Forging Diasporic Citizenship

Forging Diasporic Citizenship explores the dynamics of everyday life for German-born Berliners of Turkish origin. These Ausländer (or “outsiders”) are obliged to define themselves by their Otherness, but it is their relatedness to German society that transgresses traditional concepts of both German and Turkish identity. By examining the social encounters, life stories, and everyday practices of these Ausländer, this transnationally applicable work serves to disrupt delimited notions of citizenship. It shows how diasporic people are creating a broader basis for identity, community, and social responsibility that transcends the scope of membership in a nation-state.

Gül Çalışkan is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at St. Thomas University, Fredericton, located on the unceded and unconquered territory of the Wəlastəkewiyik. She is the editor of Gendering Globalization, Globalizing Gender: Postcolonial Perspectives. Çalışkan’s research and teaching focuses on the broad areas of citizenship (as a social practice) and global social justice within global and transnational sociology. Her research and teaching are informed by postcolonial studies. In her research projects, she engages in narrative inquiry to examine the complex relations between global processes and everyday realities.