The Immigrant Continent

Abstract

Few words are as undefinable with any certainty as the ones in the theme of this issue: Europe and its borders. For many of us these borders would shift when considered geographically, historically, intellectually, geopolitically, or culturally. Moreover, nothing unsettles the borders of Europe, or any continent for that matter, as effectively as the concept of migration. If one were to write a history of migrations, conceptualized as the migration of not only people, but also images, words, ideas, technologies, objects, information, and food, and if one were to put Europe in its global context by discussing the continent as a place of both arrival and departure, one would realize how porous these borders have always been. Such a history would critically acknowledge European countries’ role in the history of modernization and colonization of other countries within and outside Europe, and disclose the region’s character as an immigrant continent and diaspora of various peoples. While a scholar may not have a hard time in convincing the audience of Europe’s impact outside its borders, less is the case of Europe’s acknowledgement as an immigrant continent. Despite Germany’s long history with the “guest worker” and refugee programs after World War II, for instance, immigration has hardly changed the perception of what it means to be “German” in conservative circles, and the immigrant has constantly been judged by a measuring stick of “integration” that usually expects him or her to assimilate into a supposedly unchangeable, essentialist national identity, rather than contribute to the shaping of a multifaceted, transformed one in dialogue.