Gendered notions of nation: Integration and the “failure” of inclusive citizenship

Abstract

Inspired by the “gendered turn” in immigration studies, this paper traces the particular ways that Germany's immigration history has been marked with gendered concerns, from its earliest policy on guest workers to its more recent commitment to promoting integration among newcomers. Utilizing the National Integration Plan (2007) as a lens through which to examine this trajectory, this analysis suggests that the Plan's specific, gendered provisions not only mark immigrant women as “imperiled Others” but also ignore structural factors that influence, and sometimes hinder, integration. In so doing, the German state maintains notions of an egalitarian, emancipated, and progressive citizenry, while crafting an integration policy that is both coercive and non-inclusive—and that continues to mark immigrant women both as obstacles to integration, and as intrinsically “un-German.”