Identity Transformation of Migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina in post-1960s Germany

Abstract

Results presented in this paper are part of an extensive research in BiH emigration of the second half of the 20th century conducted during a field trip in Berlin, Germany. This paper aims at presenting the foundations from which the emigration originated after the Second World War and then changes which occurred during the 1960s when a large number of people from Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina left for temporary employment in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other Western European countries, as well as to look into models and reasons for the transformation of identity of BiH migrants in Germany after the 1960s. With the aim to identify the pattern according to which the workers with temporary employment abroad created their identities, this paper dedicates special attention to the transformation of identity, i.e. it indicates how identity transformed under the changed circumstances and in an altered context. However, research focuses on a part of BiH emigration in Germany, West Berlin in particular, since it stands out as a special case, an enclave in East Germany. Therefore, the presented examples of identity transformations of BiH workers in Berlin that were followed by changes in their native country, Yugoslavia, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also by the changes Germany experienced the end of the 1980s. Finally, the paper aims to show the multi-layered identities and their changes from the working, religious, social to the national identity