Migrant Organizations and Social Protection in Germany: The Functions of MOs for Their Target Groups’ Social Protection Practices

This article engages with the functions assumed by migrant organizations (MOs) in Germany in the context of the social protection of people with migration biographies. Based on document analyses and qualitative interviews with three groups of actors, we identify four functions through which MOs contribute to their target groups’ social protection practices, and show how diverging perceptions toward these functions shape the current role of MOs in a changing welfare system. In addition to providing social services themselves (service function), they mediate with the welfare system (hinging function) and advocate for the interests of people with migration biographies in public and political discourse (advocacy function). Moreover, we demonstrate that these functions are shaped and complemented by a “homemaking” function, a form of informal protection based on mutual support, trust and understanding. In this article, the discussion of the specific ways in which these functions play a role for the social protection of people with migration biographies is based on joint analysis of three data sets. Thus, we juxtapose the viewpoints of MO representatives, their target groups and people associated with welfare state institutions and political administrations. In this way, we show how MOs use these various functions to actively engage with a changing welfare landscape, whereas welfare institutions and political administrations often perceive of the work undertaken by MOs rather as an ‘integration’-oriented prerequisite for their own social service provision. As a result, contrasting and sometimes competing perspectives challenge the role of MOs within the German welfare system, even though these organizations already fulfill key functions for their target groups’ social protection.