Racism and Solidarity Among Immigrants

The project examines power and hierarchical relationships within migrant communities and their relationship to the dominant society. Using the example of people with ties to Turkey, it highlights the ethnic, religious, and ideological heterogeneity of these communities and examines how experiences of discrimination, racist interconnections, and intersectional factors interact. The focus is on racism and solidarity. The latter is examined through the question of which centers communities use to define power and hierarchical relationships and how, in the process, alliances emerge that transcend ethnic affiliation. Intergenerational and intersectional approaches form the analytical framework for this. 

In activist and civil society circles, key concepts such as anti-Kurdish, anti-Alevi, or anti-Yezidi racism are increasingly raising awareness of inter-migrant dynamics and transnational forms of racism. In academia, however, there remains a need to catch up conceptually and empirically. Previous studies have focused primarily on the ideologies of inequality espoused by specific ultranationalist groups (e.g., Bozay 2017; Küpeli 2020) or on interethnic (e.g., Østergaard-Nielsen 2003; Baser 2016) and interreligious conflicts (e.g., Jikeli 2012; Kiefer 2007; Stender 2008). How these conditions affect the everyday lives of less visible groups has so far been little studied from an intersectional and intergenerational perspective. 

The field of anti-Kurdish racism has expanded significantly since 2023, in part due to the work of Çinur Ghaderi (Ghaderi and Almstadt 2023; Ghaderi 2025) and the anthology on Kurdish life in Germany (Yekmal e. V. 2025). This project builds on this by conceptually developing a transnational definition of racism and empirically examining the perspectives of those affected—specifically, previously marginalized groups within communities with ties to Turkey. Its relational, inter-migrant approach differs from monocausal frameworks that view individual instances of racism in isolation. 

The project develops a nuanced perspective on power and dominance relations in post-migrant society and empirically examines how these are experienced by the affected communities. In addition to the perspectives of those affected, the project focuses on the relational level. The study examines when racism and ideologies of inequality are experienced, reproduced, adapted, or overcome in intermigrant contexts. By developing a transnational concept of racism that integrates the impact of historically inherited forms of racism from various national contexts and empirically examines their manifestations in Germany, the project makes an empirical and theoretical contribution to racism research. The goal is to develop an understanding of racism in its various manifestations and transnational interconnections, which is a prerequisite for counteracting it in all its forms. 

The project takes an agency-centered, intersectional, and intergenerational approach. It positions the participants as active narrators of their own experiences and focuses on processes of migration and marginalization rather than using ethnic categories as a starting point. Methodologically, the analysis published to date is based on semi-biographical in-depth interviews and focus groups with individuals facing multiple forms of marginalization. Both descendants of migrants and first-generation migrants are included in order to capture intergenerational transmissions and discontinuities.

The in-depth interviews are designed to last about two hours and follow a semi-biographical structure, allowing participants to unfold their own narratives. The focus groups follow the interviews and explore the areas of tension identified there in greater depth within an interactive setting. To account for intersectional dimensions, they were organized along the gender variable, comprising one mixed-gender group and one FLINTA group. In the focus groups, community mapping was used, allowing participants to identify for themselves the centers around which power and hierarchy are structured. All discussions were transcribed, translated, and coded, supplemented by field notes that capture nonverbal communication and interaction dynamics.

The theoretical framework combines anti-racist research, reflexive migration research, and critical Turkish studies. Beyond examining discrimination, the project focuses on historical and transnational continuities, emotional and identity-forming processes, and relational dynamics. A project advisory board composed of experts provided guidance throughout the project. Through dialogue with civil society actors, interim results were continuously fed back, and the research questions were aligned with the lived realities of the communities. 

The qualitative data confirm the initial assumption that dichotomous categories and a simplified understanding of racism fall short of capturing power and hierarchical relationships in post-migration society. Experiences of racism and discrimination within communities with ties to Turkey should not be understood solely as individual experiences, but rather in the context of political and historical continuities that are also rooted in Germany and exert a powerful influence through their interaction with other prominent forms of racism and ideologies of inequality.

The data reveals the coexistence of two forms of racism. On the one hand, those affected experience an imposed invisibility that is fueled by violent continuity and intergenerational transmission. On the other hand, they experience an imposed hypervisibility that marks them as security threats and criminalizes them. The fact that both occur simultaneously gives rise to specific vulnerabilities and constitutes what the project terms “racist simultaneity.”

To explain how this simultaneity arises, the project draws on Étienne Balibar’s concept of “internal exclusion” (Balibar 2005). This refers to a form of exclusion that takes place within the context of formal belonging. In the context of migration, this takes on a dual form. Racist structures from the context of origin—such as policies of assimilation and denial—continue to have an effect, while in Germany a “migrantizing” externalization is added to the mix. Institutionally, this manifests itself in situations where conflicts are labeled as “internal” matters of migrant groups, while at the same time differences are rendered invisible.

At the same time, agency-based repertoires become visible through which those affected navigate this simultaneity. These include aspirational (in)visibility as a conscious approach to one’s own recognition, a “strategic outing” of one’s own affiliation at the right moment, and the formation of transformative alliances. Since visibility to state institutions can also reinforce fixed group affiliations and generate “groupness,” migration researchers argue that this can consequently weaken relational and cross-group solidarities (Brubaker 2013; Bojadžijev 2025). Epistemologically, this project takes as its starting point the processes of migrantization and minorization, rather than assuming ethnic groups to be given and fixed.

In the focus groups, participants locate power and hierarchy in post-migrant society less along ethnic lines than along interlocking relations of domination; among the factors named were heteronormativity, patriarchy, racism, Islamism, and the institutionalized dominance of certain groups in representation. Racism appears to be intertwined with other dimensions of inequality, such as sexism and classism (Foroutan 2020). In this material, solidarity and a shared sense of belonging emerge from shared experiences of domination rather than per se from a common ethnic or religious identity.

These findings lead to a conceptual refinement. Inter-migrant racism is neither understood as a distinct form of racism among migrantized groups nor interpreted as a mere extension of “imported” conflicts. It describes a constellation in which hierarchies within migrantized groups are (re)produced without ever losing their framing by the dominant society. These findings are detailed, among other places, in scholarly publications from the project. 

The research project began in May 2023 and will end in December 2026. It is part of the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa) and the Migration Department at the DeZIM Institute, and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth (BMBFSFJ) as part of the federal program “Demokratie leben!” The project is currently in the publication and results dissemination phase, including a DeZIM Working Paper and a panel discussion on inter-migrant racism scheduled for late 2026. 

The community with ties to Turkey in Germany is very diverse, and their migration histories are just as varied. The shift in terminology from “of Turkish origin” to “of Turkish descent” and finally to “people with ties to Turkey” in academic and public discourse aims to linguistically acknowledge the ethnic, religious, and ideological heterogeneity of people living in Germany with ties to Turkey. In this project, this includes, among others, Kurdish, Alevi, Yazidi, Armenian, Pontic Greek, Jewish, and queer communities, each of which brings its own historical, political, and transnational characteristics to the table. 

Transnational racism refers to the spatial and historical dimension of racism—that is, the persistence and shift of racist structures across national borders. The project is based on the assumption that forms of racism have a context but are not bound by national borders. Historical power relations, political conflicts, and ideologies of inequality do not disappear with migration. In post-migrant society, they are remembered, experienced, reproduced, or overcome, and—in interaction with the racism of the dominant society—they are reframed, actualized, and emotionally charged. In this way, the project builds on research that explains racist divisions among migrant populations only to a limited extent through cultural or religious differences and instead points to social class, political positions, and racialized national hierarchies (Brücker et al. 2021).