Chilean experiences of exile in the “socialist brotherhood” negotiating solidarity, belonging and change in the German Democratic Republic

Abstract

Based on the empirical material collected in lifetime-narrative interviews, the article illuminates the multiple experiences of Chilean exiles between solidarity, belonging, Othering and foreignness in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The focus of the biographical case reconstruction based on Rosenthal is the individual negotiation of Othering practices and narratives, which the interview partners rejected, reinterpreted or strategically used for themselves. The results are biographical snapshots which show that not only encounter with (everyday) racism, but also experienced help and solidarity actions could cause discomfort among the Chilean political exiles, since they reflected the hegemonic conditions underlying their stay in the GDR. The interviewees experienced how state-institutionalised solidarity was linked to the political conditions of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and had its limits where individuals deviated from the behaviour expected of them. Throughout their lives, the interviewees are torn between Chile and the GDR (and later Germany): Confronted with feelings and constructions of foreignness and belonging(s) in relation to both countries they find different and changing ways of dealing with them over the course of their lives. What they have in common is the impossibility of deciding on a single national identity.