Sociology

This paper examines the discursive messages conveyed through everyday encounters among German-born Turkish Ausländer (foreigners) and ethnic Germans in Berlin. Using narrative analysis, I explore how these messages operate to maintain a series of separate and unequal social relations based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and skin colour. The personal experiences of local residents illustrate how these discourses serve to mark some Ausländer as less threatening than others, some as preferable, and others as undesirable. Some Ausländer are also considered more valuable than others, and the status of one often depends on the superior or subordinate status of the other. Through exploring these complexities as experienced by local informants, this paper shows the importance of certain interactive processes that construct Ausländerness in varying ways, while still defining people's identities in relation to norms that privilege the dominant subjects.

This thesis investigates how German-born people of Turkish background are forging a new kind of community, and a new kind of citizenship. It is a citizenship that emerges from their daily struggles, as they work through and negotiate their identity, difference, and belonging in Berlin. While these people are named Auslander (foreigners), I argue that they are creating a broader, richer form of German citizenship, which I call diasporic citizenship. This is not a grand alternative theory of citizenship, but rather a modest, practical and effective one, which ordinary people build through everyday living. My main empirical sources for this study are the everyday encounters of ordinary people, who are participants in the fieldwork I conducted in Berlin. The participants are either born in Berlin, or have been living in Berlin since Germany's unification in 1990. They represent social characteristics common to Germany as a whole, but combine both Germanness and Turkish Ausländer-ness. Berlin, with its unique history as a once-divided city, brings forth certain social developments that are important to this research. I locate my analysis of diasporic citizenship in Germany on a simple two-axis model of the tensions in being and belonging together. The first axis concerns accommodating Ausländer, with sentiments that range between hostility and hospitality. The second concerns negotiating displacement, on a range of sentiments between homelessness and homesickness. The analysis of the first axis examines how Germans see and therefore accommodate, German-born Turkish Ausländer. I argue that this can only be understood adequately within the context of the social, political, and economic dynamics of German identity as it has emerged historically. The analysis of the second axis involves a quest for understanding the Turkish Ausländer's subjective struggles, which start from outside-in and then transform to inside-out. This is a struggle of negotiating displacement. By locating these two axes, and analysing four different aspects of diasporic belonging, I illustrate how participants become political--creating acts and practices that enable them to negotiate their identities of belonging to Germany, while at the same time challenging what it means to be German. I argue that these processes result in forging a new diasporic citizenship. Social borderlands emerge as significant spaces for this diasporic citizenship, which is forged through negotiating sentiments between homesickness and homelessness, and coping with tensions that range between hostility and hospitality. I use diasporicity to refer to the social, cultural, and political awareness of the participants. From their experience of crossing social boundaries, diasporic citizens acquire qualities of decisiveness, assertiveness, reflexivity, accountability, ambivalence, and multiplicity. By several examples of their creative acts and practices, I demonstrate aspects of diasporic citizenship as articulated by the participants. Diasporic citizenship is about being out there, resistant, and transgressive. It is intersectional. It is critical of citizenship as commonly understood. It disrupts delimited notions of citizenship, and creates a broader basis for community.

Keywords: Auslaender, Berlin, Citizenship, Diaspora, Ethnic study, Germany, Philosophy, Political science, Social Science, Turkish, religion and theology

This thesis analyzes how and why gendered identity roles are constructed in space, in Modern theory, and how this can be discovered in the empirical world. The structure of the modern theory, the increasing importance of space and gender, and so that of geography and feminism in social theory are discussed. The thesis also traces the interrelation between visible and invisible power relations and space regarding gendered identity construction by the help of an empirical study. The case study is in the everyday life experience of working mothers who have children in day nurseries.

This paper is an applied narrative analysis of social encounters and their inherent relationality. The narratives analyzed are those of German-born, Turkish-background Berliners. Although their narratives relate to the specific context of Turkish immigration into Germany, they also shed light on the broader experience of negotiating diasporic identity and belonging, which makes them significant sources for understanding the politics of the Other. The narrative analysis I outline locates the dynamics of discursive messaging within the complexity of human encounters. Narrative is envisaged as one constituent of social interactions within complex processes of othering and the politics of making claims to identity and belonging.

