Page - 96 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

96 | Verena Eberhardt www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 81–99 trast, the representation of foreign characters is linked with national localisa- tions: “This is Mwangaza. He is four years old. He has five sisters. Mwangazas mama comes from Tanzania, his papa comes from Germany.”42 “Teresa was born in Poland and lives with her family in Germany.”43 “This is Huda. She is five years old and still attends nursery school. Huda was born in Germany, but her parents come from Syria.”44 According to the German Federal Office for Migra- tion and Refugees, a person has a immigrant background if he or she or at least one of his or her parents was not born with German citizenship.45 On this basis, the characters that represent foreign identities have immigrant backgrounds. The narrations are unable to discuss the characters’ interdependent national identities since their speech produces a monolithic representation of otherness. The exploration of whether characters belong to specific groups or are foreign- ers presupposes a social collectivity or a majority within society that determines imaginaries, rules and norms and dictates inclusion and exclusion to regulate constructions of collective affiliation.46 Although most of the characters were born in Germany, the readers perceive them not as German, but as foreigners. Sociologist Minna-Kristiina Ruokonen-Engler points to important perspec- tives concerning immigration and globalisation: social realities, affiliations and behaviour patterns are no longer understood within the framework of nation states; rather, they operate in contexts of migration, diverse social realities, transnationalities, globalised economies and affiliations beyond the nation state.47 The narrations examined here presume a strong connection between nationality and cultural identity. Cultural identity “can be defined as the broad range of worldviews and behavioural practices that one shares with the mem- bers of one’s community. Beside everyday practices, morals and religion take prominent roles in the individual’s conception of cultural identity.”48 However, the books discussed here restrict the cultural identities represented and disre- gard individual conceptions of culture and religion; religions are conceptualised as monolithic entities that are related to the concept of world religions. Yet, as Tomoko Masuzawa has written, These so-called great religions of the world – though what makes them “great” re- mains unclear – are often arranged by means of one or the other of various systems of classification, with binary, tripartite, or even more multifarious divisions. What 42 Ngonyani 2016, n. pag. 43 Pana 2016, n. pag. 44 Taufiq 2016, n. pag. 45 https://www.bamf.de/DE/Service/Left/Glossary/_function/glossar.html?lv3=3198544 [accessed 2 February 2018]. 46 See Ruokonen-Engler 2016, 248. 47 See Ruokonen-Engler 2016, 250. 48 Thomas/Al-Dawaf/Weissmann 2016, 218.