Mediated Memories of Migration

This dissertation investigates mediated (family) memories in relation to ‘guest worker’ migration from Turkey to Germany more broadly, and in the city of Bremen in particular. By means of an ethnographically inspired approach and through a variety of data such as one-on-one interviews, a memory workshop at a local museum and field visits to private and public events, it explores the construction of family memory in the research participants’ life worlds and relates them to broader societal contexts. It asks how persons with a ‘migration background’ remember the migration histories of their families; how this mediated memory is constructed at the intersection of personal histories and memories, family memories, as well as public and collective memories; and what the role of media practices as well as mediated discourses and representations is in the process of remembering migration histories. The analysis highlights that generational remembering lies at the core of mediated memories of migration. The development of an empirically grounded model of family memory work shows how family memory is constructed and negotiated through interpersonal communication in conjunction in an interplay with (public and private) impulses. The dissertation provides an account of the practices of memory work with such impulses and shows how family stories and narratives are mediated with the help of media objects, for instance photographs, and in conjunction with mediated representations, for instance in feature films. In this way, the contribution underscores how private stories intersect with and relate to public representations of larger narratives of ‘guest worker’ migration in different modes of memory work.