Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xli:1 (Été, 2010), 79–95.

NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BORDERS

Riva Kastoryano
Negotiations beyond Borders: States and
Immigrants in Postcolonial Europe Since the 1990s,
studies of immigration in Europe have focused extensively on
comparative state policy with regard to integration and citizen-
ship, as initiated by Rogers Brubaker in Citizenship and Nationhood
in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass., 1992). Lately, debates
about the politics of recognition as a principle of democratic in-
corporation have raised the question of multiculturalism and iden-
tity politics in different democratic states. Just as the principle of
citoyenneté, public recognition, and representation of differences
challenged democratic states’ approach to diversity and equal citi-
zenship, these new developments countered the dichotomist view
opposing assimilation (and/or integration) and multiculturalism.
They have led to convergent policies founded on negotiations of
identities between states and immigrants as a new path to a new
“historical compromise,” as formulated by Taylor. Negotiations as
a result of intensive interactions between states and their immi-
grants enabled individuals and groups to claim recognition as citi-
zens, through which the attachment and loyalty to both national
community and ethnic community were expressed. For states, ne-
gotiations implied new ways to incorporate immigrants into the
political community and national institutions.1

Throughout these developments, the issues of immigration
and integration remained within the exclusive power of the state.
States deªned policies of entry by establishing quotas or by target-
ing the country through bilateral agreements, as most of the Euro-
pean countries did after 1960. The oil crisis of 1973 prompted Eu-
ropean countries to restrict entries while ensuring family re-
uniªcation for legal migrants. This new step has been perceived as
a transition from immigration policy to integration policy. États

Riva Kastoryano is Research Director, CNRS (French National Center for Scientiªc Re-
recherche), and Professor, Sciences Po, Paris. She is the author of Negotiating Identities: States and
Immigrants in France and Germany (Princeton, 2002); “Religion and Incorporation: Islam in
France and Germany,” International Migration Review, XXXVIII (2004), 1234–1256.

1 Kastoryano, Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and Germany (Princeton,
2002); CharlesTaylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, 1992).

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80 | RIVA KASTORYANO

deªned policies of integration for children and parents with re-
spect to education and housing. States established laws of citizen-
ship and the rules of political participation for immigrants. Their
objective, cependant, has largely switched to maintaining national
integrity and protecting social harmony. The nature of a state, comme
well as the relationship between sending and receiving countries,
played an important role in the decisions that immigrants made
about their ultimate destinations.

But states faced new developments and dynamics that affected
their relationship with immigrants inside and outside their bound-
aries. In Europe, more speciªcally in the European Union (eu) comme
deªned by the Single European Act of 1986—a “space without in-
ternal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, of property
and capital is safeguarded”—the Schengen agreement that led to
the Treaty of Amsterdam introduced “visas, asylum, immigration
and other policies related to free movement of persons.” The
Treaty of Lisbon reformulated the Schengen agreement and initi-
ated “policies on border checks, asylum and immigration.” Thus,
states coordinated their policy of immigration and cooperated to
protect a common border from ºows of immigration. From this
perspective, issues like, d'un côté, the incorporation of im-
migrants into a state and, on the other hand, the political construc-
tion of the eu, have urged new reºection upon the limits of states
in their treatment of immigrants. These two phenomena inde-
pendently raised questions about the relevance of the nation-state
and the relationship between citizenship, identité, and territor-
iality.2

Parallel to these changes, immigrants with the status of per-
manent residents or legal citizens of one state increasingly fostered
solidarity networks across national borders on the grounds of one
or several identities, linking the home country to the country of
residence and, in the case of the eu, to a broader European space.
Such transnational organizations sought recognition from suprana-
tional institutions as loci of collective identity. The emergence of
transnational associations underscored the development of multi-
ple transspatial interactions between national societies (both home
and host), between national and supranational institutions, and be-
tween member states of the eu. Such transnational organizations

2 Didier Bigo, Police en réseaux (Paris, 1995).

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 81

created opportunities for political participation that went beyond
national territories; multi-level interactions created social, cultural,
économique, and political bonds among immigrants. Political partic-
ipation in more then one political community, which brought to
light multiple memberships and, to some extent, multiple loyalties
founded on dual citizenship, became a way for immigrants to
maintain an identity rooted in a home country. Citizenship be-
came an entitlement within the country of residence. Home states
were thus able to maintain a link with citizens “abroad” and ex-
tend power beyond their territories.3

