Race, Islamophobia and the politics of citizenship in post-unification Germany

In the immediate aftermath of German reunification, as in the wake of the recent humanitarian crisis, Germany experienced notable ‘peaks’ of racist agitation and violence. In the 1990s, as today, the post-Communist eastern regions of Germany tend to be perceived as the hub of such racism. In this article, Lewicki revisits both ‘peaks’ via an examination of numerical evidence for verbal and physical racist violence in the former East and West of Germany. Rather than conceiving of racism as ‘cyclical’ or a specific legacy of the Communist dictatorship, her analysis suggests that political projects in Germany’s past and present have retained distinct structural incarnations of race. Far-right activists could thus successfully channel animosities resulting from the terms of unification into nationalist and racist resentment: momentarily more so in the East, but increasingly also in the West. The politics of citizenship, Lewicki argues, has provided a key means of perpetuating, reaffirming and cementing racialized hierarchies in the two post-war German states, but also in reunified Germany

The blind spots of liberal citizenship and integration policy

Governments across Europe have stepped up their efforts to manage social diversity politically, often specifically targeting Muslim populations. Lewicki interrogates the policy tools that the British and German governments deploy to ‘integrate’ an increasingly stigmatized and racialized population, zooming in on whether and how they problematize patterns of inequality. Complicating the ‘one country, one citizenship’ rationale of the citizenship regime literature that assumes a one-dimensional interpretation of history, cultural identity, political institutions or legal norms, she points to four salient liberal citizenship discourses that currently frame policies of diversity management. These are civic republicanism, multiculturalism, civic universalism and cosmopolitanism. Her analysis demonstrates that all four liberal citizenship discourses have blind spots when it comes to problematizing structural hierarchies and the logics of racism. Over the last two decades, liberal citizenship and integration policy frameworks have thus contributed to the retention of binary distinctions between superior citizens and inferior Others, distinctions that can now easily be exacerbated and used for mobilization by right-wing populist movements

‘The dead are coming’: acts of citizenship at Europe’s borders

This article combines the research agenda of the acts of citizenship literature with reflections on emancipatory theatre. I examine the Centre for Political Beauty’s activity-based artwork ‘The dead are coming’ which problematizes the cruelties of the European border regime in symbolically charged spaces in the German public. Focusing particularly on the roles available to ‘actors’ and ‘spectators’, and the directionality of the message conveyed through the artwork, I examine how the performance subverts the ‘sites’ and ‘scales’ of citizenship. My analysis indicates that the artwork’s subversive potential emerges not only from the political vision conveyed by the artist collective, but also from the way in which others become involved in the performance. Acts of political beauty thus most extensively challenge instituted citizenship’s orientalist anchoring, reverse status-based role allocations and subvert the structural violence of borders when the performance enables the enactment of novel forms of political agency and solidarity

Acts and practices of citizenship: Muslim women’s activism in the UK

Drawing on the growing literature on Muslim women’s activism, this paper explores grammars of action that frame political mobilizations of Muslim women in the UK. By taking a broad view of political activism, we identify acts and practices of citizenship through which Muslim women activists engage with, reinterpret and challenge social norms. The article critically engages with dominant readings of post-migration minorities’ political mobilization through the lens of citizenship regimes and draws attention to more processual and agency-centred perspectives on citizenship. We focus on two salient themes that Bristol-based Muslim activists were concerned with: mobilizing against violence against women, manifested in the anti-FGM campaign by Integrate Bristol, and attempts to re-negotiate the terms of participation in religious spaces, manifested in claims for more inclusive mosques. In both instances, mobilization was not confined to the local community or national level, but supported by and embedded in related transnational struggles

Building a new nation: anti-Muslim racism in post-unification Germany

Research has provided insight into ideas, agents and patterns of inequality associated with Islamophobia. Yet, we know less about why anti-Muslim racism is so virulent and persistent today. Focusing on post-unification Germany, we explore the broader function Islamophobia fulfils for society. We draw on a discourse analysis of statements by four public figures, the publicists Monika Maron and Alice Schwarzer, and the politicians Vera Lengsfeld and Beatrix von Storch; two of them are from Germany’s former East, and the other two from the former West. We found little evidence of regionally specific regional ‘flavours’ of anti-Muslim racism, but noted that the speakers’ diverging positionality in re-unified Germany shapes their Islamophobic agitation. Our analysis shows how ‘old’ and ‘new’ Germans distinctly participate in re-creating western identities as unmarked norm. Anti-Muslim racism, we argue, plays an important role in everyday discursive acts of nation-building, and assists in justifying multi-layered patterns of stratification. Outward projections onto an ‘Other’, the ‘enemy within’, fulfil a key function: the integration of a highly polarized society, at least on the symbolic level. The collective in need of integration, our analysis suggests, may therefore not necessarily be the one that is the main target of such efforts

