Colorblindness in a European Context: Restricting Immigration, Citizenship, and Islam in Germany

• In Event: 510 - Section on Political Sociology Paper Session. The Politics of Immigration and Citizenship

Abstract

“Colorblindness” has been a term used by scholars to characterize a new ideology and regime of race relations that is hegemonic in the post-Civil Rights era US. Colorblindness takes many forms—minimally it is a style, an ideology, and a set of practices. As a new paradigm of “race” relations, scholarship using the concept has largely been applied to the US and Latin American contexts. In addition, research on colorblindness has largely focused on racial attitudes. In this paper, I show that colorblind ideologies have also emerged in the Europe—with specific focus on Germany—though only recently and using a language of “migration” rather than “race.” I also show that colorblindness ideologies are driven by state policy changes, which lead to changes in attitudes. In this way, the mechanism by which colorblindness emerges is state policy. In the German context, colorblindness ideology has emerged with the passage of a new, liberalized nationality act in 1999, and continued over the following decade, most visibly taking place in citizenship policy, immigration policy, and the status of Islam as a recognized religion. More specifically, three instances in nationality and citizenship policy illustrate the emergence of colorblind ideology: 1) a new citizenship test debate and subsequent law; 2) the ‘founding’ of civics/integration courses; 3) new immigration laws related to language acquisition and the spousal migrants of permanent residents and naturalized citizens. The exclusion of Islam as a state-funded religion in contrast to other state-funded religions represents a fourth instance of exclusion.

Author

• Daniel Williams, Macalester College