Arriving in the German world

Former President of the Bundestag Rita Süssmuth and Olaf Zimmermann, Executive Director of the German Cultural Council, presented the study “Arriving in German Society: Migrant Enculturation and Regional Resilience in a Single World” at Berlin’s Café Einstein on October 6, 2016, together with the study’s lead author, Matthias Theodor Vogt. The cultural policy scholar is a professor in the Faculty of Managerial and Cultural Studies at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and heads the Institute for Cultural Infrastructure in Saxony.

Focusing on Potential and Challenges

The “we” in Angela Merkel’s “We can do it!” has a dual focus: the host society and those being welcomed. “Arriving in the German Social World. Migrant Enculturation and Regional Resilience in One World” is the first study in Germany to examine the potential and challenges of cultural assimilation in the integration process while focusing on both groups.

The Russian Gerassimov Doctrine aims to undermine a society. (It was published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces one year before the occupation of Crimea and was then implemented in Crimea almost to the letter.) The study quotes Gerasimov and then poses the reverse question: What form of culture-based policy is capable of counteracting the disintegration of German society? Can “worlds of imagination” be shaped to promote social cohesion? Why isn’t culture-based policy being used for both: for the proactive integration of migrants and for domestic integration?

Shortcomings and Recommendations for Action

The political upheavals surrounding the so-called “refugee crisis” have brought structural weaknesses in the German state into sharper focus. The reader will find a wide range of perspectives and arguments that extend far beyond the immigration debate to date and reveal the significant theoretical and data gaps regarding cultural assimilation processes.

A series of recommendations for action illustrates how integration can work, how the formation of mental or spatial ghettos can be avoided, and how greater cohesion within German society could be achieved.

In his afterword, Olaf Zimmermann notes: “With his book, Vogt provides an impressive collection of material that arose from current demands but extends far beyond them. This book has what it takes to become a standard work, as it provides an overview of the various scholarly approaches to describing cultural integration through a synthesis of different disciplines.”

The study is being published simultaneously as Volumes 1–2, 2016, of the *European Journal of Minority Issues* and as a book by Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag.

Here you can find Prof. Vogt’s speech as well as an excerpt from the study available for download.