Discourses of Exclusion: Dominant Self-Definitions and "The Other" In German Society

Abstract

Definitions of identity, which describe its dynamic and complex character, were formulated especially by those academic fields which set their focus predominantly, and often exclusively, on minorities or the excluded: e.g. feminist theory, Cultural Studies and antiracism. But the theory of identity politics as a field of struggle for self-positioning should also apply to dominant and majority identity constructions. Moreover, we can observe a close relationship between minority and dominant discourses of belonging. Taking some results of field research in Berlin as illustration, the article shows, how identity constructions of young German discursive elites' depend on the construction of specific minority groups as 'Non-Germans. At the same time, these dominant constructions fundamentally structure the field, in which minority groups are obliged to move for their self-definitions. These self-definitions thus cannot be fully understood without a close analysis of the role they play within the identity constructions of 'the majority'.