From postmigrant articulations to political subjectification

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the articulations of generations whose parents and/or grandparents immigrated to Austria and Germany and who have been termed postmigrants. After setting out the theoretical background, it explores three concepts: firstly, the interpretations of migration, integration, Islam and Muslims in German-speaking countries and the role these discourses play in current debates; secondly, the postmigrant perspective, which is central to the present research question; and thirdly, Rancière’s reflections on politics and whether the articulations of postmigrants constitute dissent or counter-hegemony. Next, it presents and analyses specific articulations by postmigrants against the background of the theory. As the results of the study show, members of the postmuslim generation face discrimination, racism and socially produced non-belonging in various areas of society. However, they do not, I contend, allow themselves to be forced into a victim role, instead taking varied and proactive approaches to their experiences, and taking a stand.

KEYWORDS:

• Othering
• postmigrant articulations
• political subjectivation
• dissent
• humour as resistance
• transcoding

Introduction

This article is based on two phenomena that have emerged in Austria and Germany over the last thirty years and that are often linked in the public sphere. On the one hand, there is the migrantisation of society, which others people with a so-called migration background or Muslim background.¹ This phenomenon and its consequences impacts not only the first generation of immigrants, who came to Austria and Germany as labourers in the 1960s and 1970s; it also impacts the second and third generations, who were born and have grown up in these societies. There has also been a significant increase in discrimination, racism and marginalisation in both countries in recent years, which is increasingly blamed on religious differences (see Radtke 2011). In this context, discourses on migration can be said to be being Muslimised.

On the other hand, it is evident that members of these later generations, referred to here as “postmigrant”, are not adopting a passive stance in the face of discrimination and marginalisation. Rather, they are going onto the offensive, taking action, positioning themselves in different ways and finding new forms of political articulation. In contrast to the first generation of migrants, whose lack of familiarity with social structures and lack of (political) rights meant they tended to take a defensive approach, the postmigrant generation is drawing attention to discriminatory mechanisms and racist structures in society, dealing with them, developing strategies of resistance and inventing new forms of political subjectivation.

These two phenomena, namely the restrictive social conditions experienced by members of the postmigrant generation and the way they express their resistance to such restrictions, are the focus of this article. It puts their political statements centre stage without neglecting asymmetrical relations of dominance and racist discrimination. Thinking about both perspectives together illuminates the connections between the limited opportunities within heteronomous structures and clarifies the scope for the postmigrant generation to take action (see Lutz 2008, 201–202). I shall proceed step by step, first discussing the three thematic areas at the theoretical heart of the article. Firstly, I take a historical perspective, drawing on the discourse of postcolonialism and illustrating how othering is initiated and driven by hegemonic discourses, and the role played such discourses in current migration debates. Here I refer primarily to Edward Said and Stuart Hall, who have analysed othering processes from a range of perspectives. I will then discuss the postmigrant proposition and describe its relevance for postmigrant modes of expression. Next, I consider the political philosophy of Rancière, according to which resistance strategies can be interpreted alternately as dissent or as counter-hegemony (Chantal Mouffe), or a form of political subjectivation as explored by Judith Butler (1998), which is seen as being the result of confrontation with hegemonic power relations. I then engage with methodological issues. The sixth section focuses on postmigrant articulations that constitute resistance to the restrictions imposed on migrants, using specific examples to show how members of the postmigrant generation react to hegemonic representations, how they position themselves in ensuing confrontations and the forms of articulation that result from this. This is not an empirical study in the strict sense, but rather a series of case studies from the German and Austrian context that serve to illustrate the underlying propositions of this article. I do not, therefore, set out a methodological approach in detail; instead, I highlight the methodological implications arising from the interviews, which call into question the objectivising nature of science with regard to the issues under consideration.

In this context, two fundamental questions arise: (1) Which forms of postmigrant expression are in evidence and how can these be accounted for by theory? And (2) What is the significance of such forms of expression for the people concerned and for the current understanding of society?

Since the postmigrant articulations presented here represent a particular political stance in which humour and the reversal of ascribed stereotypes play an essential role, the root of my analysis is two strategies developed by Stuart Hall ([1997] 2004). Hall calls the first strategy “Through the Eye of Representation” (274). Here, humour is used as a deconstructivist method to uncover contradictions and ambivalences in society. The second strategy is “reversing the stereotypes” (223), where existing terms and their connotations are taken over by marginalised groups and reinterpreted/reformulated as a political strategy. Hall’s transcoding strategies are evident in the postmigrant articulation of resistance discussed in this paper, with stereotypes being reversed and negative attributions privileged.

The article concludes with an attempt to develop a different perspective, a different logic that goes hand in hand with a new “topography of the possible” (Rancière) and opens up alternative ways of thinking that are relevant for a contemporary understanding of society, democracy and education in the globalised world. It also stands in opposition to the hegemonic regime, presenting migration in the context of resistance, and taking into account the struggles of migrants (see Bojadzijev 2008).

Systems of representation and processes of othering

More than forty years after the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), his theories and findings on processes of othering are still read around the world. Said’s studies established that the concept of Orient – and what was and is portrayed as typically Oriental – does not reflect the multifacetedness of reality. Rather, texts dealing with “the Orient” and “Orientals”, and thus “Islam”, are an expression of the collective Western imagination.

