Funny and Not So Funny Coincidences in My Life

"Es wurden Arbeiter gerufen, doch es kamen Menschen an"
(Workers were called, but people arrived)
(Lyrics by Harry Boeseke, Martin Burkert, Muhtar Cem Karaca)

I came to Berlin as a guest researcher, much like the Gastarbeiter of the 1950s. As the opening quote and the rest of the song aptly illustrate, the Gastarbeiter were seen as temporary labor migrants—not as future residents. They were invited to Germany to fill labor shortages, often assumed to be unskilled (though many were not), and were expected to return to their home countries once their work was done—a so-called "win-win" situation.

In practice, however, many stayed, suspended between countries and caught in the long wait of return.

So it feels like a not-so-funny coincidence that, decades later, I also moved to Berlin—not for economic reasons, but for political ones, and with academic qualifications recognized by the EU. Still, I arrived as a kind of guest—someone expected to stay only temporarily. A researcher, not a worker, but still a guest.

Before long, I had the impression that many Germans did not expect or want me to stay permanently. This experience reminded me of Georg Simmel’s essay on “the stranger,” in which he writes not about foreigners in general, but about the particular status of Jews in Germany in the early 20th century. Simmel described the stranger not as someone who comes and goes, but as someone who comes and stays—someone present, yet always slightly apart. That description felt uncannily close to my own experience.

That was the first coincidence.

The second one, a much lighter and even funny one, came from an unexpected place. Before moving to Germany, I had already begun my PhD using a Latourian methodology. After arriving in Berlin, I learned that Bruno Latour had once written an article about the "Berlin key"—in the very institute where I was now working as a guest. The article was first published in the journal of that same institute.

I found it strangely amusing. A small object, the Berlin key, became the topic of theoretical reflection by the scholar whose ideas were shaping my research. And here I was, in the same building, as a guest, researching with his tools—both literally and conceptually.

Maybe none of this means much. But it made me think about how lives intersect with history in unexpected ways—some heavy, others light. Sometimes centuries-old sociology reminds you of your outsider status. At other times, you discover that a key figure behind your theoretical framework once wrote about the ‘Berlin key’—an object no longer in use—at the very research center where you were a guest researcher.

And in both cases, you're reminded: you didn't plan it this way, but somehow, here you are.

And, of course, there’s a YouTube video about Latour and the Berlin Key ;)