Loved as Culture, Rejected as Neighbour: The Politics of Belonging from Berlin to Lisbon

Author: Ami Jin

Europe frequently presents itself as a global model of inclusion. The European Commission states that “equality, diversity, and inclusion are a top priority.” Cities market themselves as cosmopolitan spaces where cultures meet and intermingle. Yet across the continent, the reality experienced by migrants is more complicated: their cultures are embraced, but their belonging is not.

Image credits: DOSB and Portugalthecountry

Diversity is welcomed when it appears on a restaurant menu, in a street festival, or as an aesthetic identity for a “creative” city. But diversity becomes contested when it calls for political representation, equal housing access, or public legitimacy. Europe’s multicultural image is real, but it is often surface-level.

This pattern raises a fundamental question: Does Europe welcome cultural diversity, or does it consume it?

To understand this distinction, we can look closely at two places that proudly perform diversity: Berlin, Germany, and Lisbon, Portugal.

Berlin: A Multicultural Icon That Still Polices Belonging

Berlin is one of Europe’s most symbolically diverse cities. The döner kebab, introduced by Turkish migrants, is now celebrated as a national street food and a symbol of Germany’s urban identity. Turkish-German rap shapes mainstream music. Kiezdeutsch, a hybrid German influenced by migrant speech patterns, appears in television, fashion, humour, and slang.

But this cultural visibility has not led to political or structural belonging. According to the statistics, people with migration backgrounds make up about 30% of Germany’s population, yet only around 11.6% of members of the Bundestag have that background. Further study reports similarly concluded that Germany’s parliament falls short in representing migrant communities.

Representation is not just about numbers, it’s about who is allowed to define the nation.

Meanwhile, the German integration frameworks continue to treat belonging as something migrants must prove through language, behaviour, and cultural conformity. Integration is imagined as something one-directional, where migrants adapt, while the national identity remains fixed.

This means that Berlin can eat döner, dance to Turkish trap, and joke in Kiezdeutsch, while many Turkish-German residents still hear, “Where are you really from?” The culture is inside the home. But the people who created it remain outside the narrative of “Germanness.”

Berlin does not reject migrant culture, it appropriates it. What it rejects is migrant belonging.

Lisbon: Warm Aesthetics and Tightening Borders

Lisbon offers a different version of the same politics. Portugal has historically imagined itself as uniquely tolerant, shaped by the legacy of lusotropicalism, the belief that Portuguese colonialism produced natural cultural mixing and racial openness. Lisbon’s soundscape reflects that mythology: Brazilian batucada rhythms animate carnival parades, Cape Verdean Morna shapes local nightlife, and Afro-Brazilian food and fashion signal cosmopolitan energy.

Yet visibility here also does not translate into belonging. Many Brazilian migrants describe being welcomed as culture, something warm, rhythmic, festive, but not as equals in public or institutional life. Their presence is embraced at the level of aesthetic identity, but their voices rarely influence politics, social policy, or narratives of Portuguese nationhood.

Meanwhile, Portugal has recently tightened immigration rules, increasing detentions and deportations of undocumented migrants, particularly Brazilians. This shift mirrors broader European trends in which mainstream parties adopt exclusionary stances to avoid losing support to far-right movements, such as the rise of Chega.

As I discussed in my previous blog, Portugal’s Open Door Dilemma: The Paradox of Tolerance, Portugal continues to celebrate multicultural symbolism while restricting who can belong to the nation politically, economically, and socially.

Structural Diversity, Not Aesthetic Diversity

Europe’s problem is power, not cultural difference. The OECD notes persistent barriers in employment, housing, and civic representation for racialized and migrant-origin communities. These inequalities persist even where cultural diversity is publicly showcased as a civic virtue.

This is diversity without belonging: Cultures are displayed. Communities are invisibilized. Inclusion is celebrated. Power remains unchanged. Which brings us back to an uncomfortable truth: Europe likes diversity as a symbol, not as a transformation.

Berlin and Lisbon appear different. One is urban and edgy, the other warm and rhythmic, yet both reveal the same tension: immigrant cultures are embraced when they are useful, consumable, and enjoyable. But when immigrants seek representation, recognition, or a say in shaping the society they live in, they are reminded of their conditional status.

Belonging cannot be aesthetic. It must be structural, political, and shared. Only then can diversity move from performance to community.