As Said showed, the “Orient” and “Orientals” became subjects of research in a range of Western academic disciplines. Research on – and the objectification of – the “other” was repeatedly justified by claims of wanting to better understand and become familiar with the constructed “other”. Ultimately, typologies were developed that turned people into “others” and mere objects of research, presenting them as a “homogeneous mass” defined by its constructed difference from other groups; for example, “Englishness” could be described as an antithesis to “Frenchness” (see Said 1997, 191).

Said comes to the conclusion that the discourses of Orientalism say nothing about the reality of the Orient, but rather serve “Western” culture: they constitute a system of differentiation through which “Western-ness” generates its identity. European culture is construed as “inherently progressive”, “modern”, “civilised” and “rational”, while other cultures are considered “developmentally stagnant”, “traditional”, “uncivilised” and “irrational”. This binary understanding inevitably accords a unique status to Western modernity. From this perspective, the rest of the world appears “‘retarded’ in the context of the development of ‘contemporary consciousness’” (Mignolo 2016, 121).

Said's theories continue to be used as points of reference for highlighting processes of othering, mechanisms of exclusion, and racialising/ethnicising/culturalising practices in European societies; all of these are linked to Eurocentric and colonial thinking.

Said's studies have contributed significantly to the development of postcolonial theory, in which the concept of othering is an essential component. Comparable reflections are also found in the work of Gayatri Ch. Spivak ([1988] 2008), Homi K. Bhabha (1994; 2000) and Stuart Hall (1997), among others. Postcolonial perspectives can thus be seen as a response to colonial practices and power relations, as a particular way of producing knowledge, telling stories and thinking about historical continuities. And postcolonialism can be interpreted as a form of resistance to Western domination and its consequences.

Pursuant to Said, othering can be defined as the construction of the Other; this is a process that involves demarcation, exclusion and subjugation. Key to the process of othering is the identification and characterisation of a group as Other in the context of a powerful network of interacting hegemonic, scientific and political discourses and representations; these deploy the mechanisms of attribution, naturalisation and essentialisation and produce racialised differentiation (see Riegel 2016, 52). A critique of the racism inherent to this complex of processes is offered by Stuart Hall in his essay “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’” (1997, 223). Hall consistently highlights the discursive dynamics of othering, namely the construction of binary oppositions such as nature versus culture, “us and the others”, “the West and the rest” (Hall 1992). He detects stereotyping in numerous forms in racist discourses: it reduces, essentialises, naturalises and fixes “difference” (Hall [1997] 2004, 245).

Hall contends that the mass media play a key role in the construction of the Other and in the dissemination of the binary thinking of “us vs. them”. The media, he says, do not primarily serve to inform people, as is often claimed, but rather to create worldviews and thus influence the perception and interpretation of events. He describes the media as producers of meanings about the world (1989, 134). Othering discourses and their dissemination by the media contribute to a specific interpretation, definition and understanding of social reality and have a practical impact on how social groups act in society (see Hall 1989, 148). Thus, hegemonic discourses become unconsciously normalised and incorporated into the knowledge base of society (see Terkessidis 2004). In this context, Stuart Hall rightly points out the important distinction between “overt”, or “explicit”, and latent, or “implicit” racism. Explicit racism includes racist policies and opinions that are openly discussed and disseminated, whereas implicit racism involves a set of “unquestioned presuppositions” based on unconscious racist assumptions; the latter is more widespread and far more dangerous, as it remains largely invisible (see 1989, 156–157).

Eurocentric and orientalising processes of “othering” and the colonial thinking with which they are associated have always played a central role in Western European societies’ approaches to migration and Islam. They continue to shape public, political and media discourse on migration, integration, Islam and Muslims and, to a certain extent, migration research. The epistemological basis of Ausländerforschung (research on foreigners) and Ausländerpädagogik (education of foreigners), which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in Austria and Germany, was that immigrants from non-European countries would not fit in with modern Western culture. This is evident from the hypotheses of cultural difference and modernity deficit deployed as explanations at that time, which continue to form interpretative patterns in current debates on migration, integration and Islam (see Bukow and Llaryora 1988).

Typical of racist and marginalising representations is the practice of reducing utterances and cultural orientations that are defined as migrant or Muslim to “nature”. This involves the naturalising and thus essentialising of the differences constructed by hegemonic discourses. If differences are defined as “culturally determined”, they can be modified or changed. However, if they are perceived as “natural” or intrinsic, they are outside the scope of history. The naturalising of phenomena is therefore a representational strategy that serves to entrench any difference that has been constructed (for a critical view, see El-Tayyeb 2016; Haakh 2021; Yildiz 2022).

The naturalisation of difference and the continued impact of such colonial practices is evident, for example, from the statements made by long-time German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt (2004). Even the title question, “How much of Anatolia can Europe take?” signalled a colonial and racist mindset. In his response, Helmut Schmitt said Europeans had failed to “integrate people from foreign cultures who [have been] living here” since the 1960s. Schmidt took the view that the so-called multicultural society, i.e. the blending of European and non-European cultures that some intellectual idealists claimed had been achieved, did not really exist anywhere. “In this respect, it was a mistake to bring guest workers from foreign cultures into the country in the early 1960s”, said Schmidt (“Wieviel Anatolien verträgt Europa?” [How much of Anatolia can Europe take?]. Hamburger Abendblatt, 24 November 2004, author’s translation).

Such racist generalisations are also evident in current debates about Muslims and Islam. Discussing the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, author Eric Gujer claims in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (2023), for example, that murderous ideologies only arrived in Europe via migration. His article is provocatively entitled, “No Ideology is more powerful than political Islam – and none is more murderous” (Gujer 2023). Here, too, we can see how quickly generalising links are made between migration, flight and Islam, turning Muslims into prototypes for that which is foreign.

Examples of this abound. “Young, female and violent” was the title of an article about Muslim girls in the Austrian newspaper Kurier on 21 September 2014. The German magazine Der Spiegel has published several Islam-related articles with punchy titles and dark artwork, including “Allah’s Daughters without Rights. Muslim Women in Germany” (2004), “Mecca: Germany. The Silent Islamisation” (2007) and “The Cult of Jihad” (2014). The magazine Stern asked, “How dangerous is Islam? Why so many terrorists are Muslims” (2007) and Fokus ran the headlines: “The dark side of Islam. Eight uncomfortable truths about the Muslim religion” (2014) and “Does Islam fit in with Germany?” (2015). These are just a few examples from renowned print media with wide circulations, which are now also available on the internet. Many empirical and systematic studies on the image of Islam in the (traditional) media largely agree that the portrayal of Islam and Muslims (or people perceived as such) is predominantly negative (Brinkmann 2015; Buchner 2017; Göle 2016; Hafez 2014, among others).

Studies also show that it is not only members of the first generation of immigrant Muslims who experience discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion, but also their children and grandchildren, i.e. the postmigrant generation. The literature often refers to the perception of an increasing influx and influence of Islam as the Muslimisation of society (Badawia and Uygun-Altunbas 2022; Pfaff 2020); it is arguable that migration discourse, too, has been Muslimised. The term “Muslimisation” or “migrantisation” describes the hegemonic de-subjectivation of people who are almost automatically reduced to “being Muslim” or “being a migrant”. However, these terms can also take on an emancipatory meaning if the individuals themselves highlight and reinterpret their Muslim and/or migrant heritage.

Postmigrant reading of society

The term “postmigration” has gained greater prominence in recent years, especially in German-speaking countries (see i.e. Foroutan 2018; Foroutan 2023; Hill and Yildiz 2018; Yildiz 2024; Yildiz and Rotter 2023) and has recently also gained increasing international recognition (Gaonkar et al. 2021; Ring 2024). Though there is an overarching discourse on postmigration, the term covers a variety of viewpoints. In this context, Erol Yildiz also speaks of postmigrant studies (cf. Yildiz 2022, 43).

The postmigrant approach can be described as an open way of thinking which enables a change of perspective, prompts discussion of ethnicity and nationhood, starts from migrants’ experiences and perspectives, privileges what Said would call a “contrapuntal reading” (1993) and highlights perspectives and stories that have been repressed by hegemonic structures.

In other words, this approach retells the story of migration and entails a radical rethinking of society, giving expression to the experiences and perspectives of those who were and are deemed “non-modern”, “uncivilised” and “unenlightened” by the dominant Eurocentric world view.

Postmigration discourse has three primary characteristics. Firstly, it attempts to rethink the history of migration to design a different genealogy for the present; secondly, it treats migration not as a special issue, but as an outside perspective that enables societies to be redesigned; and thirdly, it shifts the focus to later generations, whose parents or grandparents immigrated to the societies in question. In recent years, it has become clear that members of these later, “postmigrant” generations are increasingly coming to terms with hegemonic attitudes toward migration, positioning themselves within the debate and developing ways of expressing themselves politically.

This article focuses on this political positioning of the postmigrant generation in the face of hegemonic circumstances and narratives and its struggles to critique racism in the existing system. These generations are retelling the migration history of their parents and grandparents, developing their own narratives and accumulating knowledge of migration in an area characterised by tension, using it to position themselves and resist established social orders. Shermin Langhoff, who founded the postmigrant theatre in Berlin and popularised the idea of postmigrants, writes:

We labelled ourselves as ‘postmigrant’ because we wanted to break with the (hegemonic order). At the same time, the label engages with the stories and perspectives of those who are no longer migrants themselves, but who bring a migration background to their personal knowledge and collective memory. Furthermore, in our globalised and above all urban world, ‘postmigrant’ denotes the space we share in all our diversity; diversity that goes beyond our origins. (Langhoff 2018)

Postmigrant thinking enables people to come together to resist racism, devaluation and discrimination and focus on a present that goes beyond the politics of ethnic and national identity; it highlights solidarity and struggle regardless of origin and background (see Lorey 2022).

Postmigrant struggle is defined not by the origins of those involved, but by perspectives that constantly change and develop in response to different contexts. It differs from academic, literary or artistic traditions based on the hegemonic view of migration, questions the public representation of migration and shifts what is visible or invisible by articulating marginalised perspectives (see Yildiz and Rotter 2022).

As discussed in section six below, postmigrant articulations are practices of solidarity developed under restrictive and marginalising social conditions and that question and confound established systems of differentiation. As with postmigrants themselves, these articulations are open alliances that can arise in any number of fields: film, literature, music, art, theatre and civil society.

