Living in Permanent Temporariness: The Multigenerational Ordeal of Living under Germany’s Toleration Status

Toleration status (temporary suspension of deportation) has been Germany’s hesitant answer to providing humanitarian relief for Palestinians escaping the dismal conditions of refugee camps and the civil war in Lebanon in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the same time, the status has subjected families to years, even decades, of insecurity and uncertainty through constant threats of deportation and restrictions on work, travel and higher education. Based on 19 months of ethnographic research, the article shows the story of one family during their 16 years on toleration status and their experiences after gaining permanent residency. The family’s experiences illuminate the insecurity and uncertainty large communities on toleration status in Berlin-Neukölln experienced, all sharing the fate of constantly wavering between hope, fear and disillusionment. Their struggles also show how the permanent temporariness of long-term toleration status affects both the parents who fled the conflict and their children, most of whom were born and raised in Germany. I argue that toleration status limits the capabilities of children stuck in the stagnant realities of their family’s insecure status, along the lines of gender and birth order. Moreover, toleration status as a multigenerational ordeal persists long after the legal insecurity has ended.