Categorical astigmatism: on ethnicity, religion, nationality, and class in the study of migrants in Europe

ABSTRACT

The study of migrant minorities in Europe has long been characterized by a turn to identity politics. This turn has had two shortcomings: First, it often conflates religion, ethnicity, and nationality, resulting in what I call “categorical astigmatism”. Consequently, migrants find themselves lumped into categories they would not primarily identify with. Second, despite its importance in the lived experiences of migrants, class is treated as a “non-identity” and intra-migrant class differences do not get the attention they deserve. Building on these two criticisms, in this article, I first employ Bourdieu’s theory of “classification struggles” to conceptualize “categorical astigmatism” and make a plea for categorical clarification. I then suggest the theory of intersectionality as a way out, highlighting the importance of class and its intersection with other markers of difference. Empirically, the paper builds on interviews with migrants from Turkey and Syria in Germany.

KEYWORDS:

• Categories
• ethnicity
• religion
• class
• intersectionality
• nationality

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at three workshops organized by Elisabeth Becker and Marietta van der Tol at the University of Oxford and Heidelberg University. I would like to thank all workshop participants for their invaluable feedback and Becker and van der Tol for their kind invitation to the special issue and their unwavering collegial support. Research for this article was completed at the University of Göttingen and writing was completed during my time at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. I thank my colleagues at these institutes. Thanks also go to Lisel Hintz and the participants of the online writing group she started following the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February 2023. My research participants and my two Arabic interpreters deserve my heartfelt thanks. Last but not least, I thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors at Ethnic and Racial Studies for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Ethnicity” in this article refers to the individual level of identification with an ethnic group, where ethnic group stands for a self- or other-defined “collectivity having real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined as the epitome of their peoplehood” (Schermerhorn 1970; in Hutchinson and Smith 1996, 17).

2 Wirth defines minority as “a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination” (Wirth in Yinger 1994, 21). For the distinction between “national minorities” and migrant minorities see Kymlicka (1996). While I agree with Haug (2000) that this distinction is not clear-cut and needs to be problematized I do not go into that debate in this article.

3 This paragraph is based on Türkmen 2018.

4 Numbers taken from https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Population/Migration-Integration/Tables/nowcast-foreigner-citizenship-time-series.html Note that Germany doesn’t allow dual citizenship for non-EU citizens.

5 17.3 per cent were immigrants themselves, 5.7 per cent were direct descendants of immigrants, and 4.5 per cent had one immigrant parent. For more details see https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2023/03/PE23_080_12.html

6 Out of the 890,000 asylum seekers in Germany in 2015, 35.9 per cent were from Syria. Number taken from Federal Office for Migration and Refugees 2015 Migration Report.

7 I conducted this research while I was still affiliated with the University of Göttingen, where ethics committee applications were not mandatory at the time.

8 The Druze are an Arabic-speaking ethno-religious group in the Middle East, characterized by a system of secretive doctrines and a close-knit community. While the Druze belief originated as an offshoot of Ismaili Shi’ism, over time it blended with local belief systems and with Christianity. The Druze do not allow conversion into or out of the faith, and marriage out of the Druze community is not allowed (or strongly discouraged). There is around 1 million Druze worldwide, who mainly live in Syria (600,000), Lebanon (300,000) and Israel.

9 “Highly-skilled” is another disputed category as it establishes a hierarchy between skill sets. Some use “skilled”, while the definition of “skill” is also open to debate (Boucher 2020); others employ “expatriate”. Regardless, education, occupation, and income are the most deployed criteria in defining the “highly-skilled”. I use “highly-skilled” to refer to migrant minorities with tertiary education degrees.

10 The pro-islamist Justice and Development Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been ruling Turkey since 2002.

11 In doing so, they tend to overlook class differences among the native German population.