Interkulturelle Missverständnisse in der Migrationsforschung

摘要

The number of publications in Germany on the topic of migration is constantly growing. In most of this work, “native authors” — in other words, Germans — are the ones who observe, interview, and write about the “others”, the migrants. For those who adhere to the notion of the universal validity of academic research, the social gap between “authors” and “objects” of science has no meaning for the research process. In this contribution, in contrast, it is argued, that this gap is anything but irrelevant for the results of such investigations. The research process continually generates intercultural misunderstandings and researchers’ interpretations reveal prejudices which bear the stamp of concepts from everyday life in mainstream German society. Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Professorin für Soziologie an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institut für Soziologie, Kochstraße 4, 91054 Erlangen