Dissonant Voices

Abstract: On the 50th anniversary of the labour recruitment agreement between Germany andTurkey, Turkish migrants in Germany continue to occupy a central position as theobjects of the on-going public discussions on immigration and integration. Thisstudy explores, with a transnational perspective, how the discourses on migrantintegration are formulated in the transnational Turkish language media in Germany,as well as, if and how those discourses differ from, comply with or resist thedominant integrationist discourse in Germany. To reach this aim, discourse analysison empirical material consisting of 97 articles from the European editions ofnewspapers Zaman and Hürriyet, has been conducted within the theoreticalperspective informed by the ideas of Michel Foucault. The study concludes thatthere are conflicting and overlapping discourses on integration manifested in theTurkish language media in Germany, which are in varying degrees resisting to andin conformity with the dominant integrationist discourse in Germany. The resistanceand compliance occurs in a complex and transnational way, in the reflection of thepolitical and ideological fault lines in Turkey.