Immigrant Rebels in France: A Difficult Process of Reconstructing Identities

JTW Comment by Nermin Aydemir : : Immigrant Rebels in France: A Difficult Process of Reconstructing Identities:

"Immigrant Rebels in France: A Difficult Process of Reconstructing Identities

“…Mutuality requires abandoning both native preconceptions of who has first call on the label “European” as well as easy labeling of immigrants, travelers, ethnic minorities, third world country settlers, Muslims, cosmopolitans, dissidents as “non-European”. Mutuality implies that European-ness is not about possessing a pre-defined cultural identity, but about becoming European through active engagement with negotiation of difference…” (Amin, 2004: 4.)



Europe has encountered large amounts of migration flows since the middle of 1940’s. People with the same ethnical backgrounds “returned back home”, in the British and German cases when the borders were drawn once again in this decade. These migrants were the most favored ones since they were regarded as people returning home (Pettigrew, 1998: 80). Also people from former colonies migrated to the lands of their “ex-lords” in those years. Ex-colonial peoples usually had the citizenship of their new countries or at least could stay without strict restrictions of residence. Nevertheless, Europe needed more human power for reconstruction and guest-workers came from Mediterranean countries in late 1960’s. "