Counter-hegemonic practices and political subjectivation

Rancière's reflections on dissent and political subjectivation are relevant to any analysis of postmigrant articulations. For Rancière, politics is a form of subjectivation; he conceives of it as action that enables the experiential space to be reshaped (see Rancière 2018, 47).

In his social analyses, Rancière makes clear how and in what way social dissent arises and political subjectivation develops. Postmigrant articulations can be characterised as dissent because they shift perceptions, making the invisible visible and the unthinkable conceivable. They disrupt the “regime of representation” and upset the established order. The regime of representation can be seen, for example, in the fact that those who are defined as native act as experts on – or controllers of – integration, defining those who are ascribed a (Muslim) migration background as unadjusted or identifying them as “unsuccessful” copies of locals. This perspective views postmigrant forms of articulation as deficient because they do not fit with the hegemonic image of what is right and wrong in society, what is accepted and what constitutes a deviation. Migrants and Muslims thus remain migrants or Muslims indefinitely: they have a (Muslim) migration background, or foreign roots. Here, postmigrant forms of articulation can be understood as political subjectivation; they express dissent and disrupt the prevailing natural order (see Rancière 2018, 24). Postmigrant subjectivation is productive disorientation, a practice of resistance that produces knowledge and creates spaces for a subjectivity that goes beyond hegemonic interpretations. The spaces created by postmigrant articulations can be defined as dynamic and liminal as propounded by Bhabha (2000): spaces in which self-images emerge that transcend the dichotomy of identity/alterity (Ohnmacht and Yıldız 2021; Yildiz and Rotter 2022).

Postmigrant positioning prompts a break with established values and occurs, for example, when members of the postmigrant generation absorb hegemonic attitudes into their accounts of their lives, what they do and how they articulate their views, subjecting them to ironic reinterpretation, i.e. transcoding them, as Stuart Hall would put it (2004).

By narrating marginalised stories and highlighting other perspectives and experiences, a new Rancièrean “distribution of the sensible” can emerge: “Dissensus brings back into play both the obviousness of what can be perceived, thought and done, and the distribution of those who are capable of perceiving, thinking and altering the coordinates of the shared world” (Rancière 2009, 49).

It is through this break with the prevailing order that marginalised forms of knowledge and the marginalised themselves appear. When the marginalised can express themselves as subjects, they “crack open the unity of the given and the obviousness of the visible, in order to sketch a new topography of the possible” (Rancière 2009, 49).

However, at this point it is important to point out that political subjects – and here, postmigrant subjectivity – can only emerge through practice, as Judith Butler and Jaques Rancière once again argue. Postmigrant subjectivation should be understood as the potential to take action.

Crucially, the postmigrant practices and forms of articulation outlined in this paper draw attention to structural discrimination and processes of exclusion on the one hand, and address inequalities and take a stand against them on the other (Donlic and Yildiz 2022). They thus disrupt the socially accepted, nationally determined “distribution of the sensible”, expose its paucity and introduce a new basic principle of equality for all participants, blurring and shifting the dividing line between “us” and “Other” (cf. Rancière 2015, 82).

The contrived distribution of the sensible and by association the representative regime can be seen as an invisible topography that directs who may participate in the processes of design and decision-making and who may not. This is a delineated political space in which it is not only specified who is allowed to speak, and when and where, but also who is heard (Ranciere 2004, 13).

Postmigrant articulations thus constitute new alliances that disidentify with the social position previously assigned to them by the “police order” (Rancière 1999, 30): “We the Tschuschen²”, “We the Datteltäter”,³ “We the foreigners”. These self-descriptions illustrate another tactic of political subjectivation (see Hipfl 2014), namely the adoption, reinterpretation and political recasting of stigmatising and pejorative terms used in social discourse on migration, immigrants and the Muslim population. These postmigrant articulations should be seen as a self-empowering and emancipatory practice.

Note on methodology

This article is not an empirical study in the strict sense of the phrase, but primarily a theoretical text – the case studies and interviews quoted below serve to illustrate aspects of theory. A total of eight interviews were conducted with postmigrant individuals working in the creative sector, four of whom are featured in the present article. The interviews focused on two issues: firstly, how the creatives perceive and react to the “regime of representation” and secondly, what forms of resistant articulation their reactions lead to.

I have started from the assumption that research activities are a social practice that produces specific, situational, and situated forms of understanding and analysis. They draw our attention to and elucidate fleeting and unobserved moments, situations and real-world processes. Regarding postmigrant confrontations with the regime of representation and the resulting resistant articulations, my focus is on uncovering varied, multi-layered and contradictory practices and their subjective and political meanings (see Denzin 2008, 424ff.). I consider methodological and theoretical issues concurrently (see Kaufmann 1999).

Postmigrant articulations as resistance/dissent

When situating postmigrant practices and counter-designs within theory, a key point of reference is Stuart Hall’s reflections on the term “articulation”. This primarily refers to the relationship between subject and discourse: Hall draws on Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s (1985) theories of power, talking of the separation and reconnection of different aspects of society, to “dis-articulation” and “re-articulation” (Hall [1997] 2003).

In contemporary social discourse, the relationship between subject and discourse is categorical: individuals are not seen as subjects, but as proponents of a specific position. The very act of seeing them thus involves an attribution; people are perceived as Muslims or migrants, rather than cultural, creative or political subjects.

