Seeing the National Body: Racialization and Belonging in Germany A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Ashley M. Olstad IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Arlene A. Teraoka May 2016 © Ashley M. Olstad 2016 Acknowledgements My studies, research, and dissertation writing have been supported by several institutions, for which I must express my most sincere appreciation: the University of Minnesota, primarily for the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and Graduate Research Partnership Program; the Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch, particularly for the Hella Lindemeyer Mears Fellowship, Gerhardt Weiss Fellowship, and Elizabeth Folsom Rathert Graduate Fellowship; the Center for German and European Studies; the Center for Jewish Studies; DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service); and the German-American Fulbright Commission for a Fulbright Grant in Anthropology. I am also grateful to the Humboldt University and Institute for European Ethnology for hosting me during my Fulbright year in Berlin. At the individual level, my thanks go first to my advisor, Arlene Teraoka, for providing guidance and support throughout my graduate studies and “tough love” at the end. I could not imagine having gone forward with my research project without her invaluable input. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Arlene for having mentored me as a teacher; I learned from the best. Thanks too to the late Daphne Berdahl, my initial co-advisor, whose scholarship has continued to inform my thinking. Even though she was not here to see me through to the fieldwork and writing stage, I greatly benefitted from her help in formulating my initial questions. Her enthusiasm and dedication to her advisees and the discipline were truly inspirational. A sincere thank you goes to the other wonderful members of my committee, namely, Ruth-Ellen Joeres, a good friend from the beginning and chair of my committee, and Leslie Morris. Thank you i both not only for your ongoing interest in and support of my project but also the mentorship and critical eye in reading statements of research along the way in addition to the final dissertation. MJ Maynes also deserves special thanks for stepping in as my outside reader and engaging so enthusiastically with my research. Thanks are also due to Barbara Wolbert, Charlotte Melin, Rick McCormick, and Matthias Rothe for their support and encouragement over the years. Additional thanks go to the many other teachers and professors in Minnesota, California, Illinois, and abroad who have encouraged and influenced me over the years. My most heartfelt thanks on this count go especially to Ágnes Fülemile who first sent me into the field in Hungary, Luis Eduardo Guarnizo and Bernadette Tarallo for permitting me to take part in the graduate course on migration at UC Davis as an undergrad, Susan Gal and Marko Zivkovich for guiding me in my Master’s thesis at the University of Chicago, and to Anna Kuhn for directing me to the University of Minnesota for graduate school. Thank you to my colleagues for their friendship and encouragement over the years. Lindsay Lawton, you have inspired me with your work ethic, and you totally beat me in the race to finish first! Thanks to Anja Shepela and Katri Kivilaakso, particularly for your encouragement from the “other side.” A thank you also goes to Rebecca Raham for the comraderie of sharing a desk in Folwell in the early days to becoming a surrogate aunt to my son and always giving us a soft place to land when back in the Twin Cities. I am deeply indebted to my “kitchen cabinet”: Anne Wallen, tomato taskmaster and signposting queen, Carsten Holm, the big picture observer, Ursula Dalinghaus, anthropologist extraordinairre, Marcy Epstein, midwife of dissertations, and Kate ii Wasserman, personal editor since the days of Ducky. Thank you all for your kind- heartedness, keen insights, and generosity in reading various drafts of my work. A heartfelt thank you to all my friends and colleagues in Germany, from the Pitschi clan in Bavaria to my many unnamed friends in Berlin who show up in this dissertation in one way or another, and several key participants who shared so much with me during my fieldwork. Thanks too to the many research particpants in Berlin and Göttingen who told me their stories and allowed for their lives to examined and documented by me. Thanks also go to author Alina Bronsky for letting me conduct an interview with her. I remain indebted to you all. Thank you especially to my parents, Gingi and Bob Olstad, and my big brother Patrick for always believing in me. Many thanks too to my in-laws, Van and Dorothy Simmons, for welcoming me into the family and also supporting me during my graduate studies. I do not know if I could ever adequately express my gratitude to my spouse, Nancy Simmons, who has been the best possible friend and companion for this process. For building me a writing loft with the best view of the lake; always encouraging me to follow my heart; taking our boy on the many adventures while I was working on my dissertation; and holding down the fort when I was away doing research or teaching, you have my gratitude. Thanks too to my children. Birkleigh, who thought she too should earn money by sitting in school all day, first came to Germany with me for a research trip at age two and later at age seven. Tobias, you are absolutely right, I should have finished my writing project before you were born! Hope you enjoyed your fourth birthday present: passing my defense. For the record, you also got toys. iii Dedication For my parents iv Table of Contents Epigraph……………………………………………………………………….. 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….…… 2 Imprints…………………………………………………………………. 2 That kind of anthropology?....................................................................... 5 Visual Identities and Belonging…………………………..........,............. 9 Turning Point…………………………………………………………… 14 Fieldwork and Methodology………………………,…………………… 18 Phenotypic Thinking……………………...…………………………….. 25 German Self-Imaginings……………………….…….............................. 26 Discourse of Migration: a Note on Terms……………………………… 27 Location of Project……………………………………………………… 34 Chapter Overview………………………………………………………. 39 Chapter One: The National Body: A Catalog…………….…………………. 43 The Contested Space of the National Body…………………………….. 43 How “Looks” Are Used……………………………..………………….. 43 Discourses of the Body…………………………………….…………… 47 Visualizing the “Official” Nation………………………………………. 52 Soccer Invites Others to see Germany as “Welcoming, Friendly, and 53 Safe”………………………………………………….…………………. Claudia Schiffer Lures Investors……………………...………………… 55 The Family: Reproducing the Nation…………………….…………….. 58 Official Representations of Nationhood………………….……………. 60 v The National Team……………………………………………………… 65 The Imagined Migrant…………………………….................................. 67 Generation Y………………………………………................................. 69 Contested Bodies……………………………………............................... 70 The New Germans……………………………………………………… 72 The Legacy of Das Volk………………………………............................ 73 Bodily Thoughts……………………………………………..………….. 75 Chapter Two: Photographic Portrayal of Germany and Its Others: 76 Government Publications and Campaigns on Migration and Integration… Show and Tell……………………………………………………..……. 76 Use of Binary Politics: Racial Difference as Commodity in Branding 78 the Nation as Cosmopolitan..………………………………………….... Government Publications on Migration and Integration: the Loving 84 Knot of Binaries…………………………………………………..…….. Germany’s Faces: Imagining the National Body and Racial Other in 91 Government Publications and Campaigns Promoting Integration……...…………………………………………….…………. Not a Question of Descent: Promoting Tolerance to Germans Through 92 Dichotomy………………………………………………………….…… Security is Not a Question of Descent………………………………….. 98 Out With the Language: Unintended Messages About Visual 105 Appearance, Language, and Nationality………………….…………….. Oliver Harris: Unsettling the Binaries………………………………….. 114 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….... 117 Chapter Three: Physicality: White Migrant Ethnographic and Literary 119 Perspectives…………………………………………………..………………… Drawing Different Lines: Moving Beyond Skin Tones………………… 119 vi Whiteness and More……..……………………………………………… 126 Section One: Spätaussidler (Ethnic German Return Migrants)….... 127 Citizenship Based on Descent……………………………………..……. 127 Der Spiegel: A German Account of Ethnic German Return Migrants…. 129 We Don’t Look Like Kazakhs!…………………………………….…… 131 Russian “Looks”………………………………………………..………. 133 Mutable Signs of Nationality……….……..……………………………. 137 Isa: The Blue-Eyed Poster Child for Successful Integration……..…...... 138 Alterity in Broken Glass Park……………………………………….......... 142 Section Two: Physicality from the Perspective of a Normative EU 148 National……………………………………………………..………….. Pragmatism: On Looking German…………………………………..... 148 Section Three: The Role of Russian-Jewish Visuality in Immigrants 156 Novels………………………………………………………..…………. Conclusion………………………………………………..…………….. 168 Chapter Four: Ethnicity as Performance: Creating, Marketing, and 171 Commodifying Pop Music Personas…………………………..……………… Consumer Products………………………............................................... 173 Musical Influences…………………………………….……………….. 174 Musical Reinvention…………………………….……………………… 176 Miss Platnum: Performing the Balkan R & B Queen………..…………. 181 Peter Fox: “Alles Neu”.………………………………………………… 187 Media Interest in Heritage………………………………….……………