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This study of the former Ottoman Empire and the Balkans accentuates commonalities, shared destinies, and the necessity of interdependence. The Judeo-Muslim connection in Germany—a member-state of the European Union—centers on the large Turkish-Muslim community that seeks to emulate German Jewry of the past and present. Turkish-Muslim immigrants in the new geography familiarize themselves with the German-Jewish narrative of historic sufferings and associate their own concerns over racism with the ostracizing of Jews under the Third Reich. Muslim communal leaders compare the Holocaust with the fire-bombing of Turkish homes by German rightist extremists; they use today's Jewish community organizations as examples of how to organize as a minority; and Turkish immigrant associations claim minority rights from the authorities identical to those of German Jews. Simultaneously, Muslim leaders evince solidarity with their Jewish compatriots, notably in Berlin, where attempts have been made to forge an alliance against discrimination. The situation in Germany is different from in France, where Muslim–Jewish tensions in the past ran high and even resulted in violence. Anti-Muslim activity following 9/11 and attributed to racist elements reinforced fears—real or imaginary—that the fate of the country's Turkish-Muslim minority in the twenty-first century might duplicate the Jewish tragedies of the previous century.

Chapter 2 focuses on the policy discourse and on the political framing of integration and the situation of Turkish immigrant minorities at the city level. As such, it teases out the power differential between immigrants and the policy discourse. Due to the power position of policy-makers vis-a-vis immigrants, policy-makers can frame their imaginations of urban space and immigrant integration as realistic policy recommendations without taking immigrants’ social reality into consideration.

Chapter 3 explores the antidote to the top-down policy discourse - it provides a glimpse into immigrants’ life stories and their lived ways of integration, which are likely to stand apart from what policy-makers conceive as viable avenues to integration. Chapter 3 also illustrates that immigrants are conscious of and react to the way they are perceived and framed within the dominant discourse by way of their own integration strategies inside the neighborhood. In the process, they find a home in the neighborhood.

Chapter 1 develops the full conceptual framework guiding this book and explains in more detail the intricacies of the German integration debate. The concept of Space specifically is introduced as a specific conceptual lens for understanding social reality and contextualizing social processes. Edward Soja’s theoretical concepts of Second- and Thirdspace (1996) present a conceptual tool to highlight the difference between local policy discourse on integration in Berlin and integration practice by immigrants themselves in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods.

The Conclusion summarizes the empirical findings and points to the conceptual and policy implications of this research. From a theoretical perspective, the conclusion emphasizes spatial theory as a tool for understanding the two-pronged, multi-layered meanings of integration, and the importance of the neighborhood as a unit of analysis for understanding spatialized social processes. It also suggests some avenues for future research.

Chapter 4 grounds the empirical findings in the socio-historical fabric of the two neighborhoods, Kreuzberg and Neukölln. The experiences and life stories of the immigrants are contextualized against the socio-historical background as well as the current integration debates of each specific place. In doing so, this chapter underlines the intricate connection between immigrant identity, lived integration, and the social context of the neighborhood itself.

This chapter addresses culturally based insecurities, focusing on honor killing in Germany. In the past few years, honor crimes have become globally famous among activists and scholars concerned about the rights and security of Muslim women. Indeed, media visibility of honor killing is reinforced by the decision by organizations such as the World Health Organization to make “honor killing” a focal point for their campaigns. Through this rhetorical move, women's murders have been categorized as manifestations of Muslim tradition, fuelling public anger against Turkish immigrants in Germany and other parts of Europe. Thus, this campaign to protect Muslim women has itself become a source of insecurity, both for Muslim minorities who face growing stigmatization and for a European public whose perspectives on Muslims are distorted by fear.