Possible Citizens: Migration Enforcement as the Performance of Citizenship in the United Arab Emirates

While most boundary-making studies examine native-born citizens’ opposition to immigration, this article explains why immigrants develop anti-immigrant attitudes. Under what conditions do previous generations of immigrants develop solidarity with newcomers? When might immigrants, instead, police national boundaries and oppose further immigration or naturalization? I argue that under uncertain citizenship status, long-term immigrants are unlikely to develop solidarity with newcomers, despite common experience with exclusionary citizenship policies. Drawing on interviews with naturalization applicants in the United Arab Emirates, this article analyses how policies that unevenly distribute rights and protections to non-citizens structure relationships between immigrant groups. Moving beyond citizen/non-citizen binaries, it calls attention to hierarchies among non-citizens, examining how long-term immigrants with partial and conditional rights police national boundaries to navigate exclusionary policies. When states restrict citizenship, making it a scarce good, immigrants may respond to uncertainty by competing and, thus, limiting access to that good for newcomers. When naturalization is arduous, applicants face pressures to continually perform citizenship to prove that they deserve inclusion. Naturalization applicants lacked citizenship, but they immigrated to the UAE before the establishment of its guest-worker program and claimed Emirati identity by differentiating themselves from “migrant workers.” I show how migration enforcement and boundary-policing factored into their perceptions and performances of what it meant to be a “good” Emirati citizen. Ethnic hierarchies and the timing of migration created distinctions between immigrants eligible for naturalization and those who were not. The mere possibility of inclusion in the citizenry may generate hierarchies between immigrants, precluding solidarity, and encouraging boundary-policing.

Identität und Sprache des Migranten in der Fremde im Werk von Franco Biondi

Seen from the point of view of literary-sociological studies, Franco Biondi’s works are part of the migrant and foreign literatures which emerged in Germany in the wake of the recruitment of foreign labour starting in the 1950s. This literature – written by authors who are not Germans in the sense of the old German nationality and citizenship legislation, but who live in Germany and have their works published in the German language area – was formerly called ‘guest-worker literature’. Then, in the 1980s, it was referred to as a literature of ‘shock and stunned silence’, and in the 1990s as ‘migrant literature’ or ‘literature of foreign parts’. The theme in Biondi ’s works is the break with origin and the process of ‘coming-to-language’ of the identity that is forming through the medium of language in the encounter with the foreign. Immigration for Biondi becomes immigration into a new language.

Dış Göç Romanlarında Temel İzlekler

Bu çalışmada, 1960-1990 yılları arasında yayınlanan ve Avrupa’ya işçi göçünü konu edinen romanlar izleksel bağlamda incelenmiştir. Romanlardaki temel izlekler çerçevesinde göç süreci irdelenmiş, inceleme, göçmenlerin tanımlanmasında ve adlandırılmasında kullanılan Gastarbeiter (konuk işçi) Auslander (yabancı) kavramları ve Almanlar tarafından Türk kimliğine atfedilen çağrışımlar üzerinden yürütülmüştür. Göçmenlere yönelik politikalarda ve yaklaşımlarda onların nasıl tanımlandığının etkili olduğuna ve yazınsal süreçte de bu politika ve yaklaşımların belirleyici olduğu savından hareket edilmiştir. Bu noktada adlandırmaların, tanımlamaların göç olayı çerçevesinde biz ve öteki ilişkisi üzerindeki etkisine odaklanılmış; toplum ve yazın ilişkisi temelinde incelenen romanlar üzerinden göç ve göçmenlik meselesine dair çıkarımlar yapılmıştır. Bunlar arasında, ayrımcılık, kötü çalışma koşulları, hak ihlalleri, ırkçılık ve ötekileştirme gibi başat sorunların bu eserlerde merkezi konumda olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Böylece çalışmanın amacı olan göç yazınını oluşturan temel izleklere ulaşılmış; sosyolojik ve tarihsel gerçekliğin yazınsal gerçekliğe aktarılmasında etkili olan unsurlar ön plana çıkarılmıştır. ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH Main Patterns in Migration Novels In this study, the novels published between 1960-1990 and dealing with the migration of workers to Europe were examined in a contextual context. The process of immigration has been examined within the framework of the basic lines in the novels, through the concepts of Gastarbeiter (guest worker), Auslander (foreigner) used in the identification and naming of immigrants and connotations attributed to Turkish identity was conducted. The argument is that how they are defined is effective in policies and approaches towards immigrants and that these policies and approaches are determinative in the literary process. At this point, the effect of naming definitions on us and the other relationship within the framework of migration has been focused; there are inferences about the issue of migration and immigration through the novels examined on the basis of the relationship between society and literature. Among these, it has been determined that dominant problems such as discrimination, poor working violations, racism and marginalization are central to these works. Thus, the basic themes that constitute the migration literature, which is the aim of the study have been reached and the factors that are effective in transferring the sociological and historical reality have been brought the fore.

