Turkish Gastarbeiter and their offsprings make up the most salient ethnic minority group in Germany. Foreign policy between both countries largely centered on perpetuating the historic friendship and alliance – even though several crises challenged this relation occasionally. Aside from that, politics in regards with the Gastarbeiter remained a domestic ‘integration’ issue in Germany.
However, as external issues become increasingly relevant 'at home', identity politics not only refers to domestic integration anymore, but transpires in the intersection of 'external-internal issues'. E.g. German chancellor Merkel’s speeches concerning German-Turks cause intense contestation in Turkish politics as well. Formerly domestic issues transcend national borders and blur boundaries of foreign and domestic policy. Eventually, and yet more strikingly, this reflects transformed sociopolitical realities in Germany and Turkey: German-Turks’ belonging reverberates contentious politics beyond ‘the nation’.
These sociopolitical realities are best understood as a narrative mechanism between the bridging and closure of collective identities. Narrativity is widely considered crucial to scrutinize collective identities in the social sciences. However, the theory of narrative genres is key to assess the (un-)making of collective identity. That is, romantic and comic stories of ‘us’ trigger mechanisms of boundary closure vis-à-vis ‘the other’, while tragic and ironic stories of ‘us’ facilitate mechanisms of bridging between ego and alter. Put simply, romance and comedy perpetuate the ideal world of national identity, whereas tragedy and irony mirror the actual pitfalls of a homogeneous national identity, and facilitate the emergence of more complex forms of collectivity. Consequently, looking at the political communication of German-Turks at different times unfolds whether belonging in Germany/Turkey has been defined ethno-racially within the nation or based on other categories beyond the nation.