These transformations reshaped the nature and the scope of
negotiations between states and immigrants. The extension of sol-
idarities beyond national boundaries of both home country and
immigration country, and its expression on a transnational plateau,
challenged states’ singular authority on matters of immigration and
incorporation. This article shows that in this new conªguration,
negotiations between states and immigrants exceeded customary
borders, permitting states to maintain the “power” of incorpora-
tion and citizenship while they expanded their inºuence beyond
their territories and competed with transnational communities in
the process of economic and cultural globalization.

europe and its immigrants
Studies show that despite differ-
ences in history with regard to immigration, idéologie, and the as-
similation of immigrants, all of the European countries face issues
related to immigration and integration; some of them have done
so since the mid-nineteenth century. Immigration to France, pour
example, always occurred primarily as a response to a demo-
graphic problem combined with a need to expand the labor mar-
ket. By the end of the nineteenth century, foreigners represented
3 percent of France’s total population, reaching 6 percent twenty-
ªve years later. Other European countries, such as Germany,
Great Britain, and the Netherlands, have a long reputation as ori-
gins of emigration; individuals from these countries migrated to
the new World in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in search
of new economic opportunities. After World War II and, plus

3 Kastoryano, “Transnational Networks and Political Participation: The Place of Immi-
grants in the European Union,” in Mable Berezin and Martin Schain (éd.), Europe Without
Borders: Remapping Territory, Citizenship and Identity in a Transnational Age (Baltimore, 2003),
64–89.

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82 | RIVA KASTORYANO

speciªcally, during the 1950s and the 1960s, European countries
competed for cheap labor to rebuild their economy and their soci-
ety after years of destruction.4

Colonial opportunity and economic need shaped the trajec-
tories of immigrants in France, Great Britain, Belgium, et le
Netherlands. The migration of North Africans to France followed
the massive arrival of Italians between the two wars and an inºux
from the Iberian Peninsula starting in the 1950s. Great Britain re-
ceived migrants from former colonies of the British Empire—In-
dia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, Afrique du Sud, Kenya,
et Hong Kong. Many people have migrated to the Netherlands,
in particular from Indonesia, Surinam, and the Netherlands Antil-
les, after decolonization in the 1970s. Immigration in Germany,
cependant, was mainly the result of an employment policy. Malgré
scholarship emphasizing demographic reasons,
studies mainly
show that immigration ªlled lacunas in the labor market. After
World War II, foreign manpower was essential for economic re-
construction in the eastern Mediterranean, Grèce, the former
Yugoslavia, and Turkey.5

But colonial ties are no longer a determining factor in Eu-
rope. Increasing mobility, standardized social relations, convergent
politics of immigration, and globalized markets now generate a
form of geographical and historical indifference: Algerians do not
just go to France; nor do Indians and Pakistanis go solely to Great
Britain. Constructed networks driven by market and social oppor-
tunities in different countries have replaced the colonial ties that
once led immigrants in their choice of trajectory. Refugees have
come in droves to Great Britain under the United Nations Refu-
gee Convention of 1951. After 2004, immigrants from member

4 For France, see Yves Lequin (éd.), La Mosaïque France: Histoire des Étrangers et de l’Immigra-
tion (Paris, 1988); Gerard Noirel, Le creuset française: Histoire d’immigration, XIXe et Xxe siècle
(Paris, 1988); Michèle Tribalat
(éd.), Cent ans d’immigration: Étrangers d’hier, Français
d’aujourd’hui (Paris, 1991). For Germany, the best-known historical works are by Klaus J.
Bade—for example, Population, Labour and Migration in 19th and 20th Century Germany (Ox-
ford, 1987). See also Ulrich Herbert, Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland: Saison-
arbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flüchtlinge (Gebundene Ausgabe) (Berlin, 1986).
5 The recruitment of laborers began as early as 1955 after the ªrst agreement between the
Italian and West German governments. Similar agreements followed with Greece and Spain
(1960), Turkey (1961), Morocco (1963), Portugal (1964), Tunisia (1965), and Yugoslavia
(1968). For different phases in the immigration of ethnic Germans to Germany, see Rainer
Münz and Ralf Ulrich, “Germany and Its Immigrants: A Socio-Demographic Analysis,” Jour-
nal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, XXIV (1998), 25–56.

