Immigration in Berlin

Representation
Turkish representation in
Kreuzberg and Wedding
The feelings of political representation on a
personal and community level differ between
Kreuzberg and Wedding. Immigrant origin
citizens in Kreuzberg feel personally better
represented and feel that the Turkish
community is better represented.
In Berlin there are about 573,000 people with a
non-German nationality, who come from 1 90
different countries around the world. This
means that 1 6% of the population of Berlin is
of non-German background. The biggest
migrant community in Berlin is formed by
citizens with a Turkish migration background;
the size of this group is about 200,000. This
also means that this Turkish community is the
biggest one outside of Turkey. The fact that
Turks form the biggest migrant community in
Berlin made this group the topic of this
research. Because they are so many, the idea
came to mind to conduct fieldwork and
perform face-to-face surveys with Turkish
migrants in Berlin. So, where to start when one
wants to investigate
the Turkish
community?
By finding out
where they live
and where the
Turkish communities
within the
city actually are.
Through
data
from the city of
Berlin we found
out that two of
the areas in
Berlin where a
lot of Turkish
migrants live are Wedding and Kreuzberg. The
idea of this research is to compare Turkish
people in Wedding and Kreuzberg on the
topic of political representation and see if
people feel more represented in either one of
these areas.
In order to research political representation
the method of face-to-face surveys was used.
First basic demographic questions such as
age, zip code and occupation were
questioned. Then, moving on to the part of
political representation, people were asked if
they were eligible to vote and if they had
voted in the last local elections. The feeling of
representation was measured by asking people
whether they personally felt represented
by the government of Berlin on a scale from 1
to 1 0 4 . The same question was asked about
whether they felt that the Turkish community in
Berlin is well represented. Lastly people were
asked whether they knew any Turkish
representatives in Berlin and if they could
name them 4 .
The conducted questionnaire was used twice.
First in the area of Wedding, where 1 8 people
filled it in.
After that we
(me and two
other students)
went to Kreuzberg,
where
we also asked
1 8 people.
This means
that the total
sample was
36. Some of
the respondents
who
filled in the
questionnaire
did not have Turkish roots, so the sample
which is usable for this research is 20 people.
Representation in Kreuzberg and Wedding
We can now take a look at the results of the
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