The Challenge of Contradictions: Thinking Through Spaces of Dissension

When more than a million migrants came to Europe in 2015, the notion of a “European migrant crisis” was spreading and gaining strength. In Germany—the country which received the highest number of new asylum applications—the arrivals were met with ambivalence. On the one hand, vast numbers of Germans engaged in Angela Merkel’s “welcome culture,” volunteering in shelters, donating money and clothing, helping refugees with bureaucratic hurdles, even inviting migrants into their homes.