Biographies of migrants from Syria and West Africa in Brazil and in Germany – processes of inclusion and participation in the context of so-called irregular migration

来自西非和叙利亚的移民在德国的生活与这些移民在巴西的生活有何不同？他们的处境在多大程度上受到了他们自己的集体历史和传记的影响，巴西是一个以移民来定义自己的国家，而德国则将自己定义为相当反对移民，这在多大程度上影响了他们的处境？巴西的移民与不同的既定公民群体的关系是否与德国的移民不同？为了回答这些问题，我们将重建来自西非和叙利亚的人的集体和传记历史，他们已经在德国或巴西生活了多年。我们的主要关注点将是那些在主流社会话语中被普遍贴上“非正规”或“无计划”标签的移民，以及巴西和德国融入和参与的过程有何不同。我们的目的是分析人们如何在非常不同的生活世界以及不同的官方和社会背景下安顿下来。我们需要考虑到，移民到巴西的过程可能没有移民到欧洲的过程那么困难，而且对在巴西的移民来说，获得居住和工作的许可比在欧洲容易。事实上，许多设法进入欧盟的移民被描述为“非法”，而逾期居留的人则被视为非法移民，他们的居留身份可能在很长一段时间内仍不清楚。计划进行的这项研究的一个中心目的是对这些差异及其对有关移徙者的影响进行实证研究。我们将询问，在移民之前、期间和之后，哪些社会和传记星座决定了传记课程，使移民更容易或更难确立地位并参与目的地国的社会生活。通过比较不同的移民群体、不同的移民进程和不同的现状，我们计划表明移民目前的生活在多大程度上取决于：a)他们在目的地国的集体和传记课程，b)他们的移民进程，c)他们的新生活世界，特别是d)在目的地国融入和参与的机会。除了基于传记-叙事访谈的传记案例重建(其中一些是在对最近越境的移民进行的早期项目的背景下进行的)，我们计划在很长一段时间内学习传记课程，并就移民目前的生活进行后续访谈和小组讨论。

How does the life of migrants from West Africa and Syria in Germany differ from that of such migrants in Brazil? To what extent is their situation influenced by their own collective history and biography, and to what extent by the fact that Brazil is a country that defines itself in terms of immigration, in contrast to Germany, which defines itself as being rather opposed to immigration? Do immigrants in Brazil experience relations with different groupings of established citizens differently from immigrants in Germany? To answer these questions, we will reconstruct the collective and biographical histories of people from West Africa and Syria who have been living in Germany or in Brazil for a number of years. Our main focus will be on those migrants who are generally labelled as “irregular” or “unplanned” in the dominant social discourses, and on how processes of inclusion and participation differ in Brazil and Germany. Our intention is to analyse how people settle in very different lifeworlds and in different official and social contexts. We will need to take into account that the process of migrating to Brazil was probably less difficult than the process of migrating to Europe, and that obtaining permission to reside and work is easier for immigrants in Brazil than it is in Europe. Indeed, many migrants who manage to enter the European Union are described as “illegal”, while people who overstay their visas are illegalized and their residence status may remain unclear for a long time. A central aim of the planned study is to conduct empirical research into these differences and their consequences for the migrants concerned. We will ask which social and biographical constellations before, during and after migration determine biographical courses that make it easier or more difficult for migrants to become established and participate in the social life of the destination country. By comparing different groupings of migrants, different migration courses, and different present situations, we plan to show to what extent the present life of the migrants is determined by: a) their collective and biographical courses in the destination country, b) their migration processes, c) their new lifeworlds, and, especially, d) opportunities for inclusion and participation in the destination country. In addition to biographical case reconstructions based on biographical-narrative interviews (some of which were conducted in the context of earlier projects with migrants who had recently crossed the border), we plan to study biographical courses over a long period with follow-up interviews and group discussions on the present life of the migrants.