Mediascape and Identity Reproduction and Sustenance: A Case of Indian Guest-Workers in Germany

This paper explores the socio-cultural experiences of exclusion and inclusion for Indian guest workers in Germany facilitated by media, within the discourses of economic globalization and international migration of labour. It draws directly from Arjun Appadurai’s concept of ‘scapes’ coming together to constitute ‘disjuncture of flows’. Here ‘guest-worker’ is not the quintessential ‘gastarbeiter’ rather a league of Elite Migrants. They comprise mostly of IT, Banking and Finance professionals and are a part of the global economy due to neoliberalism and transnational network. The salient focus of this paper is to explore the extent to which media acts as an agent of identity reproduction and sustenance for Indian guest workers in the host society and how that informs the overall interconnectedness of ‘scapes’.