'Half Indians', Adopted 'Germans' and 'Afghan Indians'. On Claims of 'Indianness' and their contestations in Germany

Article Sidebar

Full article PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/tfc.v3i1.676
Keywords:
German, Indian, identity

Main Article Content

Urmila Goel

Abstract

‘Indianness’ is not an essence but a social construct, which is dependent on the specific context. Taking the example of Germany Urmila Goel discusses the claims of ‘Indianness’ expressed by young people socialised in Germany and the contestations of their ‘Indianness’ by others living there. In particular the cases of so called ‘Half Indians’, i.e. people who have only one parent who migrated from India, of adopted ‘Germans’, i.e. people who have biological parents from South Asia but were adopted by ‘white’ German parents, and ‘Afghan Indians’, i.e. people who were born in Afghanistan but identify more with India since they are Sikhs or Hindus, are analysed. Their claims of belongingness to India and the refusals to accept this belongingness are discussed on the basis of racism theory. In particular Paul Mecheril’s concept of the fictitious ideal type of a standard German is adapted to analyse how ‘Indianness’ is filled with meaning in the German context.

Article Details

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2008): Landscapes of Meaning. South Asia-Australia Connections: environment & people

Section

Articles
Authors submitting a paper to UTSePress publications agree to assign a limited license to UTSePress if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license allows UTSePress to publish a manuscript in a given issue. Copyright is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTSePress. Downloads of specific portions of the Transforming Cultures eJournal are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Requests for permission to reprint or use any materials should be directed to the Author.

References

Ang, Ien (2001) On not speaking Chinese – Living between Asia and the West, London and New York: Routledge.

Badawia, Tarek (2002) "Der Dritte Stuhl": Eine Grounded Theory-Studie zum kreativen Umgang bildungserfolgreicher Immigrantenjugendlicher mit kultureller Differenz, Frankfurt/Main.

Balibar, Ettiene (1990) "Gibt es einen 'Neo-Rassismus'?", in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallenstein (ed.), Rasse – Klasse – Nation. Ambivalente Identitäten, Hamburg.

Barth, Fredrik (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Boston.

Baumann, Gerd (1996) Contesting Culture – Discourses of identity in multi-ethnic London, Cambridge.

Bhabha, Homi K. (1994) The location of culture, London.

Brah, Avtar (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora - Contesting identities, London.

Brubaker, Rogers (2004) Ethnicity without groups, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489235.004

Cohen, Anthony (1985) The symbolic construction of community, London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203323373

Eggers, Maureen Maisha; Kilomba, Grada; Piesche, Peggy and Arndt, Susan (eds.) (2005) Mythen, Masken, Subjekte – Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland, Münster: Unrast.

Gajjala, Radhika (2004) cyber selves - Feminist ethnographies of South Asian women, Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

Goel, Urmila (2005) "Fatima and theinder.net - A refuge in virtual space", in Angelika Fitz, Merle Kröger, Alexandra Schneider und Dorothee Wenner (ed.), Import Export - Cultural Transfer - India, Germany, Austria, Berlin: Parhas Verlag 201-207.

Goel, Urmila (2006) "Ausgrenzung und Zugehörigkeit - Zur Rolle von Staatsbürgerschaft und Einbürgerung", in Christiane Brosius und Urmila Goel (2006 Hrsg.), masala.de - Menschen aus Südasien in Deutschland, Heidelberg: Draupadi-Verlag, 123-160.

Goel, Urmila (2007) "'Kinder statt Inder' - Normen, Grenzen und das Indernet", in Christine Riegel and Thomas Geisen (eds.), Jugend, Zugehörigkeit und Migration, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 163-181. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-90480-1_9

Goel, Urmila (2008) "The German internet portal Indernet – A space for multiple belongingness", in Gerard Goggin and Mark McClelland (eds.), Internationalizing Internet Studies, New York: Routledge (forthcoming).

Gomolla, Mechtild and Radtke, Frank-Olaf (2002) Institutionelle Diskriminerung – Die Herstellung ethnischer Differenz in der Schule, Opladen.

Hall, Stuart (1992) "New Ethnicities", in James Donald and Ali Rattansi (eds.), 'Race', culture & difference, London: Sage, 252-259.

Hall, Stuart (2000) Rassismus als ideologischer Diskurs", in Nora Räthzel (ed. 2000), Theorien über Rassismus, Hamburg: Argument, 7-16.

Heft, Kathleen and Goel, Urmila (2006) Räume der zweiten Generation - Dokumentation eines Workshops, Frankfurt/Oder: Viadrina.

Hessisches Ministerium des Innern und für Sport (2006) Leitfaden: Wissen & Werte in Deutschland und Europa, Wiesbaden.

Huber, Charles M. (2004) Ein Niederbayer im Senegal – Mein Leben zwischen zwei Welten, Frankfurt/Main: Scherz.

Jacobsen, Jessica (1997) "Perceptions of Britishness", in Nations and Nationalism, 3(2), July, 181-199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.1997.00181.x

Jenkins, Richard (1997) Rethinking ethnicity - arguments and explorations, London.

Mecheril, Paul (1997) "Rassismuserfahrungen von Anderen Deutschen - eine Einzelfallbetrachtung", in Paul Mecheril and Thomas Teo (ed.), Psychologie und Rassismus, Hamburg., 175-201.

Mecheril, Paul (2003) Prekäre Verhältnisse. Über natio-ethno-kulturelle (Mehrfach-) Zugehörigkeiten, Münster.

Mecheril, Paul (2004) "Andere Deutsche gibt es nicht. Zusammenhänge zwischen subalterner Erfahrung und diskursiver Praxis", in AntiDiskriminierungsBüro Köln und cyberNomads (ed.), The Black Book. Deutschlands Häutungen, Frankfurt, 82-90.

Mecheril, Paul (2004) Einführung in die Migrationspädagogik, Weinheim: Beltz.

Mecheril, Paul and Teo, Thomas (eds.) (1994) Andere Deutsche. Zur Lebenssituation von Menschen multiethnischer und multikultureller Herkunft, Berlin.

Miles, Robert (2000) "Bedeutungskonstitution und der Begriff des Rassismus", in Räthzel, Nora (ed.) (2000) Theorien über Rassismus, Hamburg: Argument, 17-33.

Mitra, Ananda (1997) "Virtual commonality: Looking for India on the internet", in Jones, Steven (ed.) Virtual Culture. Identity and communication in cybersociety, London: Sage, 55-79.

Molt, Christiane (2006) "In search of Indo-European identities", in Voll, Klaus and Beierlein, Doreen (eds.) Rising India - Europe's Partner?, Berlin: Weißensee Verlag, 963-969.

Paske, Mareile (2006) 'Andere Deutsche' – Strategien des Umgangs mit Rassismuserfahrungen, Frankfurt/Oder: Viadrina, available online: http://www.urmila.de/UDG/Forschung/publikationen/Paske2006.pdf (accessed 2007).

Riegel, Christine (2004) Im Kampf um Zugehörigkeit und Anerkennung – Orientierungen und Handlungsformen von jungen Migrantinnen, Frankfurt.

Rushdie, Salman (1991) "Imaginary Homelands", in Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, London: Granta Books.

Terkessidis, Mark (2004) Die Banalität des Rassismus – Migranten zweiter Generation entwickeln eine neue Perspektive, Bielefeld.

Wollrad, Eske (2005) Weißsein im Widerspruch - Feministische Perspektiven auf Rassismus, Kultur und Religion, Königstein/Taunus: Ulrike Helmer Verlag.