Unwanted: Muslim Immigrants, Dignity, and Drug Dealing

The immigration of Muslims to Europe and the integration of later generations presents many challenges to European societies. Unwanted builds on five years of ethnographic research with a group of fifty-five second-generation Muslim immigrant drug dealers in Frankfurt, Germany to examine the
relationship between immigration, social exclusion, and the informal economy. Having spent countless hours with these young men, hanging out in the streets, in cafes or bars and at the local community center, Sandra Bucerius explores the intimate aspects of one of the most discriminated and excluded
populations in Germany. Bucerius looks at how the young men negotiate their participation in the drug market while still trying to adhere to their cultural and religious obligations and how they struggle to find a place within German society. The young men considered their involvement in the drug
trade a response to their exclusion at the same time that it provides a means of forging an identity and a place within German society. The insights into the lives, hopes, and dreams of these young men, who serve as an example for many Muslim and otherwise marginalized immigrant youth groups in
Western countries, provides the context necessary to understand their actions while never obscuring the many contradictory facets of their lives.


Author: Sandra M. Bucerius
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 09/17/2014
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.60h x 6.70w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780199856473

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 10/03/2014 pg. 18

About the Author

Sandra M. Bucerius is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Alberta.