Translating Work, Family and Social Life in Europe: Marriage Migrants' Performances of Cultural Translation in Germany

The paper aims at the investigation of cultural, social, and religious practices of the Non-EU marrýage migrants in different spheres of life and institutional areas such as work, family, cultural and social life as the negotiation of the differences by migrants between the cultures of the host society and the cultures of the sending countries. Drawýng on Homi Bhabha’s concept of “cultural translation” I examine migratory processes as the site of cultural translation between different world views and common sense.The paper is based on the biographical narrative interviews conducted with the men of Kurdish, Turkish and Moroccan origin, who could migrate to Germany through a marriage with a female descendant/daughters (belonging to the 2^nd and 3^rdgeneration) of a migrant family living in Germany, and with their wives. The third-party funded research project was realized in 2013 at Goethe University in Frankfurt. I understand the narrative and bodily performances of my interview partners in migratory processes as performances of cultural translation between languages, gender roles, norms, cultures, social and symbolic ties, rhythms, values, institutions, and traditions. Translating culture is not only a discursive practice related to bilingualism, to concept/knowledge production and to conceptual transformation, but should also be seen as a non-discursive performance including bodily practices and experiences. The notion of cultural translation makes it possible not only to reflect upon the migrants' negotiations of cultural differences and to address the asymmetrical power relations between the host culture and minority culture, but also enables one to think beyond the assimilation paradigm.