Fifty years after large-scale Turkish labour migration to the Federal Republic of Germany began, theatre by Turkish-German artists is only now becoming a consistent feature of Germany’s influential state-funded theatrical landscape. So whilst much scholarship in recent years has focused on Turkish-German literature and film, very little research has been conducted into Turkish-German theatre. This doctoral thesis addresses this neglected field of study and examines contemporary theatre practice and theatrical representation in the Federal Republic of Germany as a country of immigration. It traces the fascinating fates of five plays by two Turkish-German playwrights who are already well-known for their award-winning prose work: Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Feridun Zaimoglu, who writes for the stage with Günter Senkel. The thesis focuses on these plays in performance and examines the dramatic and performance texts’ negotiations of 1) mimesis – the artistic representation of ‘the real’ – and 2) mimeticism – a mechanism identified by cultural theorist Rey Chow as relying on Platonic concepts of idealised ‘originals’ to keep certain subjects ‘in their place’. The thesis argues that Özdamar’s plays in production function as touchstones for thinking through broader tendencies in the German theatrical establishment’s inclusion of theatre by, with, and concerning Turkish-Germans, while Zaimoglu/Senkel’s reveal points at which these paradigms shift. The earliest production which the thesis examines, Özdamar’s Karagöz in Alamania, was premiered in 1986, and the most recent, Özdamar’s Perikızı, in 2011. The intervening years are marked by the examination of Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Othello (2003), Schwarze Jungfrauen (2006), and Schattenstimmen (2008). As theatrical production in Germany is a process which tends to take the play out of the author’s hands, the thesis aims to unpack the negotiations between text and performance, author and director, ensemble and audience in each production. In doing so it makes use of extensive field and archival work. For each play addressed, the thesis moves beyond the dramatic text to draw on a wide range of sources including audiovisual recordings, prompt scripts, programmes, and interviews with the directors and authors. This historicising approach to performance analysis allows connections to be made between the performances as historical events taking place within an institutional context and the negotiations of mimesis and mimeticism within the mise-en-scène of each play in its world premiere and beyond. Key questions addressed throughout include: in what context were these plays staged? How were migration and migrant or postmigrant figures represented within them? How were productions received? And what does this have to tell us about cultural production and aesthetics within the very particular circumstances created by twentieth-century Turkish migrations to Germany? A focus on ‘mimeticism’ allows this thesis to explore the ways in which the productions examined approached the representation of ‘ethnicised’ figures. It also reveals the extent to which a positioning of plays by Özdamar and Zaimoglu/Senkel as ‘Turkish’, ‘Turkish-German’, or ‘postmigrant’ may also have affected their production and reception. A complementary focus on ‘mimesis’ then allows this thesis to examine the degree to which these performances were intended or received as aesthetic interventions relevant to the social reality of contemporary Germany. Indeed, the trajectories which this thesis traces over the past quarter of a century see Turkish- German theatre move not only geographically, but also symbolically, from the margins to the centre of theatrical life in contemporary Germany. Rather than seeing this relatively late success as reason to obscure earlier Turkish-German theatrical productions, this study places that success in context. It thus highlights the role which Özdamar's and Zaimoglu/Senkel's ‘script[s] of multiculturalism’ (B. Venkat Mani) have played in a larger, ongoing re-scripting of the German stage, which has taken place as Germany adjusts to its status as a country of immigration.

