Von der Klasse zur Identität: Hervorhebung des Kulturellen über das Politische in der Literatur der ‚Ausländer‘ zwischen den 1980er und 1990er Jahren

This article examines the transformation of German-language ‘Ausländerliteratur’ between the 1980s and the early 1990s, with a particular focus on the shift from a Marxist-influenced ‘Gastarbeiterliteratur’ to an identity-oriented ‘interkulturelle Literatur’. The goal of the paper is to test the following hypothesis: in this literature, the consideration of the ‘material’ conditions of migration – as understood in Marxist terms – has been replaced by a focus on intercultural identity issues. This shift reflects the general development recently analyzed by Mimmo Cangiano, who argues that contemporary ‘cultural wars’ as today’s activist practice emphasize the cultural over the political, making them susceptible to absorption into neoliberal capitalist mechanisms