Working Groups Within the Section

 

Topic-specific working groups can promote the exchange of ideas among researchers in the field of migration and ethnic minorities in addition to the regular sector meetings and other events. They are therefore expressly welcome. Currently, there is a working group on the topic of Citizenship. If you are interested in participating, please contact Catharina Peeck-Ho. If you are interested in founding your own working group, please contact Johannes Becker.

WG-Citizenship
The Citizenship Working Group deals with questions of civic participation in its relation to citizenship and access to rights from a perspective that takes a critical look at relations of power and domination. In Anglo-American debates on citizenship, it is emphasised that a sociological approach to the topic is characterised in particular by focusing on practices (Turner 1993) that are potentially accessible to citizens and non-citizens (Isin and Nielsen 2008), but are so closely linked to citizenship that it ultimately plays a decisive role in access to rights (Arendt 2005 (1955), Turner 2006).

Two perspectives seem particularly fruitful as a starting point for a working group, which can be expanded depending on the interests of the participating academics: The first is Engin Isin's concept of acts of citizenship, i.e. performative acts that aim to fundamentally change the conditions of citizenship (Isin and Nielsen 2008). They play a particularly important role in the context of migration and social diversity. On the other hand, contributions from the field of intersectionality research (e.g. Werbner 2002, Yuval-Davis 2011) have shown in recent years the extent to which citizenship is linked to social inequalities and how access to rights also reveals specific constellations of inequality. The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, for example, have once again and prominently drawn attention to the fact that race, class and gender are not only situatively specifically linked to each other, but also play a significant role when it comes to being able to claim rights.

Current topics that play a role here and could be discussed within the working group include bordering (Balibar 2004, Yuval-Davis, Wemyss et al. 2019), social pluralisation in the context of migration and struggles for belonging, as well as membership constellations and the associated processes of inclusion and exclusion. In addition, numerous other fields are also conceivable in the context of the overall topic and can be introduced and discussed depending on the interests of the members.

Currently active members are: 

Speaker: Catharina Peeck-Ho