Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022020115122599211030
Exports for your reference manager
The wondrous life of legal documents: transformations and continuities in the encounter of Syrian papers with German bureaucracy
[working paper]
Corporate Editor
Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)
Abstract This working paper traces the trajectory of Syrian official documents across Syria and Germany in times of political upheaval, flight and integration. Documents issued by the Syrian state continue to be a fundamental element in the life of Syrians in Germany as they are still needed for certain mund... view more
This working paper traces the trajectory of Syrian official documents across Syria and Germany in times of political upheaval, flight and integration. Documents issued by the Syrian state continue to be a fundamental element in the life of Syrians in Germany as they are still needed for certain mundane, yet crucial, purposes. Syrians are therefore forced to engage with Syrian state bureaucratic apparatuses at a distance. The journey of the papers across time and geographical borders unveils the highly political ambivalences and tensions embodied in Syrian paperwork in the context of German policies of asylum and integration. In Syria, the documents and their retrieval are embedded in the politics of security governing the Syrian citizenship regime. On arrival in Germany, the papers gain new meanings in their encounter with the German integration process and legal system rooted in the Rule of Law. At the same time, the papers' enmeshment with German bureaucracy reproduces (from a distance) the political dynamics between Syrians and the Syrian state in the past. Situated at a crossroads of the web of state(-s) power in and between Syrian and German bureaucracies, the papers re-integrate Syrians’ past into their present in Germany. By revealing this complex web of relationships, this working paper offers a reflection on the limits of studying the European context of integration and asylum 'fromwithin'.... view less
Keywords
Federal Republic of Germany; Syria; bureaucracy; constitutional state; integration; war; asylum policy; integration policy; legal order
Classification
Migration, Sociology of Migration
Free Keywords
paperwork; citizenship and migration regimes
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
City
Berlin
Page/Pages
12 p.
Series
ZMO Working Papers, 31
ISSN
2191-3897
Status
Published Version; reviewed
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications