Migrant Associations and the Discourse on Racism in Germany: Collective Responses and Discursive Strategies

As cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity expands, both political actors and populist-nationalist groups have increasingly linked economic disparities and access to public resources to migration, fueling racist sentiments. Despite its societal entrenchment and persistent impact, German public discourse often frames racism as individual acts by marginal far-right extremists rather than a systemic societal problem (Hauck 2022). This narrative, in turn, excludes migrant perspectives and grants dominant societal actors disproportionate influence in defining and addressing racism. This dynamic is particularly evident in the aftermath of racist attacks, such as the 2020 Hanau massacre (Söylemez 2022). Given the ongoing reality of racial discrimination in Germany, especially in the form of violence (Speit 2021), our contribution aims to examine how racism is perceived and understood from a migrant perspective. In this context, we propose an approach through meso-level actors in the form of migrant umbrella organizations and aim to capture the societal logic in which racism is addressed and constructed through a discourse-analytic examination of their strategic external communication in terms of collective claim-making. Theoretically, our analysis is grounded in Foucault's concept of discourse, knowledge, and power relations as constitutive of social realities, as well as Jäger's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodological approach to examining the rhetorical structures that shape organizational positions on racism. Empirically, the study draws on data from the MKJFGFI-NRW-funded project "Association Representation of Interests and Cooperation Potentials in the Migrant Organizational Field in NRW," which consists of 5,047 mission statements and press releases from 44 statewide migrant umbrella organizations collected between 2002 and 2022 (Söylemez/Halm 2023). A preliminary corpus of about 1.6 million tokens has already been created and will be used in the next step for the development of a racism corpus. By applying a CDA approach (Jäger/Maier, 2009) that considers political and environmental influences, the study aims to uncover the content and functional logics of migrants' perceptions of racism. By operationalizing discourse analysis at the meso level, the findings contribute to ongoing debates on inclusion, agency, and structural racism and offer valuable insights into the evolving role of migrant organizations in German society. González Hauck, S., 2022. Weiße Deutungshoheit statt Objektivität: Der ‘objektive Dritte’ und die systematische Abwertung rassismuserfahrener Perspektiven. Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, 42(2), pp. 153-175. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfrs-2022-0201 Jäger, S. & Maier, F., 2009. Theoretical and methodological aspects of Foucauldian critical discourse analysis and dispositive analysis. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer, eds. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, pp. 34-61. Söylemez, S., 2022. Methodische Zugänge zur diskursiven Einbettung im transnationalen Raum: Eine Analyse der diskursiven Reaktionen türkei-stämmiger Verbände auf den Anschlag von Hanau. In M. Schmitz-Vardar, A. Rumpel, A. Graevskaia & L. Dinnebier, eds. Migrationsforschung (inter)disziplinär: Eine anwendungsorientierte Einführung. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 51-78. Söylemez, S. & Halm, D., 2023. Verbandliche Interessenvertretung und Kooperationspotenziale auf dem migrantischen Organisationsfeld in NRW. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. Speit, A., 2021. Rechtsextreme Gewalt in Deutschland. BPB. Available at: https://www.bpb.de/themen/rechtsextremismus/dossier-rechtsextremismus/324634/rechtsextreme-gewalt-in-deutschland/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2024].