Discourses of the Willkommenskultur (Welcoming culture) in Germany

Critical Discourse Studies 19 (1):93-116 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Given the rise of populist parties in Germany and the charge that multiculturalism is dead, the present research examines how everyday Germans formulate an account of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. We employ a critical discursive psychological analysis and focus particularly on the arguments used to criticize cultural diversity and multiculturalism. Asynchronous online interviews were conducted with eighteen native-born German citizens. The data analysis shows that participants criticized cultural diversity and multiculturalism by deploying ‘Leitkultur-style’ nationalistic discourses and normalizing the hierarchical relations between immigrants and Germans. Participants also questioned multiculturalism as an ideology and everyday practice and moved back and forth between diverging accounts. These discourses reinforce dominant ideologies that place immigrants’ responsibility to assimilate and adopt German cultural norms and values. Our findings suggest that there are critical, flexible, and contradictory social markers of multiculturalism that have significant ramifications for policy and to everyday people who face the real task of living with cultural diversity.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Ethno-Cultural Justice and Multiculturalism.Nikolai A. Shaveko - 2022 - Антиномии 22 (4):53-65.
Criminal Law and Cultural Diversity.Will Kymlicka, Claes Lernestedt & Matt Matravers (eds.) - 2014 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Cultural relativism as ideology.Dennis H. Wrong - 1997 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 11 (2):291-300.
Living together in the European Union?Marita Brčić Kuljiš - 2018 - International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding (IJMMU) 5 (5):212-223.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-10-30

Downloads
23 (#997,657)

6 months
4 (#909,732)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

Orientalism.Edward W. Said - 1978 - Vintage.
The Ethics of Identity.Kwame Anthony Appiah - 2005 - Princeton University Press.
Orientalism.Peter Gran & Edward Said - 1980 - Journal of the American Oriental Society 100 (3):328.
Footing.Erving Goffman - 1979 - Semiotica 25 (1-2):1-30.
Trauma and ineloquence.Lauren Berlant - 2001 - Cultural Values 5 (1):41-58.

View all 6 references / Add more references