Die Dämonisierung der Anderen

The recent media, political and everyday treatment of forced migration has made overt racism "socially acceptable" again. In this way, the discussion of "refugees" and "migrants" following the events in Cologne on New Years' Eve has increasingly taken on the tone of the demonisation of the imagined Other. As this is linked to the "tightening of the asylum act" and a European refugee politics that is increasingly isolationist, this demonisation also preserves material and symbolic relations of privilege. Because the Others are demonic and rampant, as the most concise formation of the analysis goes, we are empowered to protect ourselves from them. It is from this perspective that researchers come forward to speak against the hegemonic discourse.