Drawing on Stuart Hall, the identification of people as “migrant” or “Muslim” in relation to postmigrant articulations can be either racist or emancipatory in terms of discourse. As the examples in this paper illustrate, people position themselves differently in different situations and may transform their externally imposed identity into a position of resistance. The concept of articulation is useful for the analysis of postmigrant expressions because it allows the extrinsic attribution of position and self-positioning expressed in the narratives to be understood as processes of action and discrimination by individuals and as products of dis – and re-articulation.

Adolescents and young adults with a (Muslim) migrant background are now increasingly confronting the established discourse on migration and integration via collaborative forms of articulation (see Terkessidis 2015). This is sparking a variety of forms of resistance as they rebel against stigmatisation, pressure to conform and demands for assimilation. The emerging expressions of resistance are subversive and inventive: these young people refuse to be defined by external forces and instead are developing their own perspectives and modes of expression that align with the societal (and political) positions they adopt (For examples of postmigrant resistance strategies, see Baumann 1998; Baumann and Sunier 1995; Chamberlain 2023; Kahveci 2017; Perinelle 2023; Römhild 2023).

What unites the young people is their shared experiences of discrimination and exclusion, as the following comment from a cultural worker in Vienna illustrates:

The postmigrant is not an abstract concept. It relates to very direct experiences of racism, marginalisation and othering. We are no longer allowing ourselves to be defined by the majority, we are defining ourselves. We are not an identity, we are a perspective. We are not united by fate or any traits of characteristics; we are united by our shared experience and knowledge of marginalisation (excerpt from interview with Vina Yun from Vienna).

These postmigrants are addressing their living conditions, family background and a variety of everyday experiences in the context of education and work, in the political and social spheres and in the context of civil society. They are increasingly engaging with experiences of discrimination and racism, e.g. resulting from a “foreign-sounding name” at job interviews (Topçu, Bota, and Pham 2014, 126), in institutions or when looking for accommodation. They recount personal narratives that disrupt and provoke thought – they engage with the knowledge generated by migration and debunk traditional stereotypes. They are (re)positioning themselves and subversively refuting societies’ assumptions that define belonging based on binary logic (see also Pieper 2022, 200). They use a variety of media formats to express their convictions and ideas and to critique mechanisms of exclusion and unequal treatment. They also present and express themselves through media, reaching a young audience whose lives have been shaped by similar experiences of migration.

The examples below document how young people and adults are rebelling against paradigms of dominance, reinterpreting their own identities to expose power imbalances and challenging people to acknowledge the contradictions in their own environment.

At this point, it is relevant to address the tension between de-identification and re-subjectivation, as raised by Rancière. On the one hand, individuals are de-subjectivised by being assigned ethnic and national identities – in the words of Mark Terkessidis, “[t]he individual is consistently bypassed – the individual goes unanswered” (2004, 191). Communication focuses on clichés rather than specific individuals. So individuals become “foreigners”, “Arabs”, “southerners” or “people with a (Muslim) migration background”. On the other hand, confrontation with such hegemonic attributions re-subjectivises individuals, in a process of “disidentification” (Rancière 1999, 36). In other words, postmigrant practices and forms of articulation and the adoption and ironic reinterpretation of ascribed characteristics disrupt society’s understanding of ethnicity and nationality. Ethnic attribution is used ironically and subversively exaggerated. Stereotypes are not understood as pejorative but are deliberately exaggerated so as to highlight their constructedness. Categorisations such as “guest worker” or “foreigner”, as well as the concept of second and third generations, are exposed as constructions and the clichés associated with them are repeatedly fractured, regardless of the origin of those involved and transcending identity politics (see Lorey 2022, 169). This thus introduces alternative representations to cultural memory. Postmigrant practices should be understood as calls to resist the demand for unambiguous integration, to disrupt concepts of ethnicity and nationality and to develop alternative visions that are more relevant for societies of the future.

On the articulations of postmigrants and the way they position themselves, Isabel Lorey (2012, 15) points out that the marginalisation processes to which members of the postmigrant generation are subjected should not only be seen as a threat. Lorey argues that experiences of marginality should be taken as a starting point for a new kind of resistance. From this perspective, marginalised subjects are not forced to play the role of victim; instead, the focus is on the emancipatory momentum the experience of marginalisation generates. The fundamental idea here is to investigate the political acumen that has helped members of the postmigrant generation break free of marginality and form (political) alliances. As the articulations of these generations show, marginalisation and discrimination feature points of rupture and opportunities for articulation that open new spaces of experience and (can) set new attitudes in motion.

How do people become capable of action when they live under discriminatory and marginalising conditions? According to Judith Butler, the subject can never be fully constituted, but is constantly being created anew (1993, 45).

In order to re-establish the subject’s capacity for critical action, Butler proposes an alternative conception of the subject: the “post-sovereign subject”, by which she means that subjects are not completely inert and that they can navigate hegemonic relationships, create ruptures and position themselves politically (see Butler 1997, 140–145).

Datteltäter: resistance through humour

One example of how humorous rhetoric is used to break with the hegemonic presentation of migration is the satirical collective “Datteltäter”, which was founded in Berlin in 2015, primarily by the postmigrant generation. The collective’s YouTube channel was founded by a group of four young Muslims, Younes, Fiete, Farah and Marcel, and has become very popular in German-speaking countries in recent years.

According to Datteltäter co-founder Younes, one of the interviewees, the aim is to break down issues such as traditional gender roles, religious identities, stereotypes and prejudices that arise from racist discourses and to take a closer and more critical look at them.

It’s about normalising the whole thing. It’s about normalising the fact that a woman with a headscarf can also stand in front of the camera and be an actress or perhaps even make news documentaries. It’s about the normalisation of history, about visibility. Which is also part of racism, simply being made invisible or muted.

In their YouTube videos, Datteltäter use humour to combat increasing Islamophobia and racist rhetoric on migration, and thus offer resistance (see Kizilkaya 2023 for details). In their ironically comical, subversive and thought-provoking videos, the group draw on traditional satirical devices such as exaggeration, caricature, understatement and allusion; they reverse and lampoon socially established notions of normality, gender, origin and religion in their own signature style. They also bring experiences from their own and their families’ lives to their content. They are inventing their own forms of postmigrant articulation.

For Younes, the discriminatory and marginalising experiences he and other members faced as children and young people from migrant families played a particularly strong role in the decision to found Datteltäter. Growing up in East Berlin, Younes often felt a sense of foreignness. He went on to say that he became more self-confident over time and began to openly confront discrimination and racism.

Compared to their grandparents and parents, who still tend to take a defensive approach because they are not as familiar with the social environment and have difficulties with the language, the members of the postmigrant generation have excellent communication skills, see themselves as part of society and have become a significant oppositional force. As Younes repeatedly emphasised in his interview, the Datteltäter do not accept prevailing discriminatory discourse on migration, Islam and Muslims and use humour to try to reverse and question it. Humour is not inherently oppositional, but this example shows that it can become a tool of resistance. It is therefore important that humour be socially contextualised, because only then can it acquire meaning. Thus, the Datteltäter YouTube channel generates a Rancièrian dissent that ruptures hegemonic norms and enables those involved to re-subjectivise themselves politically (see Butler 2005) and place otherwise silenced voices at the centre of the political sphere.

As discussed above, Rancière defines the existing distribution of the sensible as a “police order” that determines what is meaningful and what is deviant. The practice of dissensus (dissent) represented by the Datteltäters’ humorous exaggerations challenges the social consensus that marginalises certain population groups and defines them as deviations, gives rise to new opportunities and attempts to rethink the distribution of the sensible.

The Datteltäter are an alliance that is committed to giving people the opportunity to make themselves heard. Their approaches are reactions to their experiences of racism: they break through stereotypes and promote visibility. They fight against one-sided media coverage by creating satirical content and thus an alternative and counter-hegemonic public sphere (see Mouffe 2013).

Salam Oida: self-representation and political spaces

Salam Oida is an online and offline community platform that describes itself as a safe space for artistic development, autonomous self-determination, self-presentation and empowerment. Those involved support and show solidarity with one another and challenge Austria’s art and cultural scene to rethink discriminatory and racist norms. They describe themselves as “radical, radically artistic, radically funny, radically honest”.

Salam Oida is an initiative from Vienna, founded by two individuals, Ines and Asma, to showcase the diversity of Muslims’ artistic activity, counteract stereotypical representations and create an inclusive space for Muslims online and offline by inviting Muslim youth to speak out about their everyday experiences. They also aim to liberate art and culture from ethnic and national frameworks, in order to rethink and question the existing distribution of the sensible (Rancière 2006). They hope their work will help young Muslims redefine their everyday lives and their experiences of art and culture. In their interview they discuss their personal experiences and society’s assumptions about their skin colour, name and place of origin.

The aim of the initiative was to overcome the feeling of being “foreign” and of not belonging to the majority society, an experience they shared with other Muslims; they wanted to tell their own stories and create their own spaces and ways of thinking:

These are alternative spaces for us, where we can get away from how we are seen as Muslims, as people with a migrant background, as PoCs (people of colour). Away from the constant need to justify or explain ourselves, from rejection, from what we are not, from explaining that we can speak German anyway, that we are not oppressed anyway and so on.

These spaces, which are also political, empower participants, offering them the opportunity to confront negative discourses, raise their voices and share their stories, as the following excerpt shows:

We don’t need to give you a voice, because you already have that voice. We just want to hand you the microphone and show you where the stage is so that you can see for yourselves what we can do. And I think that’s what’s so important to us. It’s not that we’re saying we want to talk about other people. No. We just want to say, okay, we’ve finally found the stage, we’ve found the mic. Stand up and talk and we’ll see how we support and celebrate each other in the process.

Salam Oida sees its work as political because it fights against discrimination, stereotypes and prejudice, “rethinking and redefining art and culture” to promote inclusion and inclusive community spaces, “where our culture has been happening for years anyway but which are not so visible”.

Austrian Ibiza Memes: political activism through memes – the power of satire in political communication

The “Austrian Ibiza Memes” Instagram platform was set up by Anahita, who creates memes based on her personal experiences and political frustration arising out of the “Ibiza Affair”.

She talks about being perceived differently because of her racially ambiguous appearance and accent and the influence this has over her.

I am often perceived as white, but not when I’m in the presence of other POCs. As a feminist, I am welcomed in white feminist circles as long as I act “white”. But when I point out racism, the dynamic shifts and I become a POC. This flexible position allows me to operate within – and latch onto – different contexts.