This collection takes a transnational/postcolonial feminist perspective. It includes contemporary research that examines how definitions of gender and sexuality are repeated, negotiated, and positioned in the context of globalization and transnational flows. The readings in the collection conceptualize relationships between women and their nations, gender and globalization, and feminist theory and practice, and they do so by examining the opportunities and challenges inherent in postcolonial and transnational feminist scholarship and activism. This edited collection has an introductory chapter and 8 thematic parts. Each thematic part includes three chapters, especially commissioned for this volume. The readings present contemporary case studies and debates by the leading authors in the field, in a framework suitable for an undergraduate seminar.
It has been currently in development with Oxford University Press (OUP).

In Forging Diasporic Citizenship, I investigate the creative acts of transnational, diasporic citizens, and I explore the challenges being brought to modern notions of citizenship, identity, belonging, activism, and social justice. I analyze the ways these citizens are creating a more vibrant future for themselves and their children through their social relations, art, and their political engagement. This research is an original contribution to the literature which conceptualizes diaspora and citizenship in contemporary societies. By studying the everyday life acts and practices of these diasporic citizens, I provide a framework that captures the diversity and complexity of diasporic experiences.
It is currently the basis for an original book manuscript under contract with UBC Press.

We examine ‘Trumpism’ as a contemporary form of colonial domination, showing how this discourse represents both a crisis of coloniality and a stimulus for a movement of ‘decoloniality’. A critical discourse analysis is applied to seven speeches delivered by Donald Trump between his announcement of his presidential candidacy in June 2015 and his inauguration in January 2017. In assessing Trump’s arguments, we focus mainly on those concerning national security, illegal immigration, and the threats posed by various foreign countries. Although these arguments sit within a long colonial tradition, they also indicate a crisis of modernity, as witnessed in the growing challenges to colonial masculinity, nationalism, and rationality. We conclude that Trumpism articulates a reaction to these challenges, and that Trump’s rise to power is a symptom of the crisis of post-territorial coloniality in contemporary global society.

Keywords: Trumpism; decoloniality; politics of fear and hatred; colonial masculinity;
post-territorial coloniality

This case study highlights tips and practical tools that researchers can use in a narrative inquiry, particularly in sociological research. Narratives are one way people make sense of their experiences. They are constituent of social interactions within the complex processes of meaning-making in social experiences. The case answers three questions: Why are stories important in sociological research? How can we conduct successful narrative interviews? How should we analyze the stories collected? Examples are chosen from a narrative analysis of social encounters; specifically, from my research with German-born Berliners of Turkish descent.

Although it was unknown to most of the world, Gezi Park—the epicentre of Turkey’s June 2013 protests—rapidly emerged as a historic site for dissent (Eşkinat, 2013). The Gezi events of that year marked a threshold for resistance, social justice, contested citizenship, and activism. The movement created its own vibrant set of actors, a repertoire of dramatic political action, and a new social dynamic that challenged the relevance of previous political norms (Göle, 2013).
At the time of preparing my research and ethics proposals in the spring of 2014, the impact of the protests and the government’s reactions to them were still fresh. Despite my extensive experience with qualitative research, I felt rather like a novice, because I had not handled “above-minimal-risk” research before. For the first time, I felt the need to be cautious about my participants’ well-being—and my own.
In the research project, I examined the symbols and humour used in the Gezi protest events, trying to discern their significance as expressions of popular culture and as acts of citizenship. Through a process of narrative analysis, I explored the theoretical and practical dimensions of these expressions (Çalışkan, 2014).

Using Foucault’s theory of governmentality, we trace the development of activist consultancy firms (ACFs), providing an in-depth description of two ACFs: Boutique Activist Consultancy and the Solutions Institute. We explore how these ACFs enact neoliberal governmentality. The ACFs’ ambivalent engagement with professionalization is the most notable finding of our research.