Abstract
This study mainly examines the place production processes of Turkish-origin youths in a German city. The main difference of this article is focusing on the dialectical relationship between space and identity by adding the space as a concept to the discussion of identity production processes of youth migrants in German context. As in the beginning of the socialization process, these youths in German schools are active agents, producing new places and transforming the existing places through negotiating their identities within the host country. In this study, an in-depth interview is conducted with 20 high school students in Tübingen. It is found that students not only produce their own identities but also create new existential spaces and reinterpret existing spaces. Cafes, restaurants, football fields, mosques/associations, Turkish lessons, mess halls, and celebration halls will be discussed with the concept of what I called “spatial negotiation”, inside and outside of the school. In there, students try to solve the existing tension between Turkish identities and German identities, and they are able to resolve this tension by producing new cultural forms. In other words, these places contribute to maintaining their own identities while at the same time creating new cultural values intertwined with other forms.