‘Finding my own way’: mobilization of cultural capital through migrant organizations in Germany

Abstract

Migrant organizations MOs), as associations that are founded, managed, and led by people with migration biographies, have recently emerged as facilitators of social protection interventions. This article is devoted to this barely debated issue of MOs in the field of social protection, by emphasizing their role in facilitating the mobilization and access to cultural capital as an important determinant of protection and wellbeing of people with migration biographies. Specifically, we study how MOs promote the formation and mobilization of skills and resources to be used in different fields, in particular in the education and labor markets. We find that MOs facilitate various occasions for their members to generate migration-specific cultural capital, predominantly in the field of education and language skills. MOs also promote the creation and institutionalization of cultural capital on the labor market. In addition, our results show that people with a migration background appreciate their participation in migrants’ organizations, because they allow them to pursue their own projects and find their own way through the different phases of migration and settlement, in often challenging environments.