GERMAN-BASED AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS’ TRANSNATIONAL SPHERE: STRATEGIES OF INCORPORATION AND THE CREATION OF IDENTITY IN AN EXPANDED EUROPEAN UNION by Gukaah Brenda Nwana a Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Approved Dissertation Committee Prof. Dr. Klaus Boehnke Prof. Dr. Margrit Schreier Prof. Dr. Christian Joppke Prof. Dr. Rainer Tetzlaff Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou Date of Defense: 5th February, 2015. i Approved Dissertation Committee Prof. Dr. Klaus Boehnke PhD Advisor and First Internal Reviewer Professor for Social Science Methodology Jacobs University Bremen Email:
[email protected] __________________________________ Prof. Dr. Margrit Schreier Second Internal Reviewer Professor of Empirical Methods in Humanities and Social Sciences Jacobs University Bremen Email:
[email protected] Prof. Dr. Christian Joppke Second Supervisor/ First External Reviewer Professor of Sociology University of Bern Email:
[email protected] Prof. Dr. Rainer Tetzlaff Third Internal Reviewer Professor of International Politics and History Jacobs University Bremen Email:
[email protected] Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou Second External Reviewer Director of the Cultural Pluralism Research Area. Global Governance Programme, European University Institute Email:
[email protected] ii Statutory Declaration I, Gukaah Brenda Nwana, hereby declare that I have written this PhD dissertation independently, unless where clearly stated otherwise. I have