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 83
states of the eu—mainly Central and Eastern Europe, consequent
to the eu’s enlargement—have also predominantly chosen Great
Britain. Italians are the most numerous of the foreigners legally re-
siding in Belgium; the Moroccans are the second-largest group,
followed by the Turks, and Spanish.6

Aujourd'hui, foreign-born people constitute an average of 8 par-
cent of the total population of these European countries. Le
French National Institute of Statistics (insee) estimated in 2006
que 4.9 million foreign-born immigrants lived in France. Dans 2004,
8.3 percent of the population of Great Britain were born abroad,
although the census gives no indication of their immigration status
or intended length of stay. Germany had 7.3 million foreigners
(Ausländer), environ 8.9 percent of the population, à la
end of 2002. Countries known for emigration—like Italy, Espagne,
and Greece—until the 1970s and even 1980s are now experienc-
ing immigration and settlement from Africa and Asia or, dans le
case of Spain, Latin America.7

The 1980s constituted a turning point in the relationship be-
tween states and immigrants. By then, public authorities, politique-
makers, and public opinion had begun to view immigrants who
were once considered provisory as “here to stay.” These settlers
were accompanied by new narratives on the nature of the state,
the nation, society, and rights. The term multiculturalism marked
in this context the shift from temporary economic immigration to
the permanent settlement of immigrant populations and their po-
litical participation. Policies followed narratives—implying, depuis
the state perspective, the extension of the welfare state to the
realm of immigration and identity, with the establishment of social
policies to guarantee integration in the larger society.

The city of Frankfurt, Allemagne, created a sector of “Multi-
cultural Affairs,” the head of which, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, also the
deputy mayor, advocated a “multicultural democracy” inspired by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract. During the same period,
the French media, as a political class, described French society as
“multiracial,” “multicultural,” “plural,” and “pluri-cultural.” This

See Marco Martiniello and Andrea Rea, “Belgium’s Immigration Policy Brings Renewal

6
and Challenges,” report, Migration Policy Institute, Octobre 2003.
7 According to the latest statistics of insee, 8% of the country’s population were immigrants
according to their country of birth in 1999 et 2004/5. Statistics Online, Octobre 24, 2006, à
http://www.insee.fr/en/ .

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84 | RIVA KASTORYANO

terminology found legitimacy in a political discourse that privi-
leged “the right to difference” established in 1981. As early as
1976, Great Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality promul-
gated the Race Relations Act, the main objectives of which were
to ªght racism, eliminate discrimination, and assure equality of
opportunity to establish good relations among different racial
groupes. The Netherlands sought to elaborate a minority policy
with the participation of the immigrants involved, ªrst, with a
“Draft Minorities Report” (1981) et, plus tard, with a “Minorities
Report” (1983). The intent was to promote “multiculturalism and
the emancipation of ethnic communities.”8

Since the 1980s, the governments of many European coun-
tries have started to subsidize immigrants’ voluntary associations,
so long as their activities came within the framework of “integra-
tion policies.” In France, the liberalization of the law in October
1981 allowed foreigners to create their own organizations. Ainsi
did spontaneous gathering based on interpersonal relations in con-
centrated areas ªnd an institutional and formal structure. At the
same time, Turkish associations appeared on the public stage in
Germany as a result of synchronized imitation or political conta-
gion. Associations in Germany are regulated by a 1964 law stipu-
lating that “any group, even of foreigners, can associate legally on
condition of not disturbing the public order or the economic in-
terests of the Federal Republic.”

Within these associations, individuals of the same national,
régional, ethnic, or religious origin formed a collective iden-
tity, distinguished boundaries, created new bonds of solidarity,
and learned the political “rules of the game” that positioned them
ces
before the state. As discourse alternated with action,
community-oriented organizations increasingly became a refuge,
even a sanctuary, where interpretations of culture, religion, na-
tion, and ethnicity were solidiªed, ultimately to be negotiated
with public authorities. Such a re-deªnition of identities found le-
gitimacy in public debates, reinforced by local and/or national
policies. This simple raising of consciousness about cultural differ-
ences quickly transformed into political action when accompanied
by demands from the state that such differences be recognized.

Jan Rath, Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (cemoti), je
8
(1985), at http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/publica/cemoti/textes1/rath.pdf (Novembre 30,
2009).

