Institute of Sociology

Migration and Diversity

Prof. Dr. Boris Nieswand

Profile of the research area

The chair "Migration and Diversity" team focuses on a reflexive and ethnographic approach to migration, diversity and urban coexistence.

By reflexivity we seek to understand social processes and orders of knowledge by which persons obtain their knowledge of migration, diversity and coexistence. This raises, for example, the following questions: what social circumstances lead to migration being understood primarily as a problem of integration, social inequality, or management, rather than something else? How do assessments of migrant groups and forms of migration come about? How do social sciences and state institutions contribute to producing knowledge about migration? 

Ethnography asks how things are done in everyday life and what the contexts in which people live their lives look like. It is less interested in how attributes are distributed in society or what general accounts people give about themselves, their identity or their attitudes. Ethnographic research is much more concerned with identifying the cultural knowledge and social orders that are produced and reproduced in practices, situations, and social relations.

The team co-organizes the interdisciplinary research network UnKUT – Undisciplined Knowledge at the University of Tübingen.

Topics we work on:
  • How do threats affect social life in heterogeneous urban districts?
  • How does the inclusion of forced migrants work in small towns and villages?
  • What role do notions of morality play in the perception of social differences and inequality?
  • How do people justify critique towards orders of migration and/or gender relations, and what consequences does this have on social life?

News and upcoming events

Team

Chair

Prof. Dr. Boris Nieswand

Team assistant

Karolin Mattes

Researchers

Manuel Dieterich, M.A.
Dr. Claire Bullen

Student Assistants

Jan-Paul Spyra

Past researchers

Research projects

Ongoing projects:
Threat and Diversity in Urban Contexts

A cross-border comparison of ethnically heterogeneous and unequal neighborhoods

Sub-project of the SFB 923 "Threatened Order - Societies under Stress"

Completed projects:
Refugee Shelters: Between modus vivendi and Threatened Order

Associated project of the SFB 923 "Threatened Order - Societies under Stress"

Teaching

Courses in WS 2023/24
BA Soziologie
MA Soziologie mit Schwerpunkt Empirische Sozialforschung
MA Soziologie: Diversität und Gesellschaft
 
Courses in SS 2023
BA Soziologie
MA Soziologie mit Schwerpunkt Empirische Sozialforschung
MA Soziologie: Diversität und Gesellschaft

 

Guidelines for writing theses (pdf-download, in German language)