She reflects on her privileged position as an individual who is seen as white in some situations and POC in others and how her identities allow her to be invisible or visible in different contexts.

And this is illustrated, for example, by the fact that white people often ask me if my name is Spanish, and often I get the impression they kind of hope it is. So they’re, like, “Oh, your name must be Spanish, right?” That means European. And then when I say: “No, it’s Persian,” then they’re really disappointed. Like, “Oh, okay.” So, there’s this discomfort, with –, as if my existence, my authentic existence, I think that’s the point, holds up a mirror to their whiteness and they suddenly realise that they’re actually white, that they actually have a position that distinguishes them from me.

She describes interactions in which her non-white identity becomes a sticking point, or when peers seemed to “notic[e] her skin colour for the first time, or [see] it differently”.

Such experiences led her to get involved in politics; her personal experiences and perceptions made her want to take action and draw attention to social injustice. She says that ultimately, it was the election of the FPÖ/ÖVP/National Conservative coalition government in 2017 that prompted her to become politically active. Anahita explains that she uses humour and memes in her political education work with young Muslim women; humour makes difficult political topics more accessible, and memes encourage discussion. Anahita’s good experiences and the positive feedback she has received encourage her to continue approaching politics via memes.

And it’s also such a democratic medium, it’s so accessible, quick to produce, it doesn’t use complicated language or anything, and it also picks up on young people’s codes and buzzwords. So, we create these spaces where we encourage each other.

Ibiza-Austrian memes’ political activism uses humour and creativity to criticise political events, political discourses and social injustice in Austria. The memes simplify complex political issues and make them more understandable, covering topics such as far-right politics, populist statements and xenophobia while spreading political messages in a light-hearted way. The humour and resilience of memes creates space for political exchange and empowerment and enables political activism to have a positive impact. Building alliances in this way can encourage young people to get involved in politics.

Singer-songwriter and rapper Azra: rap as resistance to discrimination and racism

Another example is Azra, a singer-songwriter from Vienna who was born in the former Yugoslavia. She shares her story and her experiences of flight, arrival and discrimination. She had a happy childhood, but when war broke out, her parents decided to move to Vienna and she was unexpectedly torn away from her home and community.

Upon arriving in Austria, Azra felt anxious and insecure as she did not speak the language and found social situations difficult. In her interview, she talks about the conditions her family lived in when they fled, the responsibilities she had to take on and the difficulties she faced in everyday life and at school.

However, it also becomes clear in the interview that she is not resigned but has engaged critically with her experiences of discrimination. Over time, Azra developed a sense of injustice. She became a young peace activist and worked with other young people who had had similar experiences, collecting signatures, campaigning for equal treatment of immigrants and demanding that the reality of their lives be acknowledged.

She was angered by inequality and decided to speak up. Young people like Azra grapple with the social conditions they live in and advocate a society in which all people are involved in shaping the future. She sees the discrimination she experienced as a result of her background as an impetus for decisive action, as the excerpt from her interview makes clear:

And it went on all the time – throughout my youth, I noticed that on the trams older women often called us names like “Tschuschn and Kanaks” and asked, “Why don't you speak German?” We heard that a lot. And no matter where you go, you get the feeling you're somehow not welcome or that you’re different or –. Of course you’re different, you have a completely different mentality and culture, but you –, subconsciously, it bothered you.

Azra found a way to express her thoughts, experiences and anger, and to put up resistance, by writing rap lyrics. Rap enables her to communicate directly and openly in an authentic and powerful way.

I felt the way I felt. So it was partly hard because it made me realise how hard my life had been. I didn’t know my life, my childhood, had been hard at all. I only realised that when I actually wrote it down.

She wrote songs like “Heimatland” (Homeland) and “Djeca Diaspora” (Children of the Diaspora) to express her feelings of frustration, foreignness and non-belonging and to develop strategies to counter those feelings. The stories her acquaintances and relatives told her of being discriminated against angered her and prompted her to take a stand. As the following excerpt shows, she uses the typically negative term “foreigner” in her lyrics and tries to give it a more positive meaning. This transcoding – picking up terms with negative associations and assigning them a positive meaning – is what Stuart Hall (2004) would denote as a political strategy.

So, I’ve had enough now! Now I’m finally going to say what needs to be said! That I'm always a foreigner in a country where I shouldn’t be a foreigner. […] I chose the word foreigner on purpose. I know that word hasn’t been used for a long time. But I chose it on purpose because we’re always given the label of foreigner, somehow, kind of smeared with it. As if we were somehow second class, as if foreigner were some kind of swear word.

Azra’s rap lyrics have been well received by the Muslim community in Austria because they deal with experiences shared by many people. Sharing her own story, she seeks to connect with people who have had similar experiences and build alliances. Azra’s activities highlight the power of art, especially rap, as a platform for individual and collective expression and for raising awareness of social injustice. Azra’s story is about creating a space for open debate about asymmetrical power relations, discrimination and racism. She criticises the system through her rap songs and advocates an inclusive and equitable society.