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 85

The dual objective was to develop a collective awareness and inte-
grate immigrant populations into state structures.

citizenship The politics of integration and the mobilization of
immigrants brought the question of citizenship to the forefront of
immigration studies. The concept of citizenship is mainly deªned
by membership in a political community, which takes shape
through rights (sociale, politique, and cultural) and duties. Its imple-
mentation by law implies the integration or the incorporation of
“foreigners” into a national community theoretically sharing the
same moral and political values. De plus, these foreigners are
supposed to adopt, or even “appropriate,” historical references as a
proof of belonging and of loyalty to a nation’s founding principles.
Debates about citizenship and nationhood reveal precisely
such expectations. They refer to the formation of the nation-state,
its political traditions, and its identity. From this perspective, le
understanding of citizenship in France and Germany—republics
with different histories and different political traditions—are in
opposition. France views itself as the ideal nation-state, evincing
egalitarian principals based on a “national assimilation,” unlike
Allemagne, which has an “exclusivist” orientation. Although
French public discourse has always emphasized the elective and
political conception of the nation, Germany’s understanding of
citizenship inclines more toward a cultural and ethnic unity based
on common descent. Such representations are reºected in each
country’s laws regarding access to citizenship, privileging jus solis
(law of soil, or birthright citizenship) in France and jus sanguinis
(law of blood) en Allemagne, in reality a combination of both in all
countries.9

The issues surrounding immigration, settlement, and equality
have changed the understanding and the laws of citizenship in
both France and Germany by balancing ancestry with birth, et
blood with soil. En effet, according to recent citizenship laws in
France, children born from foreign parents can become French at
the age of sixteen, whereas in Germany, children born in Ger-
many, as of January 2000, automatically become German if one of
their parents was born in Germany or has resided therein continu-
ously for the last eight years.10

See Brubaker, Citzenship and Nationhood; Louis Dumont, L’idéologie allemande: France-

9
Allemagne et retour (Paris, 1991).
10 Patrick Weil, How to Be French (Durham, 2009; orig. pub. Paris, 2002, as Qu’est-ce qu’un

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86 | RIVA KASTORYANO

Citizenship and naturalization laws affect the political partici-
pation of immigrants both individually and collectively. Immi-
grants to France and Germany, Par exemple, have employed dif-
ferent political tools and strategies. In France, where access to
citizenship follows an easy process of naturalization, jus solis per-
force,
mits young immigrants to act directly as an electoral
whereas in Germany, the restricted citizenship laws in place before
2000 and the ongoing interdiction of dual citizenship (despite the
demands of Turkish immigrants) forced activists to develop such
“compensatory” techniques as mobilization within voluntary asso-
ciations to affect public opinion and exert pressure on political de-
cisions. The strategies developed by militants do not exclude inte-
gration. On the contrary, they lead to a search for indirect
methods to achieve it, often starting at the local level. Debates
about foreigners’ right to vote in local elections (in Germany and
France), the presence of spokesmen to represent minority posi-
tion, and the demand for equal rights in almost every European
country demonstrated the importance of political participation for
immigrants.11

Citizenship has become an identity developed through direct
or indirect participation, in the name of shared interests, for the
common good. In every case, political participation emerged from
community action. It placed the very concept of citizenship at the
antipodes of exclusion, highlighting its social aspects while main-
taining its political and legal import. In the nineteenth century,
cependant, citizenship was extended to such different domains as
éducation, health, and welfare. Immediately after World War II,
Marshall reconsidered citizenship in terms of social class, adding to
its political and legal content. According to Marshall, le social
rights of citizenship normally follow the granting of political
droits. As far as immigrant populations in Europe are concerned,
cependant, social rights precede political rights. Immigrants acquire

Français? Histoire e la nationalité française depuis la Révolution). Under transitional arrangements
in the reforms that went into effect on January 1, 2000, children born in Germany in 1990 ou
later who would have been German had the change in the law been in force at the time were
entitled to be naturalized as German citizens. Applicants for German citizenship could not be
older than twenty-three and could hold no other citizenship at that time. Dual citizenship is
still illegal.
11
the highest rate ever.

Dans 1999 et 2000, 103,900 et 82,861 Turks, respectivement, were naturalized in Germany,

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 87

“social citizenship” on arrival, at the same time as their integration
into the labor market, receiving the protection of equal social and
human rights from each state.12

Ainsi, the practice of citizenship has gone beyond its legal
deªnition. It stems from the political engagement of individuals,
and applies to different domains, expressed in the language of par-
ticipation appropriate to the public spaces of particular cultural,
ethnic, or religious communities, as well as within national com-
munities. Such multiple identiªcations and allegiances that result
from political participation raise the question of loyalty to a nation
of residence, as evident in discourse about citizenship and nation-
hood, especially from parties of the extreme right. Since the 1980s,
in fact, apprehensions about the depreciation and “desacralization”
of citizenship, as manifested by the attachment of immigrants or
foreigners to their places of origin and their “primordial ties” with
a transposed cultural community at the expense of their country of
résidence, have escalated.

