Migration Experiences and Changes of Identity. The Analysis of a Narrative
Titelübersetzung:Migrationserfahrungen und Identitätsveränderungen. Die Analyse einer Erzählung
Autor/in:
Kazmierska, Kaja
Quelle: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 4 (2003) 3, 13 S
Inhalt: Dieser Artikel basiert auf der Analyse eines autobiographisch-narrativen Interviews mit einer Türkin, die in Deutschland lebt. Ich analysiere den Prozess von Identitätsveränderungen, der von den Migrationserfahrungen der Erzählerin geprägt ist. Er hat mindestens zwei Aspekte: Der eine Aspekt betrifft die kulturellen Wurzeln der Erzählerin. Neue Erfahrungen haben ihr Selbstbild als Frau verändert. Ein zweiter Aspekt bezieht sich auf den Lebensablauf der Erzählerin. Die Erzählung zeigt, wie aus einem naiven Mädchen eine erwachsene und unabhängige Frau geworden ist. Frau zu sein wird mithilfe von Kategorien definiert, die zur westlichen Kultur gehören. Der Migrationsprozess ist daher mit dem Verlust kulturell geprägter Formen der Identitätsbeschreibung der Erzählerin verbunden. In der Folge wird sie eine Fremde in ihrem Heimatland, aber sie bleibt auch eine Fremde in dem Land, in das sie gezogen war. Ich analysiere, wie die Erzählerin an diesem Problem arbeitet.
Inhalt: This paper is based on the analysis of an autobiographical narrative interview with a Turkish woman living in Germany. I analyze the process of identity changes influenced by the narrator's migration experiences. It has at least two aspects. One aspect refers to the cultural roots of the narrator. New experiences have changed her self-image of being a woman. A second aspect is connected with the narrator's life course. The narrative shows how a naive girl has become an adult and independent woman. Being a woman is defined with the help of categories belonging to Western culture. Therefore, the process of migration is related to losing culturally influenced ways of describing the narrator's identity. As a result, she becomes a stranger in her homeland, but she also remains a stranger in the country to which she migrated. I analyze the narrator's work on this problem.
Hülya's Migration to Germany as Self-Sacrifice Undergone and Suffered in Love for her Parents, and her Later Biographical Individualisation: Biographical Problems and Biographical Work of Marginalisation and Individualisation of a Young Turkish Woman in Germany. Part I
Titelübersetzung:Hülyas Migration nach Deutschland als Selbstopferung aus Liebe zu ihren Eltern und ihr späterer biografischer Individualisierungsprozeß: biografische Probleme und biografische Arbeit der Marginalisierung und Individualisierung einer jungen türkischen Frau in Deutschland
Autor/in:
Schütze, Fritz
Quelle: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 4 (2003) 3
Inhalt: This article is divided in two parts; the second part (consisting of Sections 3, 4 and 5) will be published in the next issue of FQS. After asking what is typical or general in the life history of Hülya as a migrant worker in Germany and what is exceptional or unique (Section 1) the biographical processes of her life history up to the most central episodes of her conventional and estranging pre-arranged marriage and her way out of it through divorce after having stayed in Germany for several years will be delineated (Section 2). Before reaching this turning point Hülya not only undergoes the "common" type trajectory of a migrant worker - the trajectory of being a cultural stranger, of being void of language, of being exploited by hardest sorts of work -, but, in addition, her personal biographical development is retarded by the exceptional, but probably not totally untypical experience of being trapped within a situation of compulsory labour (resembling slave labour). For a long time she also feels obliged to remain in her trajectory position of an isolated migrant worker, since originally she had mainly meant to go to Germany in order to support her poverty stricken family back in Turkey with her earnings. Partly based on the fear that she will get self-alienated and "petrified" like the older women with whom she dwells and works together Hülya accepts a pre-arranged marriage (probably mainly negotiated by her mother) as the only way out of her predicament. But willy-nilly Hülya must learn that she - already embarked on her way to an individualized and emancipated existence - cannot live in such a superimposed arrangement, and therefore she distances herself from her husband through the biographical escape action schemes first of returning to Germany alone and then of pushing ahead her divorce. Hülya's way of rendering her life history (which Section 3 will focus on) is quite straightforward in most parts of her narrative. But it is obvious that she is ashamed to tell about her estranging marriage and her disreputable divorce. Dealing with this emotionally difficult turning point in her life history Hülya tends to report in a quite laconic and evasive way. But in doing so she realizes that her story line would get implausible if she continued narrating like this. Therefore she inserts a number of background constructions and argumentative explanations in her laconic line of narration. Part of the article is focussed on this "disorderly" kind of rendering. Then the 4th part of the article resumes the reconstruction of the biographical processes of Hülya's life up to the "presence" of the interview situation in 1986. Here the focus is on (a) Hülya's medical problems seen as a typical transformation of the migrant worker's trajectory of exploitation and self-alienation and (b) her processes of learning and metamorphosis in reaching the present biographical and social state of a highly individualized and emancipated woman. Part of Hülya's emancipation process is her disguised self-distancing from the ways of feeling and thinking of her late beloved mother and her expectations towards the life course of her daughter Hülya. (This is biographical work hidden even to herself.) The 5th section of the interview deals with Hülya's blend of biographical work and of collective identity work in existing as a "marginal personality" according to the early Chicago Sociologists' understanding of marginality as cultural hybridity. Pursuing this line of analysis the article finally deals with Hülya's use of the communicative scheme of argumentation, which becomes linguistically dominant in the coda part of her main autobiographical account and which remains dominant during the subsequent part of questions and answers.