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This study investigates the portrayal of three postmigrant authors in the Danish media. By critically analyzing 12 articles, the study explores the characteristic features of the media’s portrayal of the authors. The theoretical concepts postmigration and Nordic whiteness are applied to demonstrate how the 12 articles are portraying the three authors as non-white others. This portrayal is constructed by highlighting the authors non-white physical features and connecting them to the “ghetto”. This ultimately results in a migrantization of the authors and reproduces the “us” and “them” division, in the Danish postmigrant society. Thus, this study contributes to the academic research on postmigrant literature in Scandinavia by providing insights into the role of the media in relation to the literary trend of postmigrant literature. Further on, this thesis is a part of the academic tradition of critical whiteness studies in a Nordic context as well as in IMER studies.   Keywords: Postmigration literature, Denmark, media, whiteness, postmigrant authors

Die vorliegende Analyse des Sterne-Romans von Özdamar ist Hauptanliegen dieser Magisterarbeit im Fach Deutsch mit literaturwissenschaftlicher Einrichtung und die Betrachtung der Dynamik wandelbarer Identitäten in Bezug auf Individuen und Gesellschaft in postkolonialen und postmigrantischen Zusammenhängen, primäres Forschungsziel. In methodischer Anlehnung an postkoloniale Theorien und transnationaler Literaturforschung, fokussiert diese Analyse insbesondere auf die Forschungsbereiche Transnationalität, Hybridität und Alterität, betrachtet allerdings auch Lesarten multiperspektivischer und autosoziobiographischer Erinnerungen innerhalb kollektiver Gedächtnisräume. Durch die Anwendung der Postcolonial Studies wird ersichtlich, dass eine hybride Neubetrachtung von Individuen und Gesellschaft, dekoloniale Neuaushandlungen sowie kulturelle- und soziopolitische Transfers ans Licht tragen, die auf dynamische und bewegliche Prozesse in der jeweiligen Identitätsbildung hinweisen. Die erfasste Dynamik in Bezug auf Identität erleichtert die Identifikation und Inszenierung kolonialer nationaler Stereotypen sowie Machtverhältnisse in der Literatur. Dies geschieht in neu verhandelten sozialen Strukturen der Transmoderne, wobei diese Ära durch eine umfassende Neubewertung traditioneller Muster geprägt ist.

Some of the main goals of the present study are to understand what are the main problems that the “postmigrant generation” (descendants of immigrants, “mixed” people, and transnational adoptees) are forced to face in contemporary Norwegian society, how the authors present these challenges in diverse ways, and what strategies are put in place to critique and counter oppressive mechanisms. This means that it is also important to investigate the ways in which these works criticize a widespread understanding of the concept of Norwegianness, which a priori excludes all those who, for aesthetic, cultural, linguistic, and religious reasons, cannot be associated with a – false – idea of national homogeneity and Nordic purity. At the same time, it is intended to bring into focus all those cultural and linguistic practices and hybridisms that help to highlight how the old hegemonic paradigms are no longer able to represent contemporary Norway, whose national identity is constantly renegotiated in relation to migratory phenomena, which have triggered processes of transculturalization and transnationalization. In recent years, one of the most innovative and stimulating notions aimed at understanding this new era of migrations and hybridisms, which redefine societies from their foundations, is that of postmigration, which, among other things, proposes to consider the entire society as postmigrant, since migration has now greatly influenced not only the social fabric but also the identity status of European countries. One of the main goals of the postmigrant perspective is to overcome the dichotomies that contrast the figure of the migrant with that of the non-migrant, the idea of a homogeneous “us” with a “them” as a deviation from the norm, the majority population with minorities. This work seeks to combine the theoretical-methodological framework of postmigration with that of intersectionality. Intersectionality presupposes that the social, biological, and cultural categories of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, nationality, etc., are inseparable from each other if one wants to fully understand the identity of an individual or group of individuals and, above all, how systemic injustices and inequalities act simultaneously on multiple levels that overlap and intersect with each other. Chapter 1 is divided into three parts and is devoted to A) the theory, method and research objectives, B) the presentation of the postmigrant condition in Norway, and C) the description of