The integration of immigrants into a larger society begins at the
local level. "Turkish Berlin "reveals how integration has been
experienced by second-generation Turkish immigrant women in two
neighborhoods in Berlin, Germany. While the neighborhoods are
similar demographically, the lived experience of the residents is
surprisingly different.
Informed by first-person interviews with both public officials
and immigrants, Annika Marlen Hinze makes clear that local
integration policies--often created by officials who have little or
no contact with immigrants--have significant effects on the
assimilation of outsiders into a community and a society. Focusing
on the Turkish neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukolln, Hinze shows
how a combination of local policy making and grassroots organizing
have contributed to one neighborhood earning a reputation as a hip,
multicultural success story and the other as a rougher neighborhood
featuring problem schools and high rates of unemployment. Aided by
her interviews, she describes how policy makers draw from their
imaginations of urban space, immigrants, and integration to develop
policies that do not always take social realities into
consideration. She offers useful examples of how official policies
can actually exacerbate the problems they are trying to help solve
and demonstrates that a powerful history of grassroots organizing
and resistance can have an equally strong impact on political
outcomes.
Employing spatial theory as a tool for understanding the complex
processes of integration, Hinze asks two related questions: How do
immigrants perceive themselves and their experiences in a new
culture? And how are immigrants conceived of by politicians and
policy makers? Although her research highlights the German-Turk
experience in Berlin, her answers have implications that resonate
far beyond the city's limits.
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