| The subject of migration and integration in contemporary German society continually provokes political and social debate, but fails to produce any practical, efficient result. Therefore, a new strategy for the creation of a multicultural society must be designed whereby the concept of identity is redefined. The boundaries established and incessantly propagated between various cultures, the East and West, as well as the Orient and Occident must be overcome. Thus, we turn to the works of multicultural artists, among them, Emine Sevgi Özdamar. This thesis, entitled Suche, Metamorphose and Wiederentdeckung der Identität in den Werken von Emine Sevgi Özdamar, implores as a starting point the theory of Samuel P. Huntington, Eduard W. Said as well as Bassam Tibi, and explores the complexity of the identities of the Turkish protagonists in Emine Sevgi Özdamar's works. Due to the protagonist's oscillation between Turkey and Germany, respectively the Orient and the Occident, various aspects of their identities, such as gender roles, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and national identity are perpetually subject to the influence of the Turkish and German cultures. During the process of self-determination, the protagonists are continually confronted with isolation and alienation which they are forced to overcome in order to integrate themselves as individuals into both cultures. In her works Özdamar depicts how the potential loss of identity can be averted to the rediscovery of a new identity. |