As this study suggests, members of the post-Muslim generation face discrimination and exclusion in various areas of society and repeatedly experience socially constructed non-belonging. However, they do not allow themselves to be forced into the role of victims, instead engaging proactively with their experience and taking a stand. This is not about the public presentation of points of difference or conflict, but about micropolitical practices and articulations that arise in a variety of contexts and under social restrictions. These aim to build political positions, solidarity and alliances that will disrupt traditional notions of difference and the associated “us/them” logic and engender alternative ways of thinking. In some cases, they tactically appropriate essentialising demarcations and terms with racial connotations such as foreigner, Kanak or Tschusch and offer subversive reinterpretations. This has the potential to create places of expression and promote visibility, to enable people to make themselves heard and assert their political rights, and simultaneously to escape homogenising notions of identity.

Postmigrant articulations and practices can be described, as Chantal Mouffe puts it, as a counter-hegemony of the post-Muslim generation: “There are always alternatives that have been excluded by the dominant hegemony and that can be actualised. This is precisely what a theory of hegemony helps us understand. Every hegemonic order can be challenged by counter-hegemonic practices, which attempt to disarticulate the existing order so as to establish another form of hegemony” (Mouffe 2013, 132). In this sense, the cultural, political and artistic practices of the postmigrant generations create spaces of resistance that undermine the hegemonic representations (the “regime of representation” or the existing “distribution of the sensible” as per Rancière) that perpetuate existing hegemonic dynamics. The practices described in the empirical section can be understood in Mouffe’s terms as “agonistic interventions within the context of counter-hegemonic struggles” (2013, 88) which illuminate alternatives to the existing framework.

Conclusion: from agonistic intervention to a new topography of the possible

The postmigrant articulations presented here illustrate how the tension between discrimination and political subjectivation is lived out, and how the counter-strategies which emerge from the confrontation with the hegemonic representation of migration can promote emancipatory spaces of experience for the people and alliances involved (see Gilroy 2004, 161).

In summary, it can be said that artistic, civic and cultural activities discussed in the context of postmigrants create spaces of resistance that destabilise the social imagination that legitimises hegemonic power relations. This is precisely where the political power of such articulations and modes of subjectivation lies. Additionally, the critical potential of postmigrant interventions lies in their potential to reveal what the prevailing regime of representation often suppresses, and to give a voice to those who lack a platform within existing power structures.

In this context, the lampooning of ascribed characteristics (“We the Tschuschen”, “We the Datteltäter” or “We the foreigners”) and humorous exaggeration can be understood as a subversive form of resistance. It is true that such self-labelling or self-deprecation can also incur the risk that the subjects continue to appear as “others”. However, as the political articulations presented here illustrate, it is precisely this practice of self-empowerment that makes it possible for those involved to adopt the position of subject and speak from that position to intervene in the dominant discourse. Humour thus appears to have become a powerful tool for young postmigrant people, allowing them to subvert and strategically and satirically reverse hegemonic discourses. They are undermining societal norms and redefining the existing distribution of the sensible (Rancière 2006).

This shows that hegemony is not a state, but rather a process that is constantly being reconstituted through permanent struggle. Postmigrant articulations make it clear that groups that are marginalised and excluded and whose perspectives and interests are not taken seriously form counter-hegemonies and engage in struggles against racism. I would like to end by quoting Stuart Hall: “[A]nd the struggle over a hegemonic system starts anew. They constitute what Raymond Williams called ‘the emergent’ – and the reason why history is never closed but maintains an open horizon towards the future” (Hall 2011, 727–728).

Ethics statement

The research was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki and local university ethical and statutory requirements. All participants have given informed consent for participation and publication. In order to protect participant anonymity, all personal identifiers have been omitted and/or changed to pseudonyms.

Participation in the study is voluntary. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time without providing reasons and without any disadvantages. Interviews were consented, recorded, transcribed and anonymised.

The data will be stored on a password-protected external storage medium. In accordance with the code of conduct of the University of Klagenfurt, the data will be kept for at least ten years. Access to the anonymous dataset is restricted to the principal investigator.

Informed consent statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author acknowledges the financial support of the University of Klagenfurt.

Notes

1 This article deals with two countries that have comparatively similar structures when it comes to dealing with migration. In the 1960s and 1970s, both countries recruited guest workers from Turkey to do jobs that the local population did not want to do. Both societies still have restrictive legal provisions on settlement rights. In Germany, it became easier to acquire citizenship in the early 2000s, at least for children who were born in the country, and the principle of descent was relaxed. Children born in Germany to parents of a different nationality are now automatically granted both citizenships. However, once they reach majority, they have to choose. In contrast, children born in Austria to parents of non-Austrians are not automatically granted Austrian citizenship. This blocks many people's access to democratic processes. It is relevant to the present research question to consider whether there are connections between these structural realities of the two countries and the ways the postmigrant generations in the two different environments position themselves, or resist the circumstances in which they find themselves.

2 A pejorative term used in some parts of Austria to refer to individuals of Southeastern European or oriental origin.

3 Datteltäter is derived from the German word Attentäter, meaning offender or assassin, by combining the last part, Täter, with the word Dattel, meaning date or fruit. The YouTube channel, which will be investigated in section 6, has a logo which shows a smiling date with a fez on its head, the string of which is reminiscent of an exploded dynamite detonator. While the date is a special fruit and often has positive connotations, the term assassin brings to mind angry hooded men waiting to detonate a bomb. While the conflation of the two terms is strange (“perpetrator date”), it is a good illustration of the use of satire to provoke thought and challenge stereotypes (Lombard 2017).