On institutions, white christian privilege and the politics of equality and citizenship

This conversation explores structural and institutional conditions of citizenship in Britain and Germany. The ‘importing’ of cheap migrant labour, for example, in the care sector, reproduces various forms of inequality, including in the welfare state. In the German context, the Christian churches occupy a hegemonic position in the provision of welfare and actively protect their white Christian privilege. Addressing topics such as the regime of statistical representation and the resulting invisibility of race, this conversation points to normalised structural inequalities, institutional discrimination and the making of privileges. Equalities legislation, established since the 1960s in the UK, has only begun to evolve in Germany in the last two decades. Lewicki and Supik problematise assertions of citizenship as an always inclusive institution that foregrounds norms of equality and non-discrimination, and discuss structural and institutional impediments to its realisation.