https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3507-0805
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ABSTRACT
In this article Bodjadžijev and Opratko introduce the special issue on ‘Cultures of Rejection’. First, they describe the political and intellectual conjuncture in which the term ‘cultures of rejection’ was developed. Second, they introduce some core assumptions and methodological considerations informing the perspective that came to be associated with that term, and that eventually gave rise to original empirical research on the sociocultural conditions in which right-wing and authoritarian politics, movements and sentiments can thrive in contemporary Europe. In the third part, they introduce the common conceptual design and methodological approach of the research projects that follow, and their key findings in Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and Sweden between 2019 and 2022.
Notes
1 Étienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship, trans. from the French by James Swenson (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press 2004), 117.
2 Quoted in Peo Hansen, A Modern Migration Theory: An Alternative Economic Approach to Failed EU Policy (Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing 2021), 7.
3 Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Balibar’s text trans. from the French by Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso 1991), 22.
4 Manuela Bojadžijev and Benjamin Opratko, ‘Von der Willkommens- zur Ablehnungskultur?’, Forum Migration, vol. 12, no. 6, 2016, 1–2. All translations into English, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.
5 See Peter Bescherer, Anne Burkhardt, Robert Feustel, Gisela Mackenroth and Luzia Sievi, Urbane Konflikte und die Krise der Demokratie: Stadtentwicklung, Rechtsruck und Soziale Bewegungen (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot 2021); and Margit Feischmidt, Ludger Pries and Celine Cantat (eds), Refugee Protection and Civil Society in Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2018).
6 Bernd Kasparek, ‘Complementing Schengen: the Dublin system and the European border and migration regime’, in Harald Bauder and Christian Matheis (eds), Migration Policy and Practice: Interventions and Solutions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2015), 59–78.
7 Balibar, We, the People of Europe?; Aihwa Ong, ‘Mutations in citizenship’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 23, nos 2–3, 2006, 499–505; Bernd Kasparek, Europa als Grenze: Eine Ethnographie der Grenzschutz-Agentur Frontex (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2021).
8 With the concept of the 'multiplication of labour', the authors hope to make the constitutive heterogeneity of living labour and the articulation of simultaneous and different labour regimes and forms of exploitation more investigable. They oppose the idea that a particular form of labour is dominant or hegemonic and therefore of particular political or strategic interest. Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson, Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press 2013).
9 Moritz Altenried, Manuela Bojadžijev, Leif Höfler, Sandro Mezzadra and Mira Wallis, ‘Logistical borderscapes: politics and mediation of mobile labor in Germany after the “summer of migration”’, South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 117, no. 2, 2018, 291–312.
10 Manuela Bojadžijev, ‘“The spirit of Europe”: differential migration, labour and logistificationics’, in Giorgio Grappi (ed.), Migration and the Contested Politics of Justice: Europe and the Global Dimension (London and New York: Routledge 2021), 162–83.
11 The Transit Migration Research Group, of which Manuela Bojadžijev was a member, studied the emergence of the European migration regime in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, including Croatia and Serbia, and the migration routes (before they became known as the Balkan Route) in the first half of the 2000s.
12 Sabine Hess and Bernd Kasparek, ‘Historicizing the Balkan route: governing migration through mobility’, in William Walters, Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani (eds), Viapolitics: Borders, Migration, and the Power of Locomotion (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2022), 183–208.
13 Mezzadra and Neilson, Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor.
14 Manuela Bojadžijev, ‘Migration as a social seismograph: an analysis of Germany’s “refugee crisis” controversy’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 31, no. 4, 2018, 335–56.
15 Ibid.
16 Sabine Hess and Bernd Kasparek, ‘Under control? Or border (as) conflict: reflections on the European border regime’, Social Inclusion, vol. 5, no. 3, 2017, 58–68.
17 Donatella della Porta (ed.), Solidarity Mobilizations in the ‘Refugee Crisis’: Contentious Moves (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan 2018); Feischmidt, Pries and Cantat (eds), Refugee Protection and Civil Society in Europe; Sara de Jong and Ilker Ataç, ‘Demand and deliver: refugee support organisations in Austria’, Social Inclusion, vol. 5, no. 3, 2017, 28–37; Michael Strange, Vicki Squire and Anna Lundberg, ‘Irregular migration struggles and active subjects of trans-border politics: new research strategies for interrogating the agency of the marginalised’, Politics, vol. 37, no. 3, 2017, 243–53.
18 Ulrike Hamann and Serhat Karakayali, ‘Practicing Willkommenskultur: migration and solidarity in Germany’, Intersections, vol. 2, no. 4, 2016, 69–86; Ove Sutter, ‘Narratives of “welcome culture”: the cultural politics of voluntary aid for refugees’, Narrative Culture, vol. 6, no. 1, 2019, 19–43; Samia Dinkelaker, Nikolai Huke and Olaf Tietje (eds), Nach der ‘Willkommenskultur’: Geflüchtete zwischen umkämpfter Teilhabe und zivilgesellschaftlicher Solidarität (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2021).
19 Serhat Karakayali,‘“Infra-Politik” der Willkommensgesellschaft’, Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, vol. 30, no. 3, 2017, 16–24.
