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Oxford Studies in International History
Fear of the Family: Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany
Beginning in 1955, West Germany recruited millions of people as guest workers from Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and especially Turkey. This labor force was essential to creating the postwar German economic miracle. Employers fantasized that foreign "guest workers" would provide labor power in their prime productive years without having to pay for their education, pensions, or medical care. They especially hoped that the workers would leave behind their spouses and children and not encumber the German state or society with the cost of caring for them.
As Lauren Stokes argues, the Federal Republic of Germany turned fear of this foreign family into the basis of policymaking, while at the same time implementing policies that inflicted fear in foreign families. Workers did not always prove willing to live their work lives in the FRG and their family lives elsewhere. They consistently challenged the state's assumption that "family" and "labor" could be cleanly divided, defied restrictive and discriminatory policies, staged political protests, and took their deportation orders to court. In 1973, the federal court legally recognized the constitutional right to family reunification, but almost immediately after the decision, the migration bureaucracy sought to limit that right in practice. Officials derided family migrants as a group of burdensome dependents seeking to defraud the welfare state and demonized them as a dangerous source of foreign values on German soil.
In this sweeping look at what being defined as "family migrants" has meant for millions at the immigration office, in the courtroom, in the workplace, and in the family itself, Fear of the Family illuminates how racial, ethnic, and gender difference have been inscribed in the neoliberal West German welfare state.
As Lauren Stokes argues, the Federal Republic of Germany turned fear of this foreign family into the basis of policymaking, while at the same time implementing policies that inflicted fear in foreign families. Workers did not always prove willing to live their work lives in the FRG and their family lives elsewhere. They consistently challenged the state's assumption that "family" and "labor" could be cleanly divided, defied restrictive and discriminatory policies, staged political protests, and took their deportation orders to court. In 1973, the federal court legally recognized the constitutional right to family reunification, but almost immediately after the decision, the migration bureaucracy sought to limit that right in practice. Officials derided family migrants as a group of burdensome dependents seeking to defraud the welfare state and demonized them as a dangerous source of foreign values on German soil.
In this sweeping look at what being defined as "family migrants" has meant for millions at the immigration office, in the courtroom, in the workplace, and in the family itself, Fear of the Family illuminates how racial, ethnic, and gender difference have been inscribed in the neoliberal West German welfare state.
- GenresHistory
308 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 17, 2023
Stokes covers the period from the beginning of the Gastarbeiter programme in 1955 until the present day and focuses on the “foreign family” as a key site for policy regulation and identity construction. The central argument of the book pertains to the perceived separation between the productive labour of the guest labourer and the reproductive labour within the foreign family that underlined the FRG’s migration policy. As a result of this deceptive binary, Stokes posits, family policy and “fear of the family” turned into a fundamental instrument of policy-making.
Stokes argues that the German policy architecture conceptualised the foreign workers as temporary labour providers, whose social reproduction would remain confined within their countries of origin. Using “Germany is not an immigration country” as an (un)official dictum, guest workers were not perceived by the FRG’s authorities as ‘traditional’ migrants. As a result, the aim of the successive West-German governments—led by either of the traditional parties—was to keep the national community homogenous. This community was construed as ethnically and culturally ‘German,’ and political citizenship became its exclusive prerogative. However, as Stokes shows, the artificial separation between economic production and social reproduction was untenable. The ‘migrants’ by formulating social and political claims— or even by asserting their visibility in the public sphere—challenged the foundations of the guest worker system.
Stokes also introduces a novel perspective on reading “neoliberalism” backwards. She argues that migration policy was a precursor to the German early 2000s neoliberal turn; and that by adopting the logic of ‘responsibilisation,’ the German authorities shifted the burden for housing and child-care on the migrant family as opposed to the state. In this reading, family reunion policy has never been based on an abstract ideal of a right to family unity but on the concrete idea that unified families can manage the costs of social reproduction. In effect, Stokes argues that from the 1950s onwards, minimal market regulation and the individual ability of the individual worker to integrate into the market—as opposed to “the society”—became the markers for belonging. Hence, the guest worker programme conceived of belonging only in economic terms; and the neoliberal logic was written into the category of the Gastarbeiter. This argument is, arguably, the most important contribution of the book—yet it remains rather under-theorised and implicit.
Stokes argues that the German policy architecture conceptualised the foreign workers as temporary labour providers, whose social reproduction would remain confined within their countries of origin. Using “Germany is not an immigration country” as an (un)official dictum, guest workers were not perceived by the FRG’s authorities as ‘traditional’ migrants. As a result, the aim of the successive West-German governments—led by either of the traditional parties—was to keep the national community homogenous. This community was construed as ethnically and culturally ‘German,’ and political citizenship became its exclusive prerogative. However, as Stokes shows, the artificial separation between economic production and social reproduction was untenable. The ‘migrants’ by formulating social and political claims— or even by asserting their visibility in the public sphere—challenged the foundations of the guest worker system.
Stokes also introduces a novel perspective on reading “neoliberalism” backwards. She argues that migration policy was a precursor to the German early 2000s neoliberal turn; and that by adopting the logic of ‘responsibilisation,’ the German authorities shifted the burden for housing and child-care on the migrant family as opposed to the state. In this reading, family reunion policy has never been based on an abstract ideal of a right to family unity but on the concrete idea that unified families can manage the costs of social reproduction. In effect, Stokes argues that from the 1950s onwards, minimal market regulation and the individual ability of the individual worker to integrate into the market—as opposed to “the society”—became the markers for belonging. Hence, the guest worker programme conceived of belonging only in economic terms; and the neoliberal logic was written into the category of the Gastarbeiter. This argument is, arguably, the most important contribution of the book—yet it remains rather under-theorised and implicit.
July 9, 2022
I don’t typically rate academic and nonfiction works, but Stokes is using a really innovative methodology by leveraging queer theory as a means to analyze her subject here, and it leads her to some conclusions and recommendations for further study that are really thought provoking, even if not by subject matter, by the frame itself. Will have eyes on further publications to see where she goes with this in future, and will certainly return for close readings of this work as well.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews