When 'the Other' Poses the Questions: Turning the Tables to Produce Data on German National Belonging

After a change was made in Germany’s census categories in the year 2005, who is called ‘German’ came to circumscribe a much narrower group than German citizens.  Germany’s population was divided into ‘Germans’ and ‘persons with a migration background’.   The latter category captures, in one basket, some German citizens—born and bred in Germany—along with immigrants newly arrived to the country.  What makes one German?  How does one come to belong to the national community?  The question of national belonging and national identity is often addressed theoretically.  Empirical studies, when conducted, tend to rely on data produced through surveys and apply quantitative methods.  Both of these approaches fail to capture the meanings people themselves bring to the idea of nation and national belonging.  Research into the social world informed by the epistemological position that there is no reality ‘out there’, independent of the shaping efforts of the mind, demands that one employs methods which access an inside view.  In-depth interviewing is one such method.  How, though, does the researcher’s person (his/her social locations as a raced, gendered, classed, etc. research instrument) affect access to participants or impact the data produced?  I — a dark-skinned, native English-speaker living in Germany — interviewed Germans (German citizens) in a mid-sized city in Germany to explore study participants’ understandings of what makes one German.  Rather than hinder access or curtail discussion, I found that my status as outsider spurred vigorous discussions on the notion of Germanness.  My ‘otherness’ seemed not to have hampered free expression but, rather, may have even opened the door for persons who felt themselves marginalized to voice their views.  In this paper, I look critically at the process and reflect on the peculiarities of the data produced through the interviews.