Abt. Geschichtswissenschaft

Both the scholarly and public debates about racism in Germany require an eastern enlargement — this is the central claim advanced by Panagiotidis and Petersen in their thought-provoking overview of the past and present of German racism directed at Eastern Europeans. Admittedly, readers familiar with historical research on German stereotypes of Eastern Europeans (for example, the trope of polnische Wirtschaft), the history of East European Studies in Germany, German anti-Slavism, or migration from Eastern Europe will encounter relatively little that is empirically new. The value of the book lies instead in its deliberate shift of perspective towards what Philomena Essed has termed “hierarchies of worthiness”, that is, the differentiated and often implicit gradations through which Others from the East are positioned within German society. By foregrounding Eastern Europeans within this framework, the authors challenge the dominant focus on other axes of racialisation and make visible forms of discrimination that are frequently normalised or rendered invisible. In doing so, the book not only expands the scope of racism research but also invites a reconsideration of how race, migration, and belonging are conceptualised in the German context more broadly.

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