recognition Whatever the discourse or the practice, and what-
ever the deªnition of minority or citizenship, European countries
have gradually converged in a sort of “applied multiculturalism,»
linking the matter of citizenship to that of recognition. Si
politique, judicial, sociale, or economic, citizenship in all of its com-
plexity boils down to a sense of loyalty directed toward a group, un
community, a civil society, and a state. The demand for recogni-
tion allows groups that claim a speciªc identity to emerge from the
political sidelines and fully integrate within state structures. Dans
France, Allemagne, and Great Britain, recognition of the Islamic
community as a collective force is a particularly uncomfortable
prospect.13

In France, the treatment of North African immigrants by lo-
cal and national authorities since the 1990s has been guided by a
“fear of Islam.” At the same time, the widespread belief that the
French notion of secular “republican citizenship” (laicité, le

12 For citizenship as a subjective feeling of membership and citizenship as political engage-
ment, see Jean Leca, “Individualisme et citoyenneté,” in Pierre Birnbaum et idem (éd.), Sur
l’individualisme (Paris, 1986), 159–213. Thomas Humphrey Marshall, Class, Citizenship and So-
cial Development
(Chicago, 1964). Yasemin Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and
Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago, 1994), notices a reverse in the order of immi-
grants’ social and political rights in Western Europe.
13

See Taylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition.

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88 | RIVA KASTORYANO

vaunted pillar of French social cohesion) is incompatible with an
attachment to religious and ethnic identity has made Islam a seri-
ous point of contention in France, especially after students of
North African origin began wearing Islamic scarves to school (ªrst
dans 1989 and then in 1994). Associations of North African immi-
grants increasingly brought Islam into the discourse of action or
reaction. Even the putatively secular ones conspicuously cele-
brated such Islamic holidays as Ramadan and performed animal
sacriªce. Although the state did not ofªcially support religious or-
state funding for public-service and community
ganizations,
groups that incorporated Islamic culture into their activities con-
ferred a kind of public acceptance on religious organizations, à
least in the eyes of the Muslim population. At ªrst comprising
only one component of a largely nonreligious culture, Islam even-
tually came to signify an entire culture in its own right, another
way of “reappropriating” identity.

In Germany, ethnic minorities claiming Turkish national
identity and Muslim religious identity, two elements considered
“foreign” to German collective identity, are demanding recogni-
tion. The national minority deªnes itself by its legal status as for-
eign, while the religious minority deªnes itself by the marginaliza-
tion of Islam compared with other religions that beneªt from
ofªcial status. The demands by Turks for dual citizenship intro-
duced clear distinctions between nationality, citoyenneté, and iden-
tity. Not coincidentally, dans 1998, when the laws concerning access
to German nationality came under discussion, the case of a natu-
ralized German teacher of Afghan origin who wore a headscarf at
work in Baden-Württemberg upset German public authorities just
as much as the wearing of headscarves by students had in France.14
Since then, Germany has witnessed numerous public debates
about the function of civil servants and the wearing of headscarves,
mainly by teachers. Court decisions on the matter varied from one
region to another. In some cases, arguments focused on the com-
petence and skill of the teachers and in other cases on public edu-
cation and the diffusion of Western education and norms. In any

“Scarf affairs” have been adjudicated in various countries according to the “guarantee of
14
religious freedom” and the freedom of religious practice (Article 4 of the Basic Law for the
Federal Republic of Germany [Grungesetz], promulgated in 1949), which includes the free-
dom to bear the external signs of religiosity. See Christian Joppke, Veil: Mirror of Identity
(Cambridge, 2009).

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 89

event, this particular controversy is related to the problem of how
to incorporate “foreign minorities” into a political community
and a civil society. Ainsi, the eventual recognition of a “Muslim
community” by public authorities was not lost on those seeking
the full integration of Turkish immigrants into German society.
Debates and arguments about religion in Europe center on
the relationship between church and state in order to interpret and
acknowledge diversity with regard to Muslim immigration. Le
demand for Islamic representation within national institutions and
societies tests the acceptance of multiculturalism as a secular prin-
ciple throughout Europe. Islam has thus become a touchstone for
vaunted claims of social, cultural, and racial equality.

