Who We Are Is What We Believe? Religion and Collective Identity in Austrian and German Immigrant Integration Policies

Abstract

Immigrant integration is a contested policy field in which boundaries of membership are drawn and re-negotiated whereby groups of immigrants are partially included and excluded. Building on the concept of collective identity and theories of boundary making, this paper illustrates how religion functions as a category to mark and fill notions of self and otherness. As several studies have shown, immigrants in Europe are increasingly addressed as Muslims, a development that also serves the promotion of a Christian 'us'. Focusing on Austria and Germany, two countries where this is especially observable, the paper outlines the functioning of religion as symbolic boundary. The empirical study on national integration policies demonstrates how-within the relational process of boundary drawing against Muslims-a Christian identity narrative is established, how it functions as a marker of unity and how it relates to liberal and secular notions. Results from the qualitative content analysis of governmental policy programs from 2005 onwards show different patterns of boundary drawing on religion and the way they shape and limit the possibilities of inclusion. To understand this development, we have to look at Christian-democratic policy-makers, who currently dominate the political struggle for the power to define features of collective identity in immigrant integration policies.

Multi-Layered Roles of Religion among Refugees Arriving in Austria around 2015

“…While formal religious affiliation can be key for identification processes, the overall political climate also plays a major role in how the religion of refugees is perceived and practiced. Findings indicate that the collective identity promoted by European governments in the context of immigrant integration are essentially liberal, and, in a second dimension, either Christian or secular (Mattes 2017b). Indeed, a resulting, conflated 'Christian secular' identity is frequently accepted as a fusion that defines the core of collective identity in Western European countries like Austria, which leaves Islam as the illiberal 'other'.…”

“…Third, our study will be complemented by a qualitative content analysis of Austrian and German governmental policy programs between 2005 and 2013 (Mattes 2017b). In this period, each government issued eight programs.…”

Liberal Democratic Representation and the Politicization of Religion

“…In theory,t he usage of religion for symbolic boundary drawing puts liberal democratic actors in ad ilemma, as they commit to state neutrality (Madeley 2003). However,d rawing on religion for boundary-making is in practice not limited to Austriasfar right populist representatives.Asshown in other studies on mainstream integration policies,what it means "to be Austrian"isoften linked to Christianity, which is presented as the source of liberalism and secularism (Mattes 2017b).Anextreme example from an Austrian policy document states: "The following discussion will show that the problem of integrating foreigners predominantlyconcerns members of the Islamic culture,toalesser extent also thoseofother (for example African or Asian)cultures." (BMI 2008, p. 18) This statementisfollowed by adiscussion of Austrian values,alisting of liberal norms.Onthe basicprinciple of equality the documentstates:…”

“…This paper draws on the empirical work from al arger project on the politics of religion and migration in Austria (Mattes 2017a(Mattes , 2017b(Mattes ,2018. This project built on four sources of data material:P olicyd ocuments on immigranti ntegration issued in Austria between 2005 and 2013, aformative phase for Austrian immigrant integration policies; Press releases and campaign material in relation to the policy documents were used to complement the picture;Parliamentary protocols allowed the inclusion of data material withinalargerperiod, namely 1993-2013; Fort his article,t he data collection has been further extended to 2017.…”

The Socio-Economic Integration of Ethnic Minorities

“…In a somewhat similar fashion, Rouvoet, Eijberts and Ghorashi (2017) show that Italians in the Netherlands face an identity paradox, feeling isolated in the destination country and being an outsider in the home country. Success requires not only cultural but also identificational integration, a theme echoed by Mattes (2017) on the barriers faced by Muslims in Austria and Germany and by Fernández-Suárez (2017) on immigrant inclusion issues in Spain. And, finally, we include a paper by Hanwei Li (2017) who shows that, contrary to stereotypical images of Chinese students good at 'learning by rote', the students actually benefit more in their studies by constructing bridging social ties in German universities.…”