‘Ik ken ook geen allochtonen.’ De representatie van integratie en identiteit in het werk van Sevtap Baycılı

In this paper, we will offer a close-reading of Sevtap Baycılı’s Nachtmerrie van de allochtone, and an analysis of her authorial posture, as well as position both within their historical context. Approaching book and authorial ethos as a time capsule, we will show how the common presupposition that voices critical of Multiculturalism and Islam could only make themselves heard after 2001 is belied by the fact that such voices were already so clichéd in 1999 that Baycılı could easily satirise them. We will furthermore discuss the challenge to the concept of “migrant authors” posed by Baycılı, as she stresses how this concept is as much a construction of the public debate and so-called experts, as the allochtone is in society. We recommend a closer look at more literary works produced during this period, and how they negotiated debates about migration and integration, which continue to reverberate in present-day Dutch politics.