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Societal transformations have recently stimulated political debates and policies on the integration of migrants and minorities in most Western European countries. While transnational migration studies have documented migrants' cross-border activities there have been few empirically grounded efforts to theorise these developments in the framework of integration and status theory.Based on a case study of Ghanaian migrants, this book seeks to understand integration processes and develops a theorem of the status paradox of migration which explores the interaction between migrants' integration into

Societal transformations have recently stimulated political debates and policies on the integration of migrants and minorities in most Western European countries. While transnational migration studies have documented migrants' cross-border activities there have been few empirically grounded efforts to theorise these developments in the framework of integration and status theory.Based on a case study of Ghanaian migrants, this book seeks to understand integration processes and develops a theorem of the status paradox of migration which explores the interaction between migrants' integr.

Der Artikel entwickelt in einem ersten Schritt ein Begriffsrepertoire zur Analyse der moralischen Dimension migrationsgesellschaftlicher Diskurse. In diesem Kontext wird argumentiert, dass in sozialwissenschaftlichem Wissen enthaltene moralische Bewertungen sich graduell, aber nicht fundamental von anderen Formen der Moralisierung unterscheiden. In einem zweiten Schritt wird der Diskurs des Integrationismus innerhalb eines moralsoziologischen Rahmens analysiert. Als moralisch-politische Rechtfertigungsordnung entfaltet der Integrationismus seine Wirkung insbesondere dadurch, dass er die Grenzen zwischen Alltagsleben, Politik und Sozialwissenschaften überspannt. In der Analyse integrationistischer Diskurse und Praktiken in Baden-Württemberg zeigen sich vor allem vier Merkmale. Der Integrationismus (a) legitimiert Personalisierungen und Essentialisierungen von moralischen Urteilen über Migrant*innen, (b) schreibt einerseits Machtunterschiede zwischen Eingesessenen und Zugewanderten fest und fordert sie andererseits heraus, (c) vermittelt zwischen konkreten Ereignissen und allgemeinen moralischen Schlussfolgerungen und (d) erlaubt im Kontext migrationspolitischer Debatten ein Changieren zwischen Rationalisierung und Emotionalisierung. Towards a Moral Sociology of Migration The article proposes an analytical framework for studying and theorizing the moral dimension of representations of migrants and migrations. It is argued that social science knowledge contains moral ideas that differ gradually but not fundamentally from other forms of moralization. In a further step, the article develops the notion of integrationism and analyses it within the proposed analytical framework. As a moral-political order of justification, integrationism unfolds its efficacy by spanning the boundaries between everyday life, politics and the social sciences. The empirical analysis of integrationism in Baden-Württemberg demonstrates that it (a) practically legitimizes personalizations and essentializations of moral judgements about migrants, (b) allows both for reinforcing power imbalances between residents and migrant newcomers and for challenging them, (c) provides an interpretative device for the generalization of moral conclusions drawn from specific events, and (d) oscillates between rationalization and emotionalization.

Includes bibliographical references and index

International audience ; Although it has been highlighted by several authors that the notion of diaspora has become a politicised identity discourse, little is known about how it becomes a banal part of migrants' everyday lives. Based on a theoretical understanding of banality, the article focuses on the interaction of the banal and the non-banal within this context of the fiftieth anniversary of Ghanaian Independence in Berlin in 2007. It is argued that diasporic nationalist rituals are spaces of intersections between politicised and banal spheres of social life. By enacting and institutionalising particular forms of interaction that are 'banalizing' dissent and conflict among migrants the examined series of public rituals contributed to give life-worldly relevance to the otherwise questionable and contested identity category of diaspora. In this sense, the primary product was not group formation but the banalization of diasporic nationalism as a category of identification.

"The focus of this article is the concept of enacted destiny, which was identified among charismatic Christians of West African origin in Berlin. Different from more fatalistic concepts of destiny, it combines a strong notion of free agency with a strong notion of a good, almighty, and immanent God. The imaginary of enacted destiny is constituted by two components: 1. presituational religious empowerment by which charismatic Christians can reduce complexities, anxieties, and insecurities in the context of decision making; and 2. postsituational sense-making by which divine agency is ascribed to an originally ambiguous situation. Both components temporally embrace the actions of West African charismatic Christians in Berlin. Actions thereby become the means through which God becomes immanent in the everyday lives of West African charismatic Christians in Berlin and enacted destiny a category of movement toward convergence of human and divine agency." [author's abstract]

"The recent emphasis on the link between development and diasporic activities does not only reflect social changes, like the increase in migrant remittances, but also facilitates the building of institutions for the political and social inclusion of migrants in their country of origin. This article shows that the Ghanaian 'diaspora' is not a social unit that predated the new discourse on transcontinental labour migration but rather emerged in its course. Institutional slots were created for Ghanaian migrant associations and individuals in the receiving countries to act as representatives of the Ghanaian 'diaspora'. In this framework transnational development rituals have become an important means for legitimising migrant organisations and their claims to political participation in their country of origin. The postcolonial imaginary of development and its icons, in particular hospitals, schools and public infrastructure, provide a symbolical background against which migrants and state representatives re-negotiate questions of social status, citizenship and identity. The symbolical power of the discourse of development and diaspora helps to reconfigure older discourses of belonging and citizenship and to adapt them to the conditions of transnational mass migration." (author's abstract)