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2006 7: 179Ethnography Ferdinand Sutterlüty

The belief in ethnic kinship : A deep symbolic dimension of social inequality

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The belief in ethnic kinshipA deep symbolic dimension of social inequality

■ Ferdinand SutterlütyInstitut für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Translated by Adam Blauhut

A B S T R A C T ■ The belief that members of an ethnic group are blood

relatives may seem archaic, but it is still very alive today, and it awakens

primordial feelings of affiliation. According to this deep-rooted idea ofkinship, individuals are only responsible for members of their own ethnic

group, and it is only to them that they are obliged to show solidarity. The

effects of this belief were seen at two blood drives that the German Red

Cross held at a Turkish mosque in the Ruhr region of Germany and that

were studied in an ethnographic research project. An analysis shows that

the belief in ethnic kinship represents a major barrier to integration and

an important factor in perpetuating social inequality among ethnic

groups. The Turkish migrants endeavored to initiate an exchange of gifts

among quasi-relatives and based their integration strategy on thisobjective, but their efforts to establish reciprocal exchange relations

provoked resistance in the autochthonous population. Herein lies the

broader relevance of the primordial belief in blood relations, which

constitutes a deep symbolic dimension of social inequality.

K E Y W O R D S ■ social integration, social inequality, ethnicity,

reciprocity, gift exchange, kinship, consanguinity, ethnography

graphyCopyright © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

www.sagepublications.com Vol 7(2): 179–207[DOI: 10.1177/1466138106067059]

A R T I C L E








In Barren-Ost1 ‘integration’ is both a magic word and a source of conflict.Whereas the German residents of this traditional working-class neighbor-hood in Germany’s Ruhr region complain that their Turkish neighbors do

not want to integrate, the Turks charge their critics with using the wordintegration when they mean assimilation. Most of the Turkish inhabitantsflatly reject the idea of assimilating into a culture that in their eyes is char-acterized by a ruthless individualism and cold interpersonal relationships.Their spokespersons demand recognition and respect for cultural andreligious differences, but many Germans feel that such demands verge onimpudence. While the Turkish minority is quick to recognize hostilitytoward foreigners and a hatred of Turks in any adversity encountered bythe members of their community in social and professional life, the German

majority can hardly be said to look favorably on Turkish efforts to inte-grate, no matter what form they take.The German population rashly accuses Turkish business proprietors and

building owners of being driven by an expansionist desire to take over theentire neighborhood. Many Germans openly argue that upwardly mobileTurkish migrants have acquired money and property by illegal means.Efforts by Turkish organizations to participate in political processes raisethe general suspicion that these organizations are acting as parasites andonly pursuing their own interests. It is precisely their successes in integrat-ing that lead to new attempts to stigmatize and ostracize Turks. It wouldappear that, no matter what they do, the Turkish residents of Barren-Ostare always marked by some blemish, particularly those in prominent posi-tions or on the upper rungs of the inequality ladder. On the other hand,politically and religiously organized Turkish migrants – who do not shyaway from stigmatizing Germans – have attempted to improve theirnegative image through highly visible campaigns. For example, they engagein non-profit work that is reported on by the local press and that demon-strates not only their integrity but also their willingness to respond to theissues of the local community and to make an appropriate contribution.

The Turkish and autochthonous populations unanimously speak out infavor of integration, and they both oppose ethnic segregation. At the sametime, distrust and pejorative views of the ‘other’ prevail on both sides.Attempts to initiate permanent exchange relations between ethnic groupsrepeatedly encounter major setbacks. Why is it that, throughout Barren-Ost, people at best characterize relations between the German and Turkishpopulations as a more or less peaceful co-existence? Why is such a rigidborder drawn between ‘Turks’ and ‘Germans’? What mechanisms and inter-pretive patterns are responsible for the persistence of ethnic demarcations

and negative classifications? The following case study,2 which is based ona broader research project,3 aims to answer these questions. The materialfor the case study was provided by two blood drives carried out by the

Ethnography 7(2)180








German Red Cross at the Islamic Cultural Society – a Turkish mosqueassociation in Barren-Ost.4

Donating blood in Barren-Ost

In a talk held in July 2002, Mr Latal, editor of the Barrener Zeitung news-paper, mentioned that the Islamic Cultural Society had contacted theGerman Red Cross and offered to hold a blood drive in its rooms on EssenerStraße, the main artery and shopping boulevard in Barren-Ost. The mosqueassociation, said Mr Latal, was well organized and would have no troublemobilizing a large number of donors. The Blood Donor Service of the Red

Cross initially turned down the offer with murky arguments, but finallyagreed. Because of the initial irregularities referred to by Mr Latal, the blooddrive promised an interesting opportunity to examine relations and dispar-ities among ethnic groups. As the saying goes, blood is ‘thicker than water’,and even Goethe once described blood as ‘a juice of a very special kind’.

When I arrived on the premises of the Islamic Cultural Society in Septem-ber 2002, I encountered in the courtyard a Red Cross worker wearing thenametag ‘Sister Genoveva’. As a member of the Red Cross Ordnungs-dienst ,5 she was making preparations for the upcoming drive whilemembers of the mosque association were performing their Friday prayersin the prayer room. When asked why the Red Cross was holding a drive atthe Islamic Cultural Society, Sister Genoveva said: ‘We couldn’t say no.Otherwise people would have said we had something against foreigners.’She quickly corrected this statement, though, denying that the Red Cross’sonly motivation was to avoid being called prejudiced: ‘And we didn’t wantto say no either. We take everything that presents itself.’ In this last sentenceSister Genoveva unwittingly reveals that she makes a distinction betweendifferent donor groups. The remark has a slightly derogatory ring, suggest-ing that the blood donated by the mosque association’s members is of a

lower quality. Concluding the talk, Genoveva mentioned an unnamed thirdparty, explaining: ‘A lot of people are against the blood drive. They say:“They’re foreigners!”’

The strangely shifting statements by Sister Genoveva provide us with afirst indication that the blood drive at the Islamic Cultural Society posed aproblem for the Red Cross, one that even filtered down to a volunteerworker. Once the Friday prayers were over, the drive began punctually andthere was no longer any sign of reservations. Two men from the board of the Islamic Cultural Society, as well as the managing director of the local

chapter of the German Red Cross and editors from both local newspapers,sat harmoniously around a table in the courtyard, congratulating oneanother on the drive. Mr Fährmann from the local chapter of the Red Cross

Sutterlüty ■ The belief in ethnic kinship 181








explained that it was the first blood drive carried out in the Blood DonorService’s district, and possibly far beyond it, to take place in a mosque. Hespoke almost euphorically of the ‘cultural cooperation’ symbolized by the

drive. Glancing to the press representatives, Mr Kedi, who was not only aboard member of the Islamic Cultural Society but the chairman of theForeigners’ Advisory Board in Barren, noted that the idea for the blooddrive had come from the Foreigners’ Advisory Board. He then alluded tothe purpose it was supposed to serve from the very start.

Integration strategies

‘We want to show through the blood drive that we’ve integrated,’ said MrKedi solemnly. The entire context showed that the German population wasthe primary target group for the highly visible event. The drive was intendedto demonstrate to the German population in a performative act that theTurkish-Islamic minority belonged to local society. Mr Kedi even formu-lated the message that it was supposed to drive home: ‘We’re not forced toparticipate. Foreigners are simply a part of society.’ Both this message andMr Kedi’s demand that ‘everyone should come, even Germans’ follows thelogic of a recognition struggle that above all must succeed in renderingvisible a group’s qualifications for equal membership in local society(Honneth, 2001).

As a consequence, it was essential for the Turkish initiators of the blooddrive that it be carried out by an organization that was unmistakably‘German’. Only then would it be possible for the Turkish population toeffectively present the drive as a sign of their willingness to integrate andas an initial, unilateral service that could form the basis of demands,directed at the German public, for recognition and membership. Mr Kedialso explained the reason that, from the outset, the Foreigners’ AdvisoryBoard wanted to win over the German Red Cross as opposed to other

organizations:

We wanted to hold the drive with the German Red Cross for the very reasonthat it is the German Red Cross. I don’t want to say that it symbolizesGermany, but it is the largest national social welfare organization inGermany. That’s why I wanted to do it with them.

When asked in an interview three weeks later why the Foreigners’ AdvisoryBoard, which is dominated by Turkish migrants, initiated the drive, Mr Kediresponded:

It’s easy to say why. For the Foreigners’ Advisory Board and myself, the pointwas that we wanted to make a gesture that showed we feel at home in, quote,

Ethnography 7(2)182








German society, end quote. We’re part of this society and would like toparticipate in everything in this society with all the attendant rights andduties, whether blood drives or anything else. We belong to this society and

so we also have to participate in and contribute to social welfare. That’swhat was at stake.

Such explanations show that the blood drive was part of a bona-fide integration strategy: a generous act by the Turkish minority was supposed toconvince the autochthonous population that the groups represented by theForeigners’ Advisory Board were full-fledged members of society. Thesignificant turn of phrase used by Mr Kedi when referring to the Foreign-ers’ Advisory Board – that it wanted to ‘make a gesture’ to local society –betrays, in fact, a grievance: it is unfair, or so runs the subtext, that the

Turkish migrants in Barren-Ost must prove that they deserve to be seen aslocals. Mr Kedi’s description suggests that such a state of affairs can onlybe explained by dubious perceptual patterns on the part of the autochtho-nous population.

In the interview three weeks after the drive, Mr Kedi also talked in asimilar vein about the initial difficulties he confronted. When the IslamicCultural Society offered to hold a drive, the Blood Donor Service of theGerman Red Cross repeatedly expressed interest but never pursued thematter further despite promises to the contrary. When questioned, it

informed the initiators that they would have to be patient until furtherdecisions were made. ‘What was curious’, explained Mr Kedi, ‘was that Iread several times in the paper that the German Red Cross was askingpeople to donate blood because reserves were at a low.’ He was very disap-pointed about this. In talks with responsible parties at the Red Cross, hepointed out the ‘contradiction’ between these newspaper appeals and thefact that no drive had been arranged at the Islamic Cultural Society. At thistime, the Blood Donor Service of the German Red Cross was looking fornew offices specifically in Barren-Ost. As Red Cross staff explained on the

day of the blood drive, they were planning to leave the Barren-Ostcommunity center due to the exorbitant rents being charged there.Field talks with the responsible parties at the Islamic Cultural Society

revealed that, from the start, they did not consider the drive to be a one-time affair, but intended both to make their own rooms available to theRed Cross free of charge for biannual blood drives and to mobilize membersto participate on a regular basis. Preliminary talks with the German RedCross focused primarily on organizing the first event. After a lot of commu-nicating back and forth, the Foreigners’ Advisory Board was able to arrange

a meeting with the Red Cross in the rooms of the Islamic Cultural Society;and Mr Kedi invited the press without informing his other guests before-hand. From that point on, things fell into place rather quickly, Mr Kedi said









in the interview: ‘With the press in attendance, they naturally chose theirwords carefully, then said: “Oh, that’s a great idea. Wonderful. We’ll defi-nitely do it.” And then they gave us the first possible date.’

The Red Cross was put under considerable pressure to accept the offerfrom the Islamic Cultural Society, yet their sudden change of heart and theresounding effect of inviting the press did not move Mr Kedi to makecynical remarks. Rather, he spoke in defense of the Red Cross, remarkingdiplomatically: ‘I don’t want to say the drive only came about because thepress was here. But that helped us arrange a date quickly.’ Mr Bicioglu, incharge of organizing the blood drive for the Islamic Cultural Society, wasalso conciliatory. He explained: ‘When we first contacted the Red Cross, itwas new to them. They hadn’t done anything like that before.’ Mr Kedi,

for his part, pointed to ‘fears of contact’ on the part of the Red Cross,immediately clarifying: ‘I mean no offense. That’s just the way it is inGerman society. Whether in Barren, Dortmund or Munich, there are alwaysfears between different social groups.’

Citing information he had from a longstanding member of the RedCross, Mr Kedi finally claimed that there were people not only in the BloodDonor Service but also in the Barren chapter of the German Red Cross –including members of the executive committee – who were ‘against thedrive’. The exculpating discourse ended here, and Mr Kedi closed the talkwith the words: ‘So there were people who were against it at the GermanRed Cross. Perhaps they still are. In any case, it’s a fact that some peoplethere had problems with it.’

‘Turkish blood’

But what was the reason for the ill ease of the Red Cross when confrontedwith the offer of the Islamic Cultural Society, and how is one to explain theirregularities in the planning phase of the blood drive? One argument might

be that the Red Cross shrunk from getting involved with a mosque congre-gation whose members wanted to give blood collectively rather than as indi-viduals. Yet a rather obvious fact contradicts this argument: holding drivesat volunteer organizations, particularly at church groups (Healy, 2000:1635, 1654), is practically a trademark of the German Red Cross, and oneneed not look far for examples of similar drives in Barren. The Blood DonorService of the Red Cross was not giving the Islamic Cultural Society specialtreatment when it opted to hold the drive on its premises.

In the interview after the drive, Mr Kedi provides an important indica-

tion of what forms the menacing, ineffable core of this delicate matter.When giving some ‘background information’ on the behavior of the RedCross and his strategy of involving the press, he discussed a blood drive

Ethnography 7(2)184








that the Red Cross carried out in a city facility in the neighboring districtof Klaraberg:

A few Turkish donors who already had blood donor cards wanted to giveblood. One of the staff allegedly said: ‘We don’t necessarily need Turkishblood.’ That sounds a bit stupid, I mean, it sounds really dumb. It’s certainlynot acceptable to say such a thing, especially in a Christian group – and theGerman Red Cross does have a Christian orientation. To have to hear some-thing like that in Barren made us, made me personally, very sad. It was oneof the reasons we wanted to organize this drive.

As Mr Kedi implies, the rejection of ‘Turkish blood’ was the reason thatthe Red Cross initially tried to keep the blood drive from taking place. Mr

Nurettin, the chairman of the Islamic Cultural Society, made explicit refer-ence to this belief in an interview a few months after the drive. Speakingindignantly, he said: ‘After a disaster, we wouldn’t say, “That’s Germanblood, and that’s Turkish blood.” Members of the Islamic Cultural Societymade donations when there was flooding in Dresden. We also gave to theArmenkirche.’6 Not only does Mr Nurettin wish to emphasize the univer-salistic orientation of the cultural community’s public engagement. He alsowants to underscore the stark contrast between the charity work pursuedby the mosque congregation, which is not concerned with the status,denomination or ethnicity of the needy, and the practice of distinguishingbetween ‘Turkish’ and ‘German’ blood, which he ascribes to the Red Crossas the source for its ‘reservations’. He measures the ethnocentric behaviorof the Red Cross against his group’s actions, which, given a universalisticaura, are presented as morally superior.

Mr Kedi was also offended by the exclusionary tendency inherent in cate-gorizing blood as ‘Turkish’. In the above-quoted passage, he states that sucha phrase is not acceptable for a ‘Christian group’. It is by no means anunimportant detail that Mr Kedi describes the German Red Cross as ‘Chris-tian’. In doing so, he implies that, when it covertly introduces distinctions

between donor groups, it fails to do justice to its own universalistic claims.Mr Kedi’s presumption that such claims do exist is not unjustified, as shownby Dieter Riesenberger’s comprehensive history of the German Red Cross:‘Ever since the 1963 International Red Cross Conference in Vienna,humanity, neutrality, independence, voluntary action, unity and universal-ity have been the guiding principles of the International Red Cross and RedCrescent Movement’ (Riesenberger, 2002: 11). This is particularly true of the Blood Donor Service of the German Red Cross, which only works withvolunteer donors, offers no compensation for the donated blood, and is not

profit-oriented but merely seeks to cover costs (Riesenberger, 2002: 542 ff.).Indeed, one would certainly be justified in expecting a blood collection

service to make decisions as to which blood is to be used for what life-saving









measures on the basis of medical suitability rather than the donor’s ethnicaffiliation. If the Turkish initiators of the blood drive hold up the flag of universalism, the Red Cross must be receptive. At the same time, the argu-

ments formulated by the Foreigners’ Advisory Board and the IslamicCultural Society illustrate that an ethnic minority struggling for bothmembership in local society and recognition of social achievements musthave an interest in the validity of universalistic norms in everyday life.

Universalism with a particularistic goal

During a talk at the open house held by the Islamic Cultural Society in

October 2002, Mr S‚ükran offered a religious interpretation of the univer-salism that the blood drive was meant to embody. Mr S‚ükran, a memberof the mosque congregation who teaches German courses for a living andwho is about to complete a degree in German studies, emphasized the factthat Islam is not based on the idea of ‘blood’ or ‘descent’. He regarded theblood drive at the Islamic Cultural Society, in which he also took part, asa demonstration of this tenet of Islam. ‘The needy have no religion,’ saidMr S‚ükran, repeating a saying from the oral tradition of Islam. He inter-preted it to mean that religion and descent were irrelevant when it came toassisting the needy. Mr Günay, another congregation member, described theblood drive’s religious meaning as such: ‘If I’m able to help another, it’s myduty to do so.’ Islam conceives of life as a test, he explained: ‘And if I don’thelp when I can, I fail.’

This religious attitude not only concords with the universalistic elementthat characterizes blood drives like those held by the Red Cross, indepen-dent of the organizers’ intentions. It is also in agreement with the biologi-cal compatibility of blood, no matter who the donor (see Davis, 2001: 20;Brown, 2001). In principle, a person can give this elixir of life – which asyet cannot be made synthetically – to any injured or ill person with the

same blood group, regardless of sex, skin color, religion, political convic-tion, culture or character. In his book on the normative implications of blood donations and their consequences for social policy, Richard M.Titmuss writes: ‘Never varying in temperature more than five or six degrees,composed of fifty-five percent water, the life stream of blood that runs inthe veins of every member of the human race proves that the family of manis a reality’ (1970: 15). In practice, blood donations always have a univer-salistic element that transcends interpersonal differences.

Members of the Islamic Cultural Society make explicit reference to this,

and herein lies their moral provocation. Faced with such noble motives, thelocal majority culture and the Red Cross would reveal themselves as unjustif they looked skeptically on these plans. So the Islamic Cultural Society

Ethnography 7(2)186








puts its opponents on the defensive. It arranges to test the universalism towhich both the Red Cross and the German majority lay claim. Whatworsens the provocation is that the Islamic Cultural Society opens with a

generous act – a blood drive for the public good – thereby forcing theGerman population’s hand. The mosque congregation uses moral univer-salism as the ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott, 1985: xvi, 338) – by no meansa blunt sword, especially since the Red Cross would have to betray its ownnormative claims, ones rooted in its organizational self-conception, if itwere to openly reject the offer.

Not only is giving blood a universalistic practice, it is highly altruistic too,since donors generally give blood to anonymous third persons without anyexpectation of a return service (Titmuss, 1970: 224 ff.). To quote Claude

Lévi-Strauss (1969), structurally speaking, blood donations constitute a‘generalized exchange’ which, in contrast to a ‘restricted exchange’, is notlimited to two people engaged in two-way exchange relations.Donors cannotexpect a quid pro quo from the recipient of their blood. The structure of transfusion medicine is based on a complex exchange cycle in which a largenumber of people participate. However, in blood donations, the reciprocityexpectations that Lévi-Straussdescribesas prevailing in generalized exchangerelations are largely annulled or, at best, highly abstracted and not subjectto sanction. Donors will never know the ‘other’ who has received theirblood. Blood donated without compensation7 can therefore be described asan altruistic act for a ‘generalized other’ (Mead, 1965: 152 ff.).

But the altruistic and universalistic elements of blood donations, whichboth the Foreigners’ Advisory Board and the Islamic Cultural Societyexploit, have a reverse side as well. In the first place, the Turkish groupscan be seen as profiteering with a normative content that is part of everyvolunteer blood donation for which no compensation is paid. In the secondplace, they do indeed expect something in return, not from the recipientsof their blood perhaps, but from their German neighbors. After all, as wehave already seen, the campaign is aimed at the other residents of the neigh-

borhood. ‘Blood for integration’ is the bilateral exchange that the mosqueassociation is attempting to impose on the German population. In doingso, it is not only transforming a ‘generalized exchange’ into a ‘restrictedexchange’, but also incorporating an altruistic act into a strategic maneuverin its ‘campaign for membership’ (Neckel, 2003: 159). At the same time, itcontinues to wield the universalistic semantics of blood donations inrelations with the autochthonous majority. This is the only way the repre-sentatives of the Turkish Islamic minority can act as ‘moral entrepreneurs’(Becker, 1963: 147 ff.) with a universalistic motivation while advancing

their own cause. They cleverly pursue their particularistic integrationscheme through an appeal to the universalistic norms that correlate tospecific Islamic traditions in which ethnic differences are insignificant.









Yet if the normative obstacles to non-participation are so high, why didthe Red Cross at first not want to carry out the blood drive? Is the realreason for the Red Cross’s hesitation its desire to reject ‘Turkish blood’?

These questions can only be answered if we analyse the course of the firstblood drive and the follow-up event held six months later in May 2003.

The dynamics of failure

After the Blood Donor Service of the Red Cross visited the Islamic CulturalSociety in June 2002, participants fixed a date in September 2002 for thefirst drive and worked out all the relevant details. In the period leading up

to the first drive, the Red Cross put up posters in Barren-Ost, and the daybefore the event, the Barrener Zeitung ran an article that once again drewattention to a ‘campaign that is probably unique in all the country’(Barrener Zeitung , 19 September 2002). It went off without a hitch. Therewas a great deal of hustle and bustle on the premises of the Islamic CulturalSociety, which lent the day a festive air. The donors sat together and talkedin between the different phases of giving blood. They later ate doner kebab,which the Islamic Cultural Society provided free of charge. The leaders of the mosque congregation were particularly pleased to see Germans partic-ipating – though the locals did not turn out in large numbers and respondedwith confusion and reserve to the interest shown in them.

I took part in the entire blood donation process as a participant observer,and while I was standing in line for a medical examination, I saw SisterGenoveva working her way through the crowd to make sure the donorswere filling out the forms correctly. She treated the Turkish donors – andno others – like children. All the same, the next day, the two local news-papers enthused about the drive, portraying it as a successful example of German-Turkish integration (Ruhranzeiger and Barrener Zeitung , 21September 2002). In an interview three weeks later, Mr Kedi expressed his

immense satisfaction, saying, among other things: ‘I thanked the peoplefrom the German Red Cross. It was really well organized, everything wentextremely well. It was a great drive. And we already discussed dates so wecan repeat it next year.’

Initially there was nothing out of the ordinary about the second drive,and the Islamic Cultural Society seemed to have established itself as a venuefor regular events of this type. I participated together with my colleague,Ina Walter, who helped collect data, and we encountered the same scene asthe previous year. But later on, while we were speaking to members of the

Islamic Cultural Society at a table in the courtyard, three young women inveils, visibly upset, suddenly emerged from the building where the medicalexaminations were taking place. Mr Nurettin and Mr Bicioglu immediately

Ethnography 7(2)188








got to their feet and walked over. Within earshot, the two men spokeTurkish to the women, who would not be comforted and eventually left.Mr Bicioglu then explained the reason for their emotion:

The three wanted to give blood. One of them wanted to act as interpreterbecause the others didn’t speak German so well. The doctor said: ‘That’s notallowed.’ The interpreter didn’t donate blood either. ‘If you can’t speakGerman, you can’t donate blood,’ the doctor said, to which the one womanresponded: ‘We gave blood last time, and we even have blood donor cards.’The women quoted the doctor as saying that last year their blood had beenpoured down the drain.

Mr Nurettin said more sharply: ‘The next time there’ll be a Turkish doctor

or an interpreter! The women are offended. They already had blood donorcards.’ He continued, saying:

That’s an insult! I’ll inform the press about this. We can go other places, wedon’t have to go to the German Red Cross. Other places will even give memoney per donor. They wait until now to tell us this! Only when the womenwho wanted to interpret said, ‘It was okay last time’ – only then did thedoctor tell her the blood had been poured down the drain . . . If the GermanRed Cross doesn’t accommodate us in this matter, we won’t hold a drivenext year!

During this outburst, Mr Nurettin once again emphasizes the selfless char-acter of the blood drive by referring to the alternative of collecting moneyfrom other organizations.8 In doing so, he places the doctor’s treatment of the three women in a much more reprehensible light. The subtext of hisremarks is: the hand that has given selflessly has been bitten. It later emergedthat the doctor had ‘sent away’ – to use the phrase of the Islamic CulturalSociety – a large number of Turkish donors due to insufficient Germanskills. This had made the rounds and prevented other potential donors fromcoming. As a result, fewer than 40 people gave blood, compared to about

100 at the first drive. Since neither the anticipated apology nor the‘accommodation’ materialized, the mosque congregation ultimately decidedto stop cooperating with the Red Cross, and the short tradition of blooddrives at the Islamic Cultural Society came to an end.

A scholarly interpretation must not restrict itself to the perspective of theIslamic Cultural Society. It must also consider the manner in which theBlood Donor Service of the Red Cross perceived the conflict. While it istrue that the women were not allowed to give blood because of theirallegedly poor German and that blood from the first drive never made it to

the needy, we should not rashly judge these actions as deliberate offenseswith a racist backdrop. The incidents that members of the Islamic CulturalSociety regarded as a sign of disrespect were explained very differently by









the responsible parties at the Blood Donor Service. It did not seem that theywere trying to find ‘good’ or even specious excuses for rejecting ‘Turkish’blood. Their arguments were based on legal regulations governing all blood

donations and reflected a medical ethos that sought to minimize health risksfor recipients.

Even at the first blood drive, Mr Fährmann of the local chapter of theRed Cross explained that malaria was widespread in certain regions of Eastern Turkey and that donors who had stayed in these high-risk areaswere not permitted to give blood. He pointed out that this was a legal regu-lation.9 Clearly, blood donors who do not understand relevant questionsbecause they do not speak German are a problem. Red Cross staff informedme that in certain cases they were totally dependent on the donors’

reliability in their attempts to weed out individuals who had becomeinfected with the hepatitis, AIDS or HTLV I/II viruses just before givingblood. In the early stages of these diseases, it is impossible to determine bylab tests alone whether a person has been infected or not (Preuß, 2004: 51ff.).

Dr Korte, the medical director of the responsible Blood Donor Service,pointed to important provisions in Germany’s Infectious Diseases Protec-tion Act. These state that donors must be informed in the event that testresults are positive. Dr Korte explained that the inability to communicatewith donors could lead to enormous difficulties, especially when theGerman Health Agency was required to intervene and disinfect an apart-ment.10 When pressed further, Dr Korte conceded that neither Germany’sTransfusion Act nor any other law governing the organization of blooddrives requires donors to have adequate German language skills,11 yet theinternal blood donation guidelines of the German Red Cross did stipulateGerman and English as the only permissible languages for the drives.Addressing the offended and angry responses of the Islamic Cultural Society,he said:

Interpreting is banned. The problem is the quality of the interpreter. Youdon’t know whether they understand and interpret everything correctly. Theymight not take all the facts seriously. Looking a little yellow [i.e. infectedwith hepatitis] is not a problem in Southeast Anatolia, but it is a problemin Germany. The interpreter might not think so.

A member of the Red Cross volunteer service evoked the principle of confi-dentiality and privacy protection when explaining the ban on non-professional interpreters with whom the donors are acquainted.12 So thereare good reasons for the Red Cross to see to it that the only blood it accepts

comes from individuals who have sufficiently mastered the German tongue.But even if one can follow the argumentation thus far, there are three pointsthat cannot be reconciled with the Red Cross’s explanatory logic:

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In the first place, there was no need to give members of the IslamicCultural Society the belittling information that the blood they had donatedat the first drive had been ‘poured down the drain’. The Red Cross repre-

sentative did not need to make such a statement, or she could at least havecouched the information in more considerate language. After all, the Trans-fusion Law mentions the ‘service’ and ‘selfless engagement’ of the donors,which must be honored ‘by care and treatment that acknowledges thisservice’ (Gesetz zur Regelung des Transfusionswesens, 1 July 1998, § 3).The Red Cross could have apologized and admitted the faux pas itcommitted at the first drive, as Dr Korte did in my interview with him. ‘Thefirst time’, he said, ‘we made mistakes. The doctor permitted [non-professional] interpreters to be used. If there are interpreters involved, we

must say: “Destroy the blood.”’ But it is not even sure that this wasabsolutely necessary after the first drive at the Islamic Cultural Society.This leads us to another inconsistency in the Red Cross’s argumentation.

In response to the question of whether all the blood donations had to bedestroyed, Dr Korte answered ‘no’, explaining that every blood bag bearsinformation on the donor’s German skills. Dr Korte did not, or could not,close the explanatory gap that opened up with this remark. He respondedevasively to follow-up questions.

A third inconsistency in the Red Cross’s argumentation is that a numberof Turkish donors who were rejected at the second drive had already givenblood several times in the past. They even had blood donor cards. Refer-ring to several men to whom this applied, Mr Nurettin said: ‘These mengave blood at the Montankrankenhaus six months ago. That’s a publichospital. It’s only banned when we hold a drive – because of their poorGerman! They only speak poor German when the drive takes place here.’Mr Nurettin emphasizes a very real contradiction in the way the Red Crosstreats the German skills of potential donors.

From this Mr Nurettin draws the conclusion that the actual reason forthe affront lay in the venue. According to him, at the Islamic Cultural

Society, the responsible parties of the Red Cross were much more awarethan at other drives that they were receiving ‘Turkish blood’. Mr Nurettinis not the only one who holds this view. It was the prevailing interpretationamong members of the Islamic Cultural Society. One example is Ms Sahan,who was one of the three women who first learned what had happened tothe blood from the first drive. Shortly after the second drive she rang upthe female doctor and reported on the conversation in an interview:

‘What I’m hearing here,’ I said [to the doctor], ‘is scandalous. If you take

our blood, you can’t just throw it away. That’s the first point. And the secondpoint is, it’s for medical use, for people. Do people actually need to be ableto speak German? It would be nice,’ I said, ‘if they could speak German, but









they can’t! Do they actually need to speak German to give blood and helpothers? Is it written anywhere on the blood that’s used for other people? Thisis Turkish blood, or this is foreign blood that can’t speak German? Is it

written anywhere?’

In her remarks, Ms Sahan once again touches upon the idea of ethnicallydiverse blood, taking up a theme that runs like a common thread throughthe blood drive. But what exactly does ‘Turkish’ or ‘foreign’ blood signify?

Here we encounter a semantic gap, a layer of meaning that is notaddressed directly by any of the individuals involved. The reciprocal clas-sifications and accusations made by the Islamic Cultural Society and theRed Cross, as well as their behavior toward each other, appear to be organ-ized around this gap. My thesis, which I hope to substantiate in whatfollows, is that kinship and gift exchange are two central concepts that canprovide insight into the aspects of the Barren blood drive that have thus farremained hidden from view. Even the two parts of the compound blood donation, as well as their ‘cultural significance’ (Weber, 1976: 47 ff.),suggest that the puzzle can be solved in this way. After all, ‘blood’ hasdiverse semantic links to family relations, and a ‘donation’ is per se an actof giving.

Blood relations

Blood is a symbolically charged substance. In the first place, it casts asemantic net that includes family relations. We speak of ‘blood relations’and ‘blood bonds’ to characterize biological family relationships and thesocial ties emerging from them. Such expressions refer to an affiliation witha specific group and the close social bonds between people. This is alsoshown by the term ‘blood brotherhood’, which describes symbolic familyrelations established ex post . In contrast, ‘blue blooded’ characterizes the

nobility and the ties that separate its members from the lowborn. Finally,people talk of their own ‘flesh and blood’, particularly in contexts wherespecial moral obligations exist between relatives.

In Turkish culture, kinship is also defined by blood semantics, even if inTurkey – as in the entire region extending from the Balkans to the Caucasus– there exist family relations that are symbolized by the milk that mothersor wet nurses give their children. These relations are constituted not by theidea of biological descent but by the act of giving nourishment (Parkes,2004a, 2004b). Like the cultures of Central Europe, Turkish culture is also

familiar with family relations based on the concepts of adoption andgodparenthood (Magnarella and Türkdogan, 1973; Parkes, 2004a, 2004b).However, like the paradigms of milk and feeding, these are of secondary

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importance and perform only supplementary or substitute functions. Forthe most part, in Islam and in Turkish culture, blood has the same meaningas it does in Central Europe: social family relations are inextricably linked

to the idea of consanguinity.Blood donations universalize the particularistic logic of family affiliation.

Titmuss claims that blood donations illustrate the idea that the human raceis in fact one ‘family’ (1970: 15); and we can interpret his statement tomean that a trace of the family-based cultural meaning of blood remainspresent in the transfer of blood between anonymous persons. The indi-viduals involved in both Barren blood drives also seem to see it in this way,the only difference being that the autochthonous population is not willingto extend the family sphere as broadly as Titmuss would like. When Mr

Kedi says that Red Cross representatives had a ‘fear of contact’ in the periodleading up to the first blood drive, he takes aim at precisely this point: afear, widespread in the German population, of entering into more or lessillegitimate family relations and establishing social and even physical bondswith the Turkish population that are much too close for comfort. Thesesomatically anchored feelings that are provoked by proximity or distancego hand in hand with a dark premonition that things are getting mixed upthat do not belong together. This fear is clearly expressed in talk of ‘German’ and ‘Turkish’ blood.

It is obvious that ‘primordial sentiments’, as described by Clifford Geertz(1963), are at play in both blood drives in Barren – primordial feelings of affiliation or non-affiliation, of proximity or distance, that are perceived asnatural and given. Such primordial feelings are reflected in the distinctionbetween ‘we’ and ‘they’ that goes unquestioned and dominates the thinkingof individuals at the Red Cross and the Islamic Cultural Society.

The strong exterior boundaries always linked to ‘primordial bonds’(Geertz, 1963: 109 ff.) are violated by the Foreigners’ Advisory Board andthe Islamic Cultural Society. Their blood donation initiative seeks toredefine the interior tribal space of the majority population in such a way

as to include them as members. Both groups want to establish kinshiprelations, but their plans come into conflict with the traditional, primordialbonds of the autochthonous population. Further, the feelings that covertlydominate the behavior of the Red Cross representatives are precisely thosethat individuals feel toward their own ethnic group. This is the only wayto explain the aforementioned semantic gap in the participants’ discourseand to arrive at a full understanding of the failed cooperation between theRed Cross and the Islamic Cultural Society. Whereas the Turkish groupswant to initiate an exchange of blood as part of an attempt to attain full

membership in local society, the Germans are loathe to allow Turkish bloodto course through German veins. They do not want to make blood rela-tives of the Turks (see also Myrdal, 1962: 97 ff.).









Though distorted by various rational arguments, the rejection of ‘Turkishblood’ is the motivation for the Red Cross’s unwillingness to accommodatethe Islamic Cultural Society in such a way as to make possible regular,

conflict-free blood drives. There exists a ‘hidden transcript’ (Scott, 1990: 4)concerning Turkish blood at the Red Cross – that is, a discourse meant onlyfor internal ears. At times, though, this discourse seeps into direct talks withTurkish blood donors and assumes the character of a ‘public transcript’.

Aside from borderline cases involving very distance degrees of kinship,a person is either related to another person or not. Kinship is thus an ascrip-tive trait. Given this conception of interethnic kinship (or non-kinship), theIslamic Cultural Society becomes involved in a highly paradoxical enter-prise: its members want to earn family affiliation through an altruistic act

that is based on universalistic rules. They want to make a trait acquirablethat is generally assigned to a person by birth. They try to do so by prof-fering a service and counting on an appropriate response from their coun-terparts. This lends the blood drives the character of a gift exchange.

A gift exchange among equals

From the outset, the Barren blood drives are overdetermined. The IslamicCultural Society does not simply want to give blood like other donors. Itwants the autochthonous majority of the neighborhood to understand thesymbolic meaning of the blood drives. The integration strategies behindthese drives clearly arise from the local context and have little to do withthe anonymous persons who ultimately receive the blood. The German resi-dents are supposed to accept the Turkish minority into their circle of rela-tives. The members of the mosque congregation expect a ‘gift’ in return forgiving blood – recognition of affiliation.

Above all, by performatively showing whom the German neighbors aremeant to consider their kin, the gift of blood provides insight into how these

German neighbors are expected to perceive themselves. The blood driveshave a feature that is always latently present in a reciprocal exchange of gifts, namely ‘an imposition of identity’ (Schwartz, 1967: 1 ff.; similarly,Henaff, 2003: 308). This is why Barry Schwartz is able to write: ‘Giftexchange influences group boundaries by clarifying them’ (1967: 11). It isprecisely the issue of interethnic boundaries that is at stake in the Barrenblood drives. Through the gift of blood, the Islamic Cultural Society wantsto redraw the boundaries between the Turkish and the autochthonouspopulations. It wants to effect membership. So the gift is not at all offered

for free, even if it is embellished with an altruistic symbolism and at timesappears to be a ‘pure’ gift (Malinowski, 1953: 176 ff.; Laidlaw, 2002).When the Islamic Cultural Society exploits blood donations for its

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integration goals and membership aspirations, the altruistic element blendswith expectations of reciprocity and the strategic pursuance of particular-istic interests. This is highly typical of gift exchanges (Gouldner, 1973: 276;

Vandevelde, 2000: 7).Blood donations as organized by the German Red Cross are a modern

gift par excellence, not only because they are based on a voluntary act andare given to entirely unknown, anonymous recipients, but also because theydo not oblige the recipient to make a gift in return (Godbout and Caillé,1998: 52 ff.; Titmuss, 1970: 70 ff., 209 ff.). Blood donations suspend theelement that is constitutive of gift exchanges not only in traditional societiesbut in many exchange practices that exist today: they eliminate the obli-gation to return the gift, and the gift is itself not assigned the function of

either creating or maintaining social ties between persons or groups. Blooddonations largely invalidate the reciprocity norm described by MarcelMauss (1954). At most, what comes into play is an entirely impersonal,generalized expectation of reciprocity.

However, the Islamic Cultural Society attaches a concrete expectation of reciprocity to its blood drives. It is also guided by the idea that it can inter-vene to shape the structure of relations with local society through the giftof blood. The unilateral gift of blood to an anonymous other is employedto establish two-way exchange relations between symbolic relatives. LikeTitmuss (1970: 237 ff.), the members of the Islamic Cultural Society appearto have proceeded on the assumption that their blood donation will producea sense of participation and affiliation and heal feelings of alienation. Indistinction to Titmuss, however, the Islamic Cultural Society links theseeffects to recognition by the autochthonous majority. The expectation of areturn gift is no longer directed at unknown strangers but at the immedi-ate social environment. The Islamic Cultural Society desires recognition asan equal exchange partner. It is seeking to establish symmetrical exchangerelations.

Gift exchanges can of course generate asymmetries and inequalities,

especially since the norms of reciprocity – as Peter M. Blau (1964: 115 ff.)emphasizes – can produce permanent imbalances and dependencies as wellas super- and subordinate relations. This is particularly true when exchangepartners possess unequal resources. According to Pierre Bourdieu (1998:100), gift exchanges between givers who are currently or potentiallyunequal must be distinguished from those between equals. Blood transfersdo not represent exchanges of unequally distributed commodities; rather,they emphasize the shared, even identical, physical makeup of donors andreceivers. This is an exchange among equals. In such cases, a return gift can

only be expected from recipients if they regard the giver as having the rankof an exchange partner, that is, as being an equal who offers equal gifts (seeBourdieu, 1977: 3 ff.).









The Red Cross representatives definitely appear to have understood thatby giving blood, the Islamic Cultural Society intends to enter into recipro-cal exchange relations with the autochthonous population. The Red Cross’s

rejection of the gift of blood can be read as a direct response to the IslamicCultural Society’s aspirations. The entire context of action supports thisinterpretation: blood is to be exchanged for recognition of quasi-kinshipaffiliation. It is this and no other ‘game’ that is being played here. A numberof phrases reveal that individuals at the Red Cross have understood thenature of the game and do not want to play along. One example is a strikingremark that Mr Nurettin reports on: ‘Before the first drive, the Red Crossrepresentatives said: “We don’t want to accept a donation from Turkish andIslamic people.”’ Expressions like ‘throwing blood away’ or ‘pouring it

down the drain’, which quite drastically express how the Red Cross doctorevaluates this donation, also fit in with the logic of a rejected gift exchange.From the outset, the staff of the Blood Donor Service ask whether they

are getting a ‘good’ gift from the Islamic Cultural Society. They want toavoid a gift that will bring misfortune. The Red Cross anticipates that thegift will have negative consequences not only in medical terms but also inthe social sphere: by accepting the gift, it will have recognized the membersof the Islamic Cultural Society as exchange partners of equal status.Whereas the latter intends to use the blood drives both to enter intosymmetrical exchange relations with the majority population and to partici-pate in social life as full-fledged members of society with ‘all attendant rightsand duties’, the Red Cross representatives are bent on preserving existingasymmetries. In their eyes, the dissolution of these asymmetries representsthe calamity that would arise from returning the gift (Bourdieu, 1998: 94).

Kinship as a deep symbolic dimension of social inequality

To understand the behavior of the Red Cross, one must keep in mind that

the Islamic Cultural Society throws into the balance the universalistic impli-cations of giving blood. By pointing out that ethnic differences must not beallowed to play a role in blood donations, its spokespersons present theRed Cross with a moral claim that is basically irrefutable. Faced with thisuniversalistic demand for ethnic neutrality, the Red Cross responds with akind of bureaucratic universalism. The responsible parties at the BloodDonor Service hide behind legal regulations and their own internal guide-lines. They argue that the blood is rejected due to precautionary measuresdesigned to protect blood recipients. Medical duty obliges them to take

these precautions without consideration for the donors. Yet this bureau-cratic universalism, which is often used by autochthonous majorities as aweapon against ethnic minorities (Hüttermann, 2003: 83 ff.), is not

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consistently practiced, and it allows us to see inner contradictions in thebehavior of the Red Cross.

In the course of events, there is repeated talk of ‘German’ and ‘Turkish’

blood, but the interaction between the Islamic Cultural Society and the RedCross cannot be explained solely on the basis of explicit arguments andlabels. It primarily unfolds in a fog of ambiguous classifications withoutever becoming an open conflict. A deeper motivation, which derives fromthe kinship-based cultural meaning of blood, steers the process and deter-mines its outcome. This motivation is rooted in the essentialist idea that aperson is related to his own ethnic group and not to others. This under-standing of kinship forms a deep symbolic dimension of social inequality.But what does this mean exactly?

The concept of ethnic kinship has two different aspects: In the first place,this term refers to the diffuse yet powerful assumption that something akinto a common biological heritage exists within one’s own ethnic group. TheBarren blood drives tap directly into this belief. The Islamic Cultural Societytakes up the idea of kinship when it endeavors to acquire full membershipin local society through a transfer of blood. Its desire to redraw ethnicboundaries by mixing blood confirms this idea. The Red Cross alsosubscribes to this naturalistic belief when it prevents ethnic boundaries frombeing shifted, but it would be wrong to assume it is pursuing a racist ornationalist ideology. The ethnic model of kinship does not constitute anexplicit ideology, and it cannot be equated with what is commonly under-stood by ‘racism’. As a category, racism is too coarse and imprecise toadequately describe what motivates the behavior of the autochthonousparticipants in the Barren blood drives. There is also a second facet of theethnic model of kinship that cannot at all be grasped by the concept of racism.

What is at stake at the blood drives is ‘kinship’ in the sense of both acommunity that is based on common biological origin, and a family or aquasi-family system of interaction and solidarity that extends far beyond

the framework of essentialist or biological concepts (Müller, 1984: 249 ff.).The Barren blood drives fail because acceptance of ‘Turkish blood’ wouldhave initiated reciprocal exchange relations between the German and theTurkish populations. The transfer of blood would have demonstrated thatTurks and Germans, regardless of their ethnic origin, are equally respon-sible for each other. This was prevented in order to reserve for theautochthonous group the reciprocity expectations and solidarity obligationsthat are characteristic of gift exchanges among relatives (Godelier, 1999:207 ff.; Sabean, 1998: 127 ff.). The Turkish blood donors and their ethnic

group are excluded from the domain in which a quasi-family morality hasits validity. It is true of probably all cultures that people have greaterresponsibility for and obligations to their own families. If such a family









morality dominates interethnic perceptions, exchange relations based on theconcept of solidarity must be restricted exclusively to the ‘members’ of aperson’s own ethnic group.

This principle of solidarity, which is oriented toward an idealized viewof family interaction, blends with the idea of common blood. The socialintimacy that is associated with the exchange of blood provokes, at the RedCross, a fear of contact. For its part, the German population punishes theIslamic Cultural Society by largely ignoring it: only a few Germans showup at both blood drives even though, compared with other drives in theneighborhood, the only difference is the location.13

The kinship model of ethnicity represents a deep symbolic dimension of inequality insofar as individuals are not aware that their mode of perceiv-

ing interethnic relations is influenced by notions of kinship. It takes placebehind their backs, as it were, and they have no conscious access to it. Thekinship model of ethnicity, with its archaic feel, manifests itself in its effectsand inexorably asserts itself through human action. The distinction betweenrelatives and non-relatives is based on a deep-rooted cultural idea embeddedin a pre-conscious, emotively charged level of interethnic relations. Theseinterethnic relations are governed by a deep, kinship-related structure – atacit knowledge (Altheide and Johnson, 1992). This implicit stock of knowl-edge apparently does not reflect objective relations among ethnic groups.Rather, it represents a pattern of social perceptions that draw on acompelling interpretation – a ‘belief in blood relationship’, as Max Weber(1978: 393) puts it.

This belief in blood relations is deeply implicated in the relations of inequality between the Turkish and the German populations. Autochtho-nous individuals reject the blood drives for the very reason that they areconceived as part of an integration strategy that aims to diminish intereth-nic differences. The acceptance of blood and the integration efforts by theIslamic Cultural Society would have further jeopardized the status quo ante– the superior position of the German population in relation to the Turks

– at a time when representatives of the Turkish community had alreadyattained previously unimaginable positions of status and were confidentlydemonstrating their bargaining power. This threat – that interethnicinequalities will be eliminated – is the specific problem to which theautochthonous groups respond. It is this that makes the interethnic modelof kinship relevant for blood donations in the first place. It forms the neural-gic point that the Turkish initiators of the Barren blood drive put their fingeron when they make their offer of a symbolic brotherhood to the Germanpopulation – and when they attach to this offer the morally reinforced

expectation of an appropriate counter-gift. The idea of blood relations,which asserts itself clandestinely, defines this problem, and its core is formedby possible shifts in interethnic inequalities.

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Expanded nepotism and negative classifications

The special relevance of the deep kinship structure of interethnic relations

lies in the fact that its effect can be felt in situations that have nothing todo with blood transfers or similar exchanges. It plays a role, in particular,in negative classifications of Turkish individuals. In Barren-Ost, pejorativeclassifications are primarily based on ethnic traits. Beyond this, it is conspic-uous that such designations or classifications target a specific section of theTurkish population: upwardly mobile groups such as entrepreneurs,business proprietors and building owners, as well as politically activegroups and organizations (for a more detailed discussion of what follows,see Sutterlüty and Walter, 2005; Sutterlüty and Neckel, 2006).

Because of their political engagement, the Foreigners’ Advisory Boardand the mosque congregations in Barren-Ost are often classified as strate-gically shrewd ‘parasites’. When the Foreigners’ Advisory Board wanted aseat on the steering committee of the ‘Soziale Stadt NRW’ urban renewalprogram – which includes the area of Barren-Ost – the German populationclaimed that the Turkish population had previously shown no interest inthe neighborhood. Only now, when there was ‘something to be had’, wereTurks making ‘impudent demands’. At a meeting convened to discuss thesedemands, which were voiced by both the Foreigners’ Advisory Board andvarious other Turkish groups in the neighborhood, the co-organizer of theevent, a councilwoman for the Christian Democratic Union, exclaimed:‘They want our German money!’ With this remark, the councilwoman, whoherself lives in the neighborhood, attributes a parasitic behavior to theTurkish population and its representatives and strips them of the right toparticipate in the ‘blessings’ of the urban renewal plan.

If a broad cross-section of the Turkish population pays taxes, one canhardly say that public funds for the urban renewal program are ‘German’.Aside from this, the councilwoman takes for granted that the interests of an autochthonous group must be served first and that the demands of

Turkish associations can be ignored. Her remark about ‘German money’,which was largely applauded, reflects the kinship-related thought patternsdescribed above. According to this way of thinking, money must remainin the family: ‘we’ are not responsible for the ‘them’ in ‘our’ neighbor-hood.

The negative classifications that attribute an ‘expansionist desire to takeover’ to successful residents of Turkish descent follow the same pattern.‘They want to take over everywhere,’ is a common lament in Barren-Ost.Criticism of this sort is leveled at Turks who run local businesses that were

previously owned by Germans or who have acquired buildings once inGerman hands. Even the Turkish soccer team, which bought out atraditional, financially strapped German club, is accused of being motivated









by a desire to seize space. For a broad section of the autochthonouspopulation, ethnicity apparently plays the decisive role in the way economicsuccess and social mobility are judged: it is only the upwardly mobile non-

Germans, particularly Turks, who are subject to ostracizing, maliciousgossip. The German population complains about a hostile seizure of landand charges the Turkish residents with strategically planning to take overwhat they consider their traditional turf. The structural logic of the ethnicmodel of kinship also reveals itself in this behavior: the German residentsdo not want to accept the fact that their own family-defined power base iseroding and ‘strangers’ are benefiting.

The principle of charity does not temper judgments of Turkish business-people and important community representatives for the very reason that

the German majority does not accept them as part of an ethnic family.Germans assess both the frugal, disciplined lifestyle of the Turkish business-people and their willingness to make sacrifices as an expression of an exag-gerated ‘Protestant’ work ethic and even complain that this ‘backward’ ethicgives Turks an undeserved competitive edge. An additional classificationpattern portrays Turkish businesspeople and landlords of profiting from‘shady dealings’ and symbolically excludes them from the local economy asillegitimate rivals.

The classification patterns that deprecate Turks who are economicallysuccessful, wield political influence or have a confident presence in theneighborhood14 all bear the stamp of an ethnic model of kinship. As ahidden axiom of unequal interethnic relations, this model is responsible formaking ethnic affiliation in urban neighborhoods like Barren-Ost thepreferred foundation for negative classifications – as opposed to class affili-ation or social position. This is a surprising finding in a meritocratic societycommitted to the principle of equal opportunity, and it raises a number of pressing questions: Why is the upward mobility of Turks, in particular, sucha virulent problem for the autochthonous population? Why do we not seebusinesspeople, regardless of their descent, taking sides against welfare

recipients, the poor or the unemployed (or vice versa)? Instead, an expandedethnic nepotism dominates the scene.

This appears to confirm the thesis that modern societies in whichtraditional and primordial identities are disappearing generate an oppositeneed, namely – as Nathan Glazer (1983: 250) writes – ‘the need in the indi-vidual for some kind of identity – smaller than the state, larger than thefamily, something akin to “familistic allegiance”’. Nevertheless, the dictumvoiced by Donald R. Horowitz (1985: 57) – ‘the language of ethnicity isthe language of kinship’ – was not validated by our observations in Barren,

at least not in the sense that ethnic groups use kinship semantics whencommunicating with one another. The kinship-based pattern of perceptionis not linked to a specific linguistic code similar to what Horowitz

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discovered among African and Asian populations. The surface structure of the explicit classifications of upwardly mobile Turks15 is not textured bykinship-related semantics. The powerful effect of a familistic understand-

ing of ethnicity results from its very invisibility.This understanding of ethnicity informs the structure of interethnic desig-

nations without constituting an independent classification of semantics. Asindividual examples have shown, when explicit classification patterns areused, this model leaves behind relevant semantic footprints and at timesmanifests itself in individual phrases that are part of a ‘language game’(Wittgenstein, 1953: 7, 23 ff.) that distinguishes between relatives and non-relatives. Apart from this, the deep-rooted kinship-related structurepromotes a subtle distinction (Richter, 1989) that is responsible for inequal-

ity-relevant designations in the first place. It eludes criticism because it isunrecognizable, whereas explicit classifications are continually testedagainst the widely valid norms of anti-racism, equal opportunity and themeritocratic assignment of status. They must prove themselves as legitimateand politically correct in line with these norms. This is why it is not surpris-ing that negative classifications of Turkish individuals are not centered ontheir origins as Turks. Instead, the classificatory semantics are based onobservable and purportedly observed behavioral traits that can be criticizedin light of widespread moral concepts: Is it proper to support a group thataims to take over the entire city neighborhood? Is it proper to show loyaltyto criminal businesspeople? Is it proper to work together with people whoare only interested in their own gain?

These sweeping classifications, which are not only directed at upwardlymobile individuals but which influence perceptions of all Turkish residentsof Barren-Ost on a pars pro toto basis, only permit family loyalty and soli-darity within the autochthonous population. The source of the pejorativedesignations is a family-related primordialism. The extremely effectivekinship model of ethnicity leads to efforts to fight an ethnically neutraldistribution of material goods. Solidarity must first be reserved for one’s

own ethnic group, conceived as a group of relatives – such is the logic of this nepotistic model. Equal participation by migrants does not fit into thisparticularistic picture. This is why the upwardly mobile groups in theTurkish population create a specific problem of interethnic exchange, onethat motivates the search for reprehensible behavioral traits. It generatesthe negative classifications of upwardly mobile Turks described above. Thedeep structure of the ethnic model of kinship is its most essential genera-tive principle, and this can hardly be recognized on the surface level of explicit classifications.

At the Barren blood drives, an egalitarian exchange between Germansand Turks is thwarted. The result is ‘social closure’ (Weber, 1978: 43 ff.,339 ff.; Parkin, 1974) – that is, the exclusion of an ethnic group from the









benefits of quasi-family affiliation and from the resulting solidarityobligations. The members of the Islamic Cultural Society who line up togive blood in exchange for equal membership in local society are driven

back behind ethnic boundaries. The rejection of their gift is not only a brutaldisplay of contempt toward the Islamic Cultural Society. It also excludes itsmembers at both a symbolic and social level. These drives end in an affrontbecause they are viewed by their initiators as an integration strategy. Thenegative classifications in Barren-Ost that are directed against those indi-viduals of Turkish descent who have scored integration successes are basedon a similar logic. The kinship model of ethnicity has a structural influenceon the symbolic order of interethnic inequality and, as the Barren blooddrives demonstrate, it can lead to a micropolitics of social exclusion.

Socially institutionalized norms – including norms of economic rationalityor human equality – can at times arrest this dynamic, but often a primor-dial belief in kinship brings about the downfall of the civil rules in sociallife.

Acknowledgements

For their valuable suggestions and feedback, I would like to express my thanksboth to my colleagues in the Social Inequality Working Group at the Institutfür Sozialforschung and to the participants in the Hanover meeting of the UrbanPoverty Working Group, the Gießen Sociological Colloquium under SighardNeckel, and the research colloquium under Claudia Honegger at the Instituteof Sociology at Bern University. Thanks also go to Andreas Kuhlmann, JörnLamla, Martin Löw-Beer and Beate Sutterlüty for their constructive criticismand important input, and to Ina Walter for her commitment during fieldresearch.

Notes

1 All the names of people and places have been changed.2 See Katz (2001/2002) and Ragin and Becker (1992) for the significance of

case studies in the development of sociological theory.3 Entitled ‘Negative Klassifikationen: Ideologien der Ungleichwertigkeit in

den symbolischen Ordnungen gegenwärtiger Sozialgruppen’ (NegativeClassifications: Ideologies of Inequality in the Symbolic Orders of Current Social Groups), this ethnographic research project was carried

out at the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt am Main. Theresearch team included Ina Walter in addition to the author and ProjectDirector Sighard Neckel. It was integrated into the research association

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‘Desintegrationsprozesse – Stärkung von Integrationspotentialen einermodernen Gesellschaft’, which was funded by the German Federal Ministryof Education and Research. The project examined the semantics and social

uses of ‘negative classifications’ (i.e. pejorative designations) by differentpopulation groups that encountered one another as neighbors in sociallydisadvantaged urban neighborhoods. These groups were distinguished byboth vertical and horizontal inequalities. The principal objective of thestudy was to explore the disintegrative and, at times, integrative effects of these classifications and classification struggles (for more information onthe theoretical background, see Bourdieu, 1990; Neckel, 1991; Neckel andSutterlüty, 2005; Sutterlüty and Neckel, 2006). The study made use of thedata collection techniques of field research, including participant observa-

tion, but was also based on individual interviews and group discussions.In terms of sampling and data analyses, it was oriented toward grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987).

4 The neighborhood, which had 13,500 residents in May 2004, is located inBarren, a city in Germany’s Ruhr region. After it was settled in the secondhalf of the 19th century, Barren-Ost was characterized by a mining mono-structure. With the decline in coal mining at the end of the industrial age,it faced – and continues to face – problems that are widespread in the Ruhrregion. In May 2004, the jobless rate stood at 16.9 percent, and 9.9 percentof the population was on welfare. At this time, foreigners made up 10.6 of the population, of which 47 percent were Turkish nationals. The secondarea studied in the research project was a multicultural neighborhood in alarge city in southern Germany, but the case study presented in this articleis concerned only with Barren-Ost.

5 The Ordnungsdienst is a volunteer service organized by the local chapterof the German Red Cross. It works together with the Blood Donor Service,which provides medical personnel, coordinates blood donation dates andis headquartered in Domkirchen – a city in the vicinity of Barren.

6 In both cases money was donated. Mr Nurettin refers to the major flood

of the Oder River in the summer of 2002 and to Christmas donations tothe homeless, organized by the tradition-rich Catholic Armenkirche(Church for the Poor) in Barren.

7 The German Transfusion Act permits ‘compensation’ to be paid donors todefray any expenses they might have, but otherwise adheres to the‘principle of non-payment’ out of ‘safety considerations’ – that is, to keepthe drives from attracting ‘undesirable donors’ (Gesetz zur Regelung desTransfusionswesens, 1 July 1998, § 10).

8 He can only mean the above-mentioned, legally permitted ‘compensation’.

9 See Section 2.2.2 of the Richtlinien zur Gewinnung von Blut undBlutbestandteilen und zur Anwendung von Blutprodukten (Hämotherapie)vom Juli 2000. Neuformulierungen und Kommentare 2001. Aufgestellt









vom Wissenschaftlichen Beirat der Bundesärztekammer und vom Paul-Ehrlich-Institut.

10 See the Gesetz zur Verhütung und Bekämpfung von Infektionskrankheiten

beim Menschen, 20 July 2000, §§ 18 and 25 ff.11 The opposite appears to be the case – namely, that lawmakers expect blood

donor services to be able to communicate with donors. The German Trans-fusion Act states that the donors must be ‘informed in a competent andcomprehensible manner as to the nature, significance and method of performing examinations and blood withdrawal’ (Gesetz zur Regelung desTransfusionswesens, 1 July 1998, § 6).

12 However, this argument is relativized by the fact that after blood is takenevery donor is given the confidential opportunity to prevent it from being

used. The Transfusion Protection Law explains that this procedure is‘permitted to prevent discrimination against people who come in groupsyet whose blood may not be used’ (Gesetz zur Regelung des Transfusion-swesens, 1 July 1998, § 6).

13 After cooperation with the Islamic Cultural Society failed, the Red Crosscontinued to hold major drives in the local community center, which showsthe great donor potential in Barren-Ost (see Barrener Zeitung , 2 June2004). Earlier, the Red Cross had been looking for a replacement for theexpensive rooms it rented in the community center. Now it appeared to bewilling to spend some money to hold these drives.

14 In part, Turkish welfare recipients were also stigmatized. UnemployedTurkish workers and welfare recipients in Barren-Ost were accused of making exorbitant demands of what the autochthonous population called‘our German welfare state’. They were also criticized for ‘cleverly’ exploit-ing social institutions. Even though the residents of Barren-Ost generallybelieve that precarious social situations are a result of economic develop-ments, they classify Turkish recipients as ‘social parasites’ who take morethan their fair share of what the Germans see as ‘their’ system of solidarity.This also points to a moral sphere of solidarity that is limited to quasi-

family members.15 This article does not concern itself with negative classifications that target

the autochthonous population, in particular, the accusation of ‘Germandissociality’ (see Sutterlüty and Walter, 2005: 194 ff.).

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■ FERDINAND SUTTERLÜTY is a research fellow at the Institutfür Sozialforschung. He is the author of Gewaltkarrieren and is

now preparing a book, Negative Klassifikationen, and co-editing a

collection of essays on Abenteuer der Feldforschung. Address:

Institut für Sozialforschung, Senckenberganlage 26, 60325

Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

[email: [email protected]] ■


the belief in ethnic kinship_ a deep symbolic dimension of social inequality

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