On generosity, sponsorship and the right to asylum

On Monday, the British government introduced its new ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme which is presented as a ‘step up’ in Britain’s generosity towards refugees. However, the scheme is merely a continuation of Britain’s restrictive politics of asylum and immigration. Specifically, it draws on two key principles of recent immigration legislation - sponsorship and everyday bordering - which limit the rights of people who move to the UK and individualize responsibility for asylum

East–west inequalities and the ambiguous racialisation of ‘Eastern Europeans’

A growing scholarly literature describes people who moved from Europe’s East to its West as racialised. Others speak of ‘migratization’ or ‘xenophobia’. Many of these contributions have in common that they conceive of discrimination as occurring after migration. What is more, they focus on the attitudinal dimension of ‘prejudice’, as expressed in the media or the narratives of East–West movers themselves. What thereby slips from view is that racism has geopolitical-economic and legal dimensions, and structures life opportunities. This article explores how categories such as ‘Eastern European’ are invoked, deployed and how they are put to work – via policy or the law. The analysis shows that neoliberal policies have attributed a distinctive positionality to ‘Eastern Europeans’ in West European racial hierarchies. I argue that people from Europe’s East are distinctively, yet ambiguously racialised, and discuss facets of this ambiguity. Most notably, they are inferiorised within Europe, but often positioned within global racialised categories of ‘Europeanness’. This racialisation is not a product of twenty-first century mobilities but reflects and reproduces the peripheralisation of Europe’s East. Of course, racialisation shapes everyday lives after migration; yet, it also channels the life opportunities of those born in the East over the course of generations

Aktueller Forschungsstand: Sind Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund stärker von Covid-19 betroffen?

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Male hypogonadism with its systemic complications

Introduction and purpose: Total lack of testosterone or its level lower than 9-12 mmol/L (250-350 ng/dL) of serum in men is called hypogonadism. Due to the importance of testosterone in male body, hypogonadism usually causes a variety of symptoms, mostly of sexual nature – lack of libido, erectile dysfunction, infertility and associated psychological problems, it can though be the cause of more dangerous changes in the male body. The purpose of this study is to review possible systemic complications of male hypogonadism (with the emphasis on hypogonadotropic hypogonadism) apart from those sex-related.State of knowledge: The lack of testosterone and gonadotropins was proven to cause a number of negative changes in different systems and various clinical situations. It can negatively impact the condition of skeletal system. Although testosterone is widely thought to increase cardiovascular risk some studies show that the hypogonadism has a negative impact on it as well. Some studies hypothesised the role of hypogonadism in anaemia development, but generally it isn’t taken into account in investigation of this condition. Some studies show the impact of hypogonadism on higher risk of some metabolic and endocrine diseases. The most interesting conclusions were found in literature on oncological implications of testosterone and lack of it. It turns out that there is a number of studies showing the positive impact of relatively higher testosterone concentrations while androgen deprivation therapy is the main therapeutic option in advanced prostate cancer.Conclusions: Due to very unpleasant and possibly dangerous complications of hypogonadism endocrinologists should stay alert to signs of hypogonadism to be able to start testosterone replacement in the right moment

A rare case of Raoultella planticola urinary tract infection. A case report with literature review

Urine infections represent 40-50% of all infections in hospitalized patients. The most common uropathogens are E.coli, S.saprophitycus, and less commonly Enterobacteriaceae, such as Proteus mirabilis and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The spectrum of microorganisms isolated in hospital conditions may be wider. Raoultella planticola is a rare cause of human infections, so far only few cases of ZUM with this etiology have been described.A 56-years-old patient, with a history of cardiac disease, with exacerbation of chronic kidney disease, was admitted to the Department of Internal Medicine. The reason for admission was general  deterioration. Many abnormalities in laboratory tests were detected. The doctors' attention was focused on the significant bacteriuria. Moreover, the patient reported dysuria symptoms. Material for urine microbiological culture was taken and empirical antibiotic therapy with ciprofloxacin started. The obtained result of urine culture allowed to identify the bacteria by R. planticola. As a result of the applied treatment, the patient's condition improved.An increasing number of infections with R. planticolla etiology is observed. The bacterium may lead to infections in many systems. The group of patients at risk of the disease includes people with renal dysfunction, who are immunosuppressed. Infections of R. planticolla etiology are usually characterized by good antibiotic response and positive prognosis