Insight Turkey
Insight Turkey
Challenging ideas
On Turkish politics and International affairs

Author

Susan Beth Rottmann

Boğaziçi University and Migration Research Center at Koç University
Susan Beth Rottmann
Negotiating Modernity and Europeanness in the Germany-Turkey Transnational Social Field
October 1, 2014
In conversation with recent work on transnational social fields, this article explores how Germany and Turkey are linked through a “set of multiple, interlocking, networks of social relationships” . The article examines how the social field affects migrants returning from Germany to Turkey. Specifically, it describes how the transnational social field emerges through a concrete set of economic, political and cultural exchanges. It also illustrates that the social field is a space of imaginations of Germany and Turkey, reflecting and producing citizens’ uncertainties about the “Europeanness”. For German-Turkish return migrants, the transnational social field exacerbates conflicts with non-migrants and fosters anxieties about migrants’ “Germanization” and loss of “Turkishness.” Ultimately, this research shows that Turkish citizens remain deeply concerned about the meaning of modernity, Muslim citizenship in Germany, and Turkey’s current and future position in Europe.

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