20 Michel Foucault, ‘What is critique?’ [1978], in Michel Foucault, The Politics of Truth, ed. Sylvère Lotringer, trans. from the French by Lysa Hochroth and Catherine Porter (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e) 2007), 41–81.
21 Sebastian Jäckle and Pascal David König, ‘Drei Jahre Anschläge auf Flüchtlinge in Deutschland—welche Faktoren erklären ihre räumliche und zeitliche Verteilung?’, KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, vol. 71, no. 4, 2019, 623–49.
22 Bastian Vollmer and Serhat Karakayali, ‘The volatility of the discourse on refugees in Germany’, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, vol. 16, nos 1–2, 2018, 118–39; Iris Wigger, ‘Anti-Muslim racism and the racialisation of sexual violence: “intersectional stereotyping” in mass media representations of male Muslim migrants in Germany’, Culture and Religion, vol. 20, no. 3, 2019, 248–71.
23 Alexander Häusler, ‘AfD, Pegida & Co.: Die Formierung einer muslimfeindlichen rechten Bewegung’, in Peter Antes and Rauf Ceylan (eds), Muslime in Deutschland: Historische Bestandsaufnahme, aktuelle Entwicklungen und zukünftige Forschungsfragen (Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2017), 59–74.
24 Bojadžijev and Opratko, ‘Von der Willkommens- zur Ablehnungskultur?’, 6.
25 Stuart Hall, ‘The great moving right show’, Marxism Today, vol. 23, no. 1, 1979, 14–20; Robert F. Carley, ‘The rediscovery of the conjuncture’, in Robert F. Carley, Cultural Studies Methodology and Political Strategy: Metaconjuncture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2021), 51–89; Jeremy Gilbert, ‘This conjuncture: for Stuart Hall’, New Formations, nos 96–97, 2019, 5–37; Melissa Gregg, ‘The politics of conjuncture: Stuart Hall, articulation and the commitment to specificity’, in Melissa Gregg, Cultural Studies’ Affective Voices (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2006), 55–81.
26 Stuart Hall and Les Back, ‘In conversation: at home and not at home’, Cultural Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 2009, 658–87 (665). Cf. Yi Chen, Practising Rhythmanalysis: Theories and Methodologies (Lanham, MD and London: Rowman & Littlefield 2017), 12.
27 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press/ London: Chatto & Windus 1961), 42.
28 Alexander Harder and Benjamin Opratko, ‘Cultures of rejection at work: investigating the acceptability of authoritarian populism’, Ethnicities, vol. 22, no. 3, 2022, 425–55 (428–9).
29 John Clarke, ‘Stuart Hall and the theory and practice of articulation’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 36, no. 2, 2015, 275–86.
30 Harder and Opratko, ‘Cultures of rejection at work’, 429.
31 Ronald F. Inglehart and Pippa Norris, ‘Trump, Brexit, and the rise of populism: economic have-nots and cultural backlash’, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Working Paper No. RWP16-026, 29 July 2016, available on the Social Science Research Network at https://ssrn.com/abstract=2818659 (viewed 16 June 2023).
32 David Theo Goldberg, Are We All Postracial Yet? (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press 2015), 104.
33 Manuela Bojadžijev, ‘Is there a post-racism? On David Theo Goldberg’s conjunctural analysis of the post-racial’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 39, no. 13, 2016, 2235–40.
34 Chetan Bhatt, ‘The new xenologies of Europe: civil tensions and mythic pasts’, Journal of Civil Society, vol. 8, no. 3, 2012, 307–26.
35 Benjamin Opratko et al., ‘Cultures of rejection in the Covid-19 crisis’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 44, no. 5, 2021, 893–905.
36 Michel de Certeau, L'Invention du quotidien. 1: Arts de faire (Paris: Union générale d’éditions 1980).
37 Bojadžijev, ‘Migration as a social seismograph’.
38 Altenried, Bojadžijev, Höfler, Mezzadra and Wallis, ‘Logistical borderscapes’.
39 The various case studies had to be postponed due to the disruption caused by government actions against the COVID-19 crisis. While all case studies could be conducted at the places of work, not all focus groups could be. Instead, the CuRe research group, supported by generous additional funding from the VW Foundation, undertook intensive research into the cultures of rejection during the COVID crisis in digital environments. The contributions gathered here focus on different phases of the research in the respective countries with their corresponding findings. They aim to provide a common picture for the otherwise little connected national scenarios.
40 Robert Kozinets, Netnography: Redefined (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage 2015), 69.
41 Cf. Opratko et al., ‘Cultures of rejection in the Covid-19 crisis’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Manuela Bojadžijev
Manuela Bojadžijev is Professor at the Institute for European Ethnology and the Berlin Institute for Migration Research (BIM) at Humboldt University in Berlin. She is researching globalized and digitized cultures. Email: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3507-0805
Benjamin Opratko
Benjamin Opratko was a post-doc researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, and is currently Assistant Professor (non-tenure track) at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organisation at Leuphana University Lüneburg. His research investigates empirical and theoretical aspects of contemporary authoritarian populism, racism and Islamophobia in Europe. Email: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6120-466X