The Existential Struggle of Second-Generation Turkish Immigrants in Kreuzberg: Answering Spatiotemporal Change

Abstract

The second generation of Turks to migrate to Germany played a crucial role in recasting the migration experience of the 1960s into a unique diasporic culture. This research, which takes the Kreuzberg district of Berlin as a center of the Turkish diaspora's ongoing maneuvering for existence, shows how in various stages of migration history, the second generation's narratives transect the quarter's own sociopolitical history and spatiotemporal change. It notes three crossroads. The first is when the Turkish diaspora stakes a claim as an independent power within hobohemia. The second is when a political, oppositional momentum is activated among the diaspora. The third crossroads, comprising the first 10 years after the fall of the Wall, is the stage where the district comes under the influence of neoliberalism and becomes just bohemia. This research shows how Turkish immigrants have been positioned at a crossroads where the hobo character of the quarter evolved into a bohemia.