The online German Studies journal Austausch (www.austauschjournal.net) seeks contributions which address questions related to German communities and to German identification outside the borders of the German state(s). More precisely, Austausch is looking for papers dealing with historical, sociological, political, cultural and economic aspects of Germanness outside Germany, from 1945 to present times.

Questions concerning German national identity and the German diaspora have surged to the forefront of academic debates in recent years. Studies have started to move away from the traditionally taboo-laden absences and politically oriented approaches towards more analytically solid explorations of experiences and uses of Germanness outside the German state(s) (Wolff 2000; O’Donnell, Bridenthal and Reagin 2005; Schulze et al. 2008) or towards investigations of the relationship between ethnic Germans abroad and Germany (Kossert 2008).

For the historical minorities in Central- and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union, for the German communities in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand or in the African continent, various understandings of German identification have played a key role. German identity and identification outside the borders of the German state(s) entail a myriad of historical, sociological, political, cultural, and economic intricacies and interweavings, apt to be treated with a multitude of analytical instruments.

At the same time, making indistinct use of the ethnic categorization “German” runs the danger, in Brubaker’s terms, of confounding categories of practice with categories of analysis (Brubaker and Cooper 2004). “Germanness” outside Germany has been the result of political and personal self-representations, but also of heterorepresentations and peculiar processes of imagination. After 1871, with different degrees of intensity, “Germanness” outside Germany has had consequences upon the relationships between the German state(s), states of ethnic German residence or citizenship, and the various institutions and organisations aiming to represent these Germans. The analytic triangle consisting of nationalizing state, kin-state and minority group offers a rich subject for analysis.

Considering the post-1945 focus of this CfP, the following topics are of particular interest:

- Development of the relationships between the German state(s) and German communities in Central- and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union
- Development of the relationships between German communities in Central- and Eastern Europe and Austria
- Collective memory of the Second World War and of the Holocaust within German communities in Central- and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union
- German émigré communities in Latin America
- Images of Germanness in the former German colonies in Africa
- Relationships between Germans and other ethnic groups outside the borders of the German state(s)
- Identification and memory discourses of Germans from Central- and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in North America
- Relationship between religious and ethnic identity in the German communities outside Germany

We welcome both interdisciplinary approaches and more “traditional” approaches, appertaining to one discipline only (political science, history, sociology, economy etc.). PhD students and early career researchers are strongly encouraged to apply. Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words to editor.austausch@googlemail.com by May 27, 2012. If selected, you will be asked to write an article of no more than 10,000 words, which will go through a peer-review process in order to be published. We cannot guarantee the publication of all articles from the selected abstracts.

For any other queries, feel free to write to cristian.cercel@durham.ac.uk.

References

Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity’.” In Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 28-63. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Kossert, Andreas. Kalte Heimat. Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945 (Munich: Siedler Verlag, 2008).
O’Donnell, Krista, Renate Bridenthal and Nancy Reagin, ed. The Heimat Abroad: The Boundaries of Germanness. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Schulze, Mathias, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, ed. German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008.
Wolff, Stefan, ed. German Minorities in Europe: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Belonging. New York: Berghahn, 2000.