How can individuals be expected to integrate into a society that systematically restricts their access to rights and opportunities? Beneath legal classifications and policy frameworks lie personal experiences shaped by instability, resilience, and exclusion. This text looks at how German migration law both supports and limits integration, using legal examples and experiences from social work

The question of who narrates, who shapes the global dialogue in which we live on this earth is as old as humanity itself. Especially with the discourse of decolonization and the rise of right-wing extremist governments in the 21st century, it becomes crucial to examine the categories we use to describe people and places, such

Waiting is a condition that defines the lives of countless refugees and migrants, yet it remains largely invisible in public discourse. For Palestinians in particular, the experience of waiting has become even more unbearable as news of war and destruction in Gaza reaches them from afar. Between headlines from Gaza, daily life in Europe, and

As part of the DiaMiGo II Summer Research Academy 2025, held from 31 May to 4 June at the University of Cologne, the panel Inclusion & Exclusion in the Perspective of Environmental (In)justice brought together scholars and practitioners to examine how migration, environmental change, and politics of belonging are increasingly entangled. The panel built on

During the DiaMiGo Summer School of 2025, we read a story titled “The Truck to Berlin” from “The Madman of Freedom Square”, a short story collection from 2009 by Hassan Blasim, originally written in Arabic, but published in English translated by Jonathan Wright. In the course of the DiaMiGo Summer School we discussed the story

During the DiaMiGo Summer School in a workshop with Nine Fumiko Yamamoto-Masson, we talked about the term “Kafkaesque.“ It describes moments when reality tips into the absurd, when logic no longer applies and you find yourself stuck in a situation that feels both nightmarish and strangely normal. One Kafkaesque moment that immediately came to my

Migrants who belong to ethnic or linguistic minorities – such as Kurds or Imazighen – have often been subjected to assimilationist pressure long before arriving in Germany. In their countries of origin, speaking their native language or asserting their cultural identity could result in repression, invisibility, or exclusion. The nature and intensity of these pressures

This text examines how political concepts become depoliticized when they migrate into academic discourse, focusing on the case of “Relational Integration” in Migration Studies. To trace the evolution of the discourse, I draw on three key moments in its conceptual history: mainstream approaches that treat integration as a valid response to migration (such as Alba,

Unveiling Power Dynamics: Insights from the Autumn Research Academy on Migration Governance in the Mediterranean Region   The debate around migration, as well as the academic and practical approach to migration are inextricably linked to power dynamics. This became particularly clear in the contributions during the Autumn Research Academy “Dialogues on Migration Governance in the

When I moved to Egypt, I never thought I’d call 6th of October City my home. October is located far out in the Egyptian desert, past the Pyramids, and it’s roughly a one-hour drive from downtown Cairo. It’s quite a peaceful city, and the home to thousands of displaced families from Sudan, Syria, and other