Failure to recognize Islamic communities often seems to con-
found the equal inclusion of differences. In order to resolve the
conºicts that Islam brought to the secularist public spaces and po-
litical communities, leading liberal-democratic societies in Europe
have responded to pressures either by reshaping their institutions
to allow for a general recognition of Islam or, as Parekh observes,
by extending these institutions to include Islam outright in society.
À cet égard, Islam derives its legitimacy from the equal represen-
tation of religions in liberal-democratic societies within a common
civic culture granting all citizens adequate identiªcation.15

In France, the separation of church and state grants judicial
statutes to the Catholic clergy, to the Protestants of the National
Federation of Protestant Churches of France, and to Jews (accord-
ing to the Central Consistory of the Jews of France created by Na-
poleon). Such “recognition” is founded on freedom of religion
and the neutrality of the secular state. The recognition of Islam led
to a repositioning of the different religions in public space. Sur
Avril 16, 2003, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded in
creating a French Council of the Muslim Faith (Conseil Français
du Culte Musulman), which elected its ªrst national representa-
tive.16

Germany faces the same questions about the place of Islam in

15 Biku Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 2000).
16 According to Danièle Lochak, “Les minorités dans le droit public français: du refus des
différences à la gestion des différences,” in Alain Fenet and Gérard Soulier (éd.), Les minorités
et leur droits depuis 1789 (Paris, 1989), 111–184, “The state’s ignoring of differences is conªned
to religion.” Although France rejects the notion of “minority,” the term appears in legal texts
in reference to “religious minority.”

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90 | RIVA KASTORYANO

public instruction as it did regarding the Christian faiths. The Is-
lamic Federation of Berlin, hoping to gather all Muslim associa-
tions in the Land of Berlin, asked for recognition as Religions-
gemeischaft in 1980 and received this status in 2000. After twenty
years of ªghting for representation, the federation obtained autho-
rization for Islamic instruction in 2001.17

Great Britain’s targeted discrimination has led sociologists to
call for the inclusion of religion—speciªcally, Islam—in ethnic
and racial policy and for the formal protection of religion through
anti-discrimination laws. The Race Relations Act (1976) estab-
lished color (Black and White) as the locus of race and racism and
of racial and ethnic categorization. The fatwa of Ayatolla Ruhollah
Khomeini calling for the death of Salmon Rushdie had an effect in
Britain similar to that of the scarf affair in France (by coincidence,
the ªrst scarf affair in France occurred in November 1989, right af-
ter the Rushdie affair in Britain), locating Islam at the core of the
collective identity of Asian migrants. According to Modood, dans
the eyes of Britain’s anti-discrimination law, Muslims do not com-
prise an ethnic group per se, despite the signiªcance of religion to
British Asian ethnicity. Ainsi, the political indifference to Mus-
lims, or rather their exclusion from ethnic and racial policy, “dis-
proportionably disadvantages them and has marginalized them
from the public debate.”18

Institutional recognition maintains the state as both the legiti-
mate source of power and the legal and democratic guarantor of
equal representation and citizenship. This approach therefore em-
phasizes historical continuity and the importance of context in ei-

17
Since the 1990s, three Länder have attempted to integrate Islam into the public schools.
Since religious instruction in Berlin is largely associated with the churches, instruction of the
Koran has been placed under the supervision of the Turkish state through the intermediary of
the Diyanet, its ofªcial organ. Dependent on the prime minister of Turkey, the Diyanet, le
state secretary in charge of religious affairs, is represented in Europe by an organization called
the Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt für Religion eV (ditip), which recruits and dis-
tributes imams to the public schools of large European cities. The presence of these imams,
along with that of Turkish secular teachers, is included in the bilateral agreements that initially
governed the provision of Turkish language classes and, depuis 1984, religion classes, both of
which are outside the standard curriculum. In Hamburg, a Social Democratic (spd) Land, lan-
guage teachers, even of Turkish nationality, are civil servants. Instruction in Islam takes place
the nondenominational Religionspedagogik program. In northern
under the auspices of
Westphalia, teachers of theology, scientists, and Christian pedagogues are responsible for im-
plementing a curriculum of Islam. Süddetsche Zeitung, 26 Oct. 2001.
18 Tariq Modood, Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity and Muslims
(Minneaopolis, 2005).

in Britain

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 91

ther a descriptive or normative analysis of identities. Asking for
recognition as a minority allows a group that declares a speciªc
identity to emerge from political marginality to express a struggle
for liberation. A national identiªcation or an “institutional assimi-
lation” through representation and political recognition can help
to “liberate” Muslim populations in Europe from external political
forces of the home country, as well as from transnational net-
travaux, and to push them to participate fully in a political commu-
nity.19

transnational integration Gans analyzed the international
dimension of ethnoreligious identiªcation as a component of
“symbolic ethnicity,” deªned as an ethnicity of last resort. Dans
politique, such ethnic identiªcation is expressed through inter-
national preoccupation, especially with a country of origin. Since
les années 1990, studies of the international preoccupation of post-
colonial immigration have noted the emergence of transnational
communities—that is, individual, commercial, institutional (polit-
ical, cultural, and social) relations that immigrants entertain in two
countries—which gave rise to new practices and symbols. In most
cases, transnational communities were built on common geo-
graphical, cultural, and political references—hence, their relative
homogeneity, the intensity of their intra-communal relations, et
the efªciency of their actions.20

