In many ways, refugees are subject to different kinds of interference in their lives and bodies than are citizens. In the course of the migration and border regime, they are categorized, questioned, x-rayed, doubted, restricted in their mobility, deprived of their privacy, rejected and often criminalized. Migrant initiatives such as “Together We Are Bremen” (TWAB) have demanded in numerous protests that this unequal treatment be stopped and that all people be given the same opportunities in life.

With our research project “No One Can Be Born Twice”, we take up this criticism and focus in particular on bureaucratic age as the hinge on which living conditions, life chances and future prospects are determined (Netz 2023). Our team consisted of Bremen-based activists who had been campaigning against the discriminatory practices of age estimation and the denial of birth certificates for their children, and included academics working on the issues of categorization and belonging. Our motivation for working together stemmed, on the one hand, from our shared interest in a differentiated analysis of the citizenship, border and migration regime and, on the other hand, from our desire to intervene in the public debate and to focus on the lived perspectives, theoretical positions and political demands of refugees. It was particularly important to us to shape the research process together – with regard to the interviews, the evaluation and critical reflection, as well as the presentation of the results.

While we initially assumed that we would publish a book, in the course of our research we decided to create a website that would allow us to reach a larger audience and provide a more diverse range of access. We worked in two groups to shed light on two aspects of the age regime and its harsh consequences. The first group dealt with the issue of (medical) age estimation; the second group focused on the struggle for birth certificates. We structured our website along the various topics and critical objections that emerged from the interviews: the “bureau-crazy” that the migrants were permanently confronted with, the racist unequal treatment of Black mothers, but also the diverse practices of resistance, which ranged from legal interventions and public protests to acts of solidarity such as cooking together in the camp and the like. For the website, we selected short, concise quotations that can also be understood as theoretical interventions by the conversation partners. For example, the section on the process and consequences of age estimation begins with the statement, “‘Give us our age back – and give us our lives!’; the quote, ‘’The denial of birth certificates is a denial of belonging‘” stands for the denial of birth certificates.

We consider the website to be an important resource – not only for researchers, but also for activists in other federal states who may be inspired by the protests of TWAB. We also address social workers and civil servants who are involved in the bureaucratic machinery of age estimation on a daily basis and who will gain new perspectives on the implications and consequences of their actions. We therefore see our work as a contribution to the fight against the current right-wing shift in discourse, which declares migrants to be a problem instead of respecting them as fellow human beings.

Person responsible: Katharina Schramm (University of Bayreuth)

Cited literature

Netz, Sabine. 2023. “Citizenship as Ideal and Fiction: Age Categorizations and Material Living Conditions in the German Citizenship and Migration Regimes.” PhD thesis, Bayreuth: University of Bayreuth.