'Diverse mobilities': second-generation Greek-Germans engage with the homeland as children and as adults

This paper is about the children of Greek labour migrants in Germany. We focus on two life-stages of ‘return’ for this second generation: as young children brought to Greece on holidays or sent back for longer periods, and as young adults exercising an independent ‘return’ migration. We draw both on literature and on our own field interviews with 50 first- and second-generation Greek-Germans. We find the practise of sending young children back to Greece to have been surprisingly widespread yet little documented. Adult relocation to the parental homeland takes place for five reasons: (i) a ‘search for self’; (ii) attraction of the Greek way of life; (iii) the actualisation of the ‘family narrative of return’ by the second, rather than the first, generation; (iv) life-stage events such as going to university or marrying a Greek; (v) escape from a traumatic event or oppressive family situation. Yet the return often brings difficulties, disillusionment, identity reappraisal, and a re-evaluation of the German context

Influence of Coulomb and Phonon Interaction on the Exciton Formation Dynamics in Semiconductor Heterostructures

A microscopic theory is developed to analyze the dynamics of exciton formation out of incoherent carriers in semiconductor heterostructures. The carrier Coulomb and phonon interaction is included consistently. A cluster expansion method is used to systematically truncate the hierarchy problem. By including all correlations up to the four-point (i.e. two-particle) level, the fundamental fermionic substructure of excitons is fully included. The analysis shows that the exciton formation is an intricate process where Coulomb correlations rapidly build up on a picosecond time scale while phonon dynamics leads to true exciton formation on a slow nanosecond time scale.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Diaspora Policies, Consular Services and Social Protection for German Citizens Abroad

This chapter presents an overview of German policies vis-à-vis German nationals living abroad. For the most part, the German Government does not reach out to or encourage engagement from or with German nationals living abroad. This is in contrast to a concerted cultural outreach to ethno-national German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. Rights in Germany are largely residence-based, and access to rights is thus associated with (legal) residence in Germany, rather than with holding German citizenship. There are two clear exceptions: one is a robust system that enables voting from abroad for German citizens, and the other is facilitated access from abroad to pensions for years worked in Germany. With respect to other measures of social protections, no clear policy can be said to exist. Access to other forms of social protection is on the basis of exception, with consular officials exercising discretion in such cases

Political integration by a detour? Ethnic communities and social capital of migrants in Berlin

This article investigates the impact of associational participation of migrants on their political integration in Berlin. Using survey data, we focus on the individual level to see whether migrants who are active in German and/or ethnic organisations are better integrated politically. We test the social capital argument that participation in voluntary organisations is beneficial for political integration and investigate the empirical side of the often normatively-based fear that ethnic self-organisation is a danger to the integration of ethnic groups in the receiving society. We could not find a clear-cut answer to this question. Participation in German organisations does indeed support integration, but the effects of participation in ethnic organisations are more ambiguous: migrants active in ethnic organisations are more politically active, but not more interested in German politics, than migrants who are not active in ethnic organisations. Furthermore, we conclude that the mechanisms behind the social capital argument are different for the ethnic groups under study. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd

Resilient or adaptable Islam? Multiculturalism, religion and migrants' claims-making for group demands in Britain, the Netherlands and France

This article investigates multiculturalism by examining the relationship between migrants’ group demands and liberal states’ policies for politically accommodating cultural and religious difference. It focuses especially on Islam. The empirical research compares migrants’ claims-making for group demands in countries with different traditions for granting recognition to migrants’ cultural difference – Britain, France and the Netherlands. Overall, we find very modest levels of group demands indicating that the challenge of group demands to liberal democracies is quantitatively less than the impression given by much multicultural literature. Group demands turn out to be significant only for Muslims, which holds across different countries. Qualitative analysis reveals problematic relationships between Islam and the state, in the overtly multicultural Dutch approach, within British race relations, and French civic universalism. This implies that there is no easy blueprint for politically accommodating Islam, whose public and religious nature makes it especially resilient to political adaptation

Paradoxen en paniekaanvallen. Een vergelijking tussen Duitsland en Nederland

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