The emergence of transnational communities has become a
“global phenomenon.” Groups and/or institutions create net-
works based on economic interests, cultural exchanges, social rela-

19 Kastoryano, “Religion and Incorporation: Islam in France and Germany,” International
Migration Review, XXXVIII (2004), 1234–1256.
20 Herbert Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in
America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, II (1976), 1–21. See Linda Basch, Nina Schiller, et
Cristina Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments
et
Deterritorialized Nation-States (Londres, 1997; orig. pub. 1993); Robin Cohen, Global Diaspo-
ras: An Introduction (Seattle, 1997); Akhil Gupta and Jamees Ferguson (éd.), Culture, Power,
Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (Durham, 1997); Ulf Hannertz, Transnational Connec-
tion: Culture, Personnes, Places (Londres, 1996); Alejandro Portes, “Transnational Communities:
Their Emergence and Signiªcance in the Contemporary World System,” in Roberto P.
Korzeniewicz and William C. Forgeron (éd.), Latin America in the World Economy (Westport,
Conn., 1996); Peggy Levitt, “Local-Level Global Religion: The Case of U.S.-Dominican
Migration,” Journal for the Scientiªc Study of Religion, XXXVII (1998), 74–89; idem, “Trans-
nationalizing Community Development: The Case of Migration Between Boston and the
Dominican Republic,” Nonproªt and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, XXVI (1997), 509–526.

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92 | RIVA KASTORYANO

tion, and political mobilizations, facilitated by increasing mobility
and the development of communications. The institutionalization
of a transnational community requires a coordination of activities
connected via common references, both objective and subjective;
common interests among members; and shared resources, infor-
mation, and sites of social power across national borders for politi-
cal, cultural, économique, technological, and social purposes.21

In the eu, transnational communities—whether based on lo-
cal initiatives, emanating from countries of origin, or encouraged
institutions—transcend the boundaries of the
by supranational
member states, relating a vast European space to the country of or-
igin. Dans 1986, the European Parliament mobilized resources to
help immigrants to coordinate their voluntary associations by es-
tablishing a European transnational organization called The Fo-
rum of Migrants. Before it dissolved in 2001, the Forum initiated a
European federation of immigrant associations to create “a place
where immigrants from non-European countries can express their
claims, but also a place through which they can share their de-
mands and circulate information from European authorities.” Ac-
cording to the president of the Forum (related to the Commission
in Brussels), “the objective was to obtain for non-Europeans third
countries’ nationals settled in member states, the same rights and
opportunities as the ‘authoctone’ citizens of the Union, and com-
pensate a democratic deªcit.” The explicit goal was to ªght
against racism within a single jurisdiction comprising different Eu-
ropean countries.

Guided by the logic of regulation and of political and juridical
harmonization that they imposed on nation-states, European su-
pranational institutions have encouraged a global structure and
deªned a common platform for their network. They have also in-
tervened in the deªnition of criteria on which this larger commu-
nity should rely, and helped those involved to ªnd a common de-
nominator to deal with problems at a European level, au-delà
their relations with particular nation-states. Thus have they played
an important role in the diffusion of social, cultural, politique, et
even juridical norms in both European host countries and coun-
tries of origin. Initiatives on all levels sustained activists in their de-
velopment of political strategies and activities across states.

21 David Held et al., Global Transformations: Politique, Economics and Culture (Stanford, 1999).

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 93

The elaboration of such transnational organization clearly re-
vealed multiple references and allegiances—to host countries, à
home countries, to the transnational community under construc-
tion, and to Europe as a whole. Whether immigrants are citizens
of a host country or not, their loyalty to it derives from sharing its
institutions.
values and contributing to its social and political
The home country, despite its cultural and ethnic heterogeneity,
provides emotional support and identity resources. A transna-
tional community combining ties to both host countries and
home countries represents a new reference of involvement, giving
rise to a transnational identity as an inspiration for political action
and as an instrument for cultural and religious purposes beyond
national borders.

