center in Berlin, Germany, that serves migrant females. It draws on the anthropology of performance and the concept of “friction” to argue for an understanding of performances of belonging, where migrant girls stage acts of inclusion through creative encounters with the forces of integration to negotiate social effects. The study itself seeks to intervene in integration discourses in Germany primarily through nuance and complication of how belonging (and by implication integration) is performed by young migrant women, rather than evaluation of the degree of integration. This study gives insight to the practical effects of integration policy on the ground as it is enacted, challenged, and shaped by those it is intended for. It adds to the scholarship on belonging, with consideration for educational intervention, with special attention to the role of creative performativity and agency.