Schlagwörter:trajectory of work migration; compulsory labour of work migrants; exploitation of work; migrants; self-alienation of work migrants; female emancipation and individualisation; pre-arranged marriage; parent child relation in work migrant trajectories; family trap connected to work migration of children; structural description in biography analysis; structural processes of biography; biographical action scheme; biographical metamorphosis; biographical trajectory of suffering; fading out of one's awareness
SSOAR Kategorie:Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Migration
Flüchtlingsforschung: sozialanthropologische Ansätze und genderspezifische Aspekte
Titelübersetzung:Refugee studies: social anthropological approaches and gender specific aspects
Autor/in:
Binder, Susanne; Tosic, Jelena
Quelle: SWS-Rundschau, 43 (2003) 4, S 450-472
Inhalt: 'In diesem Artikel werden relevante Ergebnisse der gegenwärtigen Flüchtlingsforschung als spezieller Teilbereich der Globalisierungs- und Migrationsforschung vorgestellt. Dabei werden zwei Schwerpunkte gesetzt: Zum einen wird die These vertreten, dass insbesondere die sozial- und kulturanthropologische Forschung das Klischee von Flüchtlingen als 'passive HilfsempfängerInnen' durchbrochen und auf die wesentliche Bedeutung eines Aktiv-Seins für Menschen während und nach der Flucht hingewiesen hat. Zum anderen werden frauenspezifische Fluchtgründe und die Anerkennung von frauenspezifischen Verfolgungsformen erläutert. Abschließend werden genderspezifische Aspekte mit Fallbeispielen aus empirischen Studien der beiden Autorinnen näher ausgeführt.' (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: 'In the context of research about globalisation and migration, this article presents crucial results of refugee studies. Two aspects are covered: social and cultural anthropology help deconstructing the image of refugees as helpless and passive aid receivers, and emphasize the need for an active role of refugees during and after their flight. The gender specific reasons that produce refugees and also gender specific forms of persecution are discussed in detail. Finally, case studies, carried out by the two authors, exemplify these gender issues.' (author's abstract)|
Migrantinnen und Utopische Visionen: eine interdisziplinäre Annäherung
Titelübersetzung:Female migrants and utopian visions: an interdisciplinary approach
Autor/in:
Castro Varela, Maria do Mar
Quelle: Psychologie und Gesellschaftskritik, 23 (1999) 3, S 77-89
Inhalt: 'Die Verknüpfung der Forschungsstränge von Migration, Geschlecht und Utopien ermöglicht es einen neuen, anderen Blick auf Migrantinnen zu werfen. Migrantinnen sind darin nicht bloße Opfer der Verhältnisse, sondern aktiv an gesellschaftlichen Transformationsprozessen beteiligt. Die Betrachtung von Utopiediskursen derselben macht Widerstands-Momente und Sozialkritik transparent. Gleichzeitig eröffnet sich ein Blick auf Heterotopien, alternative Räume, Widerlager, in denen die freimütige Rede einstudiert wird. Hier finden utopische Visionen einen Raum, in dem sie ausgesprochen und diskutiert werden können, ohne reglementiert zu werden.' (Autorenreferat)