(Re-)production of Belonging in the Context of Projects of ‘Integration’

As a reaction to the long summer of migration in 2015, represented as crisis-laden, there has been an increase in projects aiming at the so-called integration of refugees in Germany. In different spheres of society, such as Fine Arts, Education and Sports new programs have evolved, addressing and thus producing new target groups. This panel deals with the meaning-making processes of the discourse about ‘integration‘, processes of subjectivation and their effects. The focus is on the ways the distinction between "we" and "others" take shape in the mode of 'integration' and thus expressing demands for nationally coded social containment, and exclusion at the same time. It sets out to discuss how, by means of attribution of the inability or unwillingness to integrate, imaginations of upgraded, elevated self-images are constructed in different empirical contexts, and explores to what extent integration functions as economic capital. Here, ‘integration’ becomes a key element that expresses the social commitment and responsibility of companies. In order to meet funding guidelines, a demand for programs designed specifically for certain target groups is produced. At the same time, degrees of integration must be made ‘measurable’ because of the obligation to regularly evaluate success and failure of these programs. For this panel, then, the following questions are of interest: Which different argumentations and logics, e.g. economic, normative, are made used of in the integration discourse? How does the talk about ‚integration‘ shape different ideas of belongings, creating dichotomic schemes of ‚us‘ and ‚them‘? How do practices of disciplinary power form subjects which are viewed as either not able or not willing to integrate into what is imagined as German society? In what way, on the other hand, is the notion of ‘integration’ contested and how are the discursive positions which are offered contradicted and refused?

Panel presentations by:

Micól Feuchter (Oldenburg), Maria Consuelo Flores Rojas (Osnabrück), Alisha M.B. Heinemann (Bremen), Laila Lucia Lucas (Oldenburg)

Panel organizers:

Micól Feuchter (Oldenburg), Laila Lucia Lucas (Oldenburg)

Comment by:

Sabine Hess (Göttingen)