postmigration literature – of which a new conceptualization is proposed based on the definition of postmigrant society – and the introduction of the works chosen for analysis: 1) Pakkis (Paki) by Khalid Hussain (1986); 2) Alle utlendinger har lukka gardiner (All Foreigners Have Their Curtains Closed) by Maria Navarro Skaranger (2015); 3) Tante Ulrikkes vei (Tante Ulrikkes Street) and 4) Gul bok (Yellow Book) by Zeshan Shakar (2017; 2020); 5) Kvinner som hater menn (Women Who Hate Men) by Sumaya Jirde Ali (2017); 6) La oss aldri glemme hvor godt det kan være å leve (Let Us Never Forget How Good It Can Be to Live) by Sarah Zahid (2018); 7) Hør her'a! (Listen Up!) by Gulraiz Sharif (2020); 8) Eg snakkar om det heile tida (I Talk About It All the Time); and 9) De må føde oss eller pule oss for å elske oss (They Must Birth Us or Fuck Us to Love Us) by Camara Lundestad Joof (2018; 2022); 10) Kvit, norsk mann (White, Norwegian Man) by Brynjulf Jung Tjønn (2022); 11) Da vi var yngre (When we were younger) by Oliver Lovrenski (2023). Chapter 2 focuses on the comparative analysis of two texts to show how themes and style change, from migration to postmigration literature, regarding the dynamism of migration-related social transformations in Norway. Chapter 3 focuses on the linguistic analysis of the only four novels written so far in the Norwegian multiethnolect (Kebabnorsk), while Chapter 4 aims to understand what translation strategies have been employed to render two of these novels in Italian. Chapter 5 discusses the multiethnic satellite towns on the outskirts of Oslo and how they are the focus of stigmatizing discourses of various kinds. Chapter 6 investigates the correlation between social class and migration background for descendants of immigrants, with a focus on processes of social mobility. Chapter 7 deals with Muslim Norwegians, Islamophobia and the counter-narratives deployed to fight stereotypes and as well as define their space within society. In Chapter 8, focusing on racialization and whiteness, an attempt is made to shed light on the processes of marginalization related to racial categorizations and the life experience of non-white people in Norway. In the conclusions, we reflect on how what has been said in the various chapters connects to the concept of Norwegianness, and in particular to the parameters of inclusion and exclusion from it in contemporary Norway. Norwegian society appears to be an arena in which conflicts, ambivalences, and negotiations occur. These can be traced back to the processes of identity and national redefinition that have been triggered by and related to migration phenomena. Certainly, the selected authors, through their works, contribute to criticizing and at the same time redrawing the boundaries of Norwegianness.

The term integration became a buzzword and is omnipresent in the current European discourses. Despite its broad definitions, there is a tendency in migration studies and the political narrative to focus exclusively on migrants and their descendants while upholding the vision of  a fixed “host society”, with an established national culture, in which migrants should integrate. The present study aims to reframe the concept of integration by adopting a postmigrant approach and by analyzing the contribution of art projects in this regard. To do so, the study draws on two current theoretical approaches to integration in the social sciences, Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of national culture, the postmigration concept and the societal impact of art as theoretical framework. First, the notion of integration has been positioned theoretically in current postmigrant debates. The content analysis demonstrates that the conceptualization of postmigrant integration takes distance from the notion of assimilation and looks beyond the topic of migration. Second, eight semi-structured interviews have been conducted with project team members and project participants of the art projects “Newcomers”, “Leben, Erzählen, Schreiben”, “Hela Bilden”, and the organization “Alter &amp; Ego”. The thematic analysis of the interviews showed the necessity to address the “host population”, i.e. individuals without experience of forced migration, to overcome monolingualism and to concentrate on societal diversity which contributes to the theorization of postmigrant integration. The present thesis indicates the importance of the arts regarding their societal impact and agency to provide alternative narratives on migration and integration. It also stresses the necessity of integration policies and the European migration regime to take part in the reframing of current migration discourses by directly addressing the “host population” and acknowledging today’s context of plural societies in which everyone should integrate. / <p>This thesis has been written as part of the EuMIGS double degree programme in the field of Migration Studies. </p>