Implications of the public discourse about integration for migrants self-understanding, self-positioning and integration activities. A biographical analysis.

• Applicant: Dr. Maria Kontos
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231782003

In recent years, the public discourse about "integration" has come into increasingly dramatic focus. Many assumptions that lead to migrants experiencing symbolic exclusion and misrecognition are in evidence. Therefore, it is important to analyse the impact of this discourse on migrants' perceptions in order to achieve a better understanding of integration processes and dynamics. The project investigates the conditions and manner in which the discourse on integration influences the dimension of identificatory integration and the best way to specify the unfolding dynamics of this process. The analysis is based on 48 autobiographical narrative interviews with "people with a migration background" from the former recruitment countries, who are variously positioned in the labour market. These interviews reveal the impact of the recent discourse about "integration" on the self- understanding, the positioning of the social self and the efforts of migrants towards integration. In particular, the project aims at delineating the crisis emerging out of the experience of misrecognition and reconstructing the coping mechanisms via biographical and normative work that migrants develop in the context of biographical experiences and processes. This research will help to close a gap in knowledge about integration processes and create a bridge between integration research and biographical analysis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants