ABSTRACT
Migrants’ and refugees’ transnational political engagement is likely to become increasingly important in the coming years, given the scale of current migration and the ease with which migrants may stay in touch with their country of origin. This book has placed immigrants’ and refugees’ political participation within a transnational framework in order to highlight the scope, forms, and outcomes of their homeland political engagement. Preceding chapters have dealt with subjects as diverse as German-Turkish relations, Kurdish refugees’ campaigns in Germany for Kurdish rights in Germany and Turkey, and Turkish migrants’ defence of Turkey’s EU candidacy. It is necessary to include such diverse issues so as to reflect the political universe of migrants and refugees engaged in transnational practices as well as the factors which German and Turkish political actors have to consider when interacting with migrants’ or refugees’ political movements. When Turkish and Kurdish migrants and refugees engage in politics of their homeland, they are both outsiders on the inside of German politics and insiders on the outside of Turkish politics. They become a linking pin between the domestic and foreign politics of their homeland and receiving country. Thus, framing Turks and Kurds as transnational actors complements studies of Turkish and Kurdish ‘immigrant political participation’, since it demonstrates how homeland political mobilization constitutes an integral part of immigrant political mobilization and participation.
