How do Mexican migrants in Germany perceive themselves and their lives? Innovatively combining theories of interculturality and social imaginaries, Yolanda López García uses the anthropological method of life stories to investigate the understudied area of Mexican migration to Germany. She discusses areas such as quality of life as a motivation for migration, the role of banal nationalism in imaginaries, the dynamic subjective re-construction of Mexicanness, and the process of (imagined) »Germanisation«. Yolanda López García ultimately argues that individuals, as social agents, engage with and construct new emerging imaginaries, which may be viewed as important engines of social change.

Autorentext
Yolanda López García, born in 1981, is a researcher and lecturer with an interdisciplinary background: Dr. phil from the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena (Germany), MA in International Migration and Intercultural Relations from the University of Osnabrück (Germany) and BA in International Relations from the Jesuit University of Guadalajara (ITESO) (Mexico). Her research focuses on the impact of social imaginaries, migration and intercultural communication in everyday life.