Do we all celebrate? Assessing the adoption of the migration celebration narrative in Germany

In the face of persistent structural labour shortages, Germany has framed labour migration as a central strategy. To mobilise support, policymakers draw on the so-called Migration Celebration Narrative (MCN), which presents migration as a solution to societal challenges such as labour shortages, demographic aging, and decreasing economic competitiveness. Drawing on and combining Stuart Hall’s (1980. „Encoding/decoding.“ In Culture, Media, Language, herausgegeben von. Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, und Paul Willis, 128–38. London: Hutchinson) encoding/decoding model with the policy narrative framework by Jones and McBeth (2010. “A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?” Policy Studies Journal 38 (2): 329–353. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00364.x), we assess the reception, negotiation and reappropriation of the MCN in Germany. Based on ten focus groups conducted with participants of diverse migration and non-migration backgrounds, we show that the MCN circulates widely, but its encoded meanings are not simply reproduced: participants across groups actively negotiate or contest its central claims. While the setting of the narrative – labour shortages in Germany – is not questioned, the characters – portrayal of migrants as mere labour force, – the plot – portrayal of smooth arrival disguising structural barriers, – as well as the morale – proposed policy solution – is stronlgy renegotiated and reformulated through lived realities. Therefore, adoption is to be understood as a complex and multi-layered process that goes beyond the migrant/non-migrant binary and takes account of different positionalities.