Religious associations use European resources in the same
way that cultural and social associations do, notwithstanding their
lack of support from either secular national or supranational insti-
tutions. Even though the political identities of Muslim immigrants
primarily belong to their host states, the international agenda for
Muslims ªnds expression in transnational networks throughout
Europe and elsewhere that encompass numerous nationalities of
origin, regional allegiances, and even religious denominations.
The transnational agenda can call for a collective identiªcation
with Muslims in Europe and/or with Muslims in the world in
général. Representatives of such associations work in connection
with home countries and/or with the help of international organi-
zations.

Home countries try to rally their nationals to mobilize emo-
tions in order to maintain their ties with them. Ainsi, they re-
activate loyalties through religion and nationality and contribute
to the creation of a “transnational community.” The international
organizations interested in Islam throughout Europe mobilize re-
sources to allow Islam to reach beyond the various countries of the
eu to create a single religious identiªcation and a transnational sol-
idarity based on it. From this perspective, Islam has provided a ba-
sis for trans-state and transnational organization through the com-
mon experience of being Muslim in Europe. For postcolonial
immigrants, fragmented by various home and host national identi-
ties and denominations, Islam represents a unifying force that tran-
scends the troublesome boundaries of individual member states.
This transnational community also beneªts from the norms and

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94 | RIVA KASTORYANO

values diffused by European human-rights activists, whose work
tends further to legitimate diversity on the international stage.

The ultimate strategy of these national and ethnic identities is
to achieve the kind of recognition that social and cultural associa-
tions enjoy. Despite the political inºuence of their home countries
and of international organizations on their behalf, their claims are
adapted primarily to their respective European contexts. But they
also raise a question that pertains to umbrella European institu-
tion, especially since the European Convention of Human Rights
recognizes freedom of religion. As Article 9 of the European
Court of Human Rights states, “Every person has the right to
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right implies
the freedom to have or adopt a religion or conviction of one’s
choice, as well as the freedom to demonstrate one’s religion or
conviction, individually or collectively, in public or in private,
through worship and instruction, including the practice and per-
formance of rituals.”22

Transnational networks have introduced a new mode of political
participation that reaches beyond the nation-state to different lev-
els and areas of rights and identiªcations. Transnational networks
appear more and more as crucial structures representing identities
and interests inside and outside state boundaries. The paradox of
transnationality is that it generally aims to inºuence what happens
within a state via solidarities that are external to it. These transna-
tional networks and “external communities” are ultimately at the
mercy of states and national public authorities, qui déterminent
the limits of their legitimacy as structures for the negotiation of
collective identities and interests. Clairement, the objective of transna-
tional networks is to reinforce their representation at the Euro-
pean level, but their practical goal is recognition at the national
level. Arguably, Islamic activists, even the most active ones at the
European level, ultimately see states as “adversaries.” Voluntary
associations face tremendous obstacles enacting their own initia-
tives without the intervention of supranational institutions.

The rights and interests of non-European residents and
citizens—for housing, employment, family re-uniªcation, mobili-

22 For Article 9 of the European Court of Human Rights, see http://www.echr.coe.int/
library/colentravauxprep.html.

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NEGOTIATIONS BEYOND BOR D ER S | 95

zation against expulsion, and other government programs and pol-
icies related to identity—lie at the state level. But all claims at the
national level imply a parallel pressure at the European level and,
inversement, all claims on the European level aim to have an impact
on decisions taken at the national level within each of the member
states. For the Muslim populations in Europe, a transnational or-
ganization of interests, based on shared identiªcation, striving for
recognition at the European level may reºect political action on a
European scale, but it does not involve a set of demands on a Eu-
ropean scale. Demands remain linked to individual states, lequel
are the only solid framework of reference for mobilization and ne-
gotiation.

A transnational organization allows immigrant populations
to escape national policies. But transnational networks linking
the country of origin to the country of residence and promot-
ing participation in both locations also challenge the single alle-
giance required by membership in a nation’s political community.
Transnationalism has led to an institutional expression of multiple
belonging, in which a country of origin becomes a source of iden-
tity; a country of residence, a source of right; and the transnational
espace, a site of political action. This multiplicity often ªnds institu-
tional expression in dual citizenship. By retaining dual citizenship
or introducing it in their civil law because of the increasing num-
ber of their citizens abroad, most states can exercise their sover-
eignty, and sometimes extend political power, beyond their terri-
torial settings. But dual citizenship also suggests that the states
involved have to negotiate the means of including transnational
strategies in their own national-political agendas in order to main-
tain a connection with their citizenry abroad.

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