Unwanted: Muslim Immigrants, Dignity, and Drug Dealing (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)

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. This study builds on five years of ethnographic research with an all-male group of fifty-five Muslim second-generation immigrant drug dealers in Frankfurt, Germany, and examines the relationship among immigration, social exclusion, and the informal economy. In particular, the study explores the intimate and interactive aspects of the lives of this group of second-generation Muslim immigrants, who belong to one of, if not the most, discriminated against and socially excluded populations in German society. This five-year ethnographic study of second generation immigrant Muslim drug dealers in Frankfurt, Germany explores the young men's participation in the drug market while trying to adhere to religious and cultural obligations, their struggles with exclusion and discrimination to find a place within German society, and their aspirations for a future in Europe.