Reflections of migration and migrant facts in German history

After the Second World War in Germany, guest worker migrations came into question. In recent years, the refugee problem in Europe in general and Germany in particular has been attracting attention. However, German history has a much richer content in terms of migration and migrant types. It is possible to say that the content of migration varies according to factors such as the way of migration, the duration of stay in the target country, and distance. Meanwhile, the definition of migrant is also classified in relation to religious, political, national or ethnic identities. This study traces the migration and migrant facts in German history since the Middle Ages. Although Germany received a high rate of migration, until recently it has not called itself as a migration country. Despite that, this paper aims to show that Germany was not independent from the types of migration and migrants also in the past. Therefore, the reflections of migration and migrant facts in German history are researched. In this article, the literature review is done and the data are descriptively analysed. In the Middle Ages, the mobility of the nobility, clergy, students and merchants attracts attention. Forced migration and immigration to America and the impact of industrialization on migration are other important issues. The types of migration and migrants that gained importance during and after the First World War include diversity. Millions of refugees created by the Second World War, guest worker migrations with international treaties after the war, ethnic Germans’ remigration after the Cold War, and the current refugee problem are important reflections in German history related to migration and migrant facts. ​Extended English summary is in the end of Full Text PDF (TURKISH) file. Özet Almanya’da İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra misafir işçi göçleri gündeme gelmiştir. Yakın zamanda ise genel olarak Avrupa, özel olarak Almanya’da mülteci sorunu dikkat çekmektedir. Bununla birlikte Alman tarihi, göç ve göçmen türleri açısından çok daha zengin bir içeriğe sahiptir. Göçün içeriğinin göç etme biçimi, hedef ülkede kalış süresi, mesafe gibi faktörlere göre değiştiğini söylemek mümkündür. Buna paralel olarak göçmen tanımı da dini, siyasi, ulusal veya etnik kimliklerle ilişkili olarak sınıflandırılır. Bu çalışma, Ortaçağ’dan günümüze kadar Alman tarihinde göç ve göçmen olgularının izi sürmektedir. Almanya, yüksek oranda göç almasına rağmen, yakın zamana kadar kendisini bir göç ülkesi olarak adlandırmamıştır. Bununla birlikte, bu çalışma Almanya’nın, geçmişte de göçlerden ve göçmenlerden bağımsız olmadığını göstermeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu nedenle, göç ve göçmen olgularının Alman tarihindeki yansımaları incelenmiştir. Bu çalışmada literatür taraması yapılarak veriler betimsel analize tabi tutulmuştur. Ortaçağ’da soyluların, din adamlarının, öğrencilerin ve tüccarların hareketliliği dikkat çekmektedir. Zorunlu göçler ve Amerika’ya yönelen göçler ile sanayileşmenin göçe etkisi önem taşıyan diğer konulardır. Birinci Dünya Savaşı ve sonrasında öne çıkan göç türleri ve göçmenlik hâlleri çeşitlilik içermektedir. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nın yarattığı milyonlarca mülteci, savaş sonrasında uluslararası anlaşmalarla gerçekleşen misafir işçi göçleri, Soğuk Savaş sonrasında etnik Almanların geri göçü ve günümüz mülteci sorunu, göç ve göçmen olgularının Alman tarihindeki önemli yansımalarıdır.

A guest-worker state? The declining power and agency of migrant labour in Australia

This article presents an historical and comparative analysis of the bargaining power and agency conferred upon migrant workers in Australia under distinct policy regimes. Through an assessment of four criteria – residency status, mobility, skill thresholds and institutional protections – we find that migrant workers arriving in Australia in the period from 1973 to 1996 had high levels of bargaining power and agency. Since 1996, migrant workers’ power and agency has been incrementally curtailed, to the extent that Australia’s labour immigration policy resembles a guest-worker regime where migrants’ rights are restricted, their capacity to bargain for decent working conditions with their employers is truncated and their agency to pursue opportunities available to citizens and permanent residents is diminished. In contrast to recent assessments that Australia’s temporary visa system is working effectively, our analysis indicates that it is failing to protect temporary migrants at work. JEL Codes: J24, J61, J83