Dr. Johanna M. Lukate

Johanna M. Lukate leads the Minerva Fast Track Research Group “Migration, Identity and Blackness in Europe”, which was established in June 2023. Her research focuses on social identity and social categorisation processes, migration,  embodiment and belonging, with a focus on the African and Black diasporas in Europe. At the moment, she is conducting an interview-based study on African migrant biographies and identities in Germany.

Johanna obtained a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Cambridge under a full PhD scholarship from Deutsche Studienstiftung. She was also the recipient of the Fox International Fellowship (2017-18) at Yale (USA). Johanna is co-editor of the volume “Towards a Social Psychology of Precarity” (with Geetha Reddy and Claire Coultas) and has published her work in the Journal of Social Issues, the British Journal of Social Psychology and the edited collection To Exist is to Resist: Black feminism in Europe. To learn more about her work, watch Johanna’s TEDx Talk on The Psychology of Black hair.

Johanna welcomes emails from anyone interested in her research.

Research projects

• Being and Becoming Black – self-(re)presentation and embodiment and the (hidden) diversity of African migrants and refugees in German cities

Publications

Special Issue Editorship

Reddy, G., Coultas, C. & Lukate, J.M. (Eds.) (2023). Towards a social psychology of precarity [Special Issue]. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(S1). Link

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

Lukate, J. M., & Foster, J. L. (2023). ‘Depending on where I am…’ Hair, travelling and the performance of identity among Black and mixed-race women. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(1), 342-358. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12584

Coultas, C., Reddy, G., & Lukate, J. M. (2023). Towards a social psychology of precarity. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(S1), 1-20. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12618

Lukate, J. M. (2023). On the precariousness of address: What narratives of being called White can tell us about researching and re/producing social categories in research. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(S1), 56-70. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12615

Lukate, J.M. (2021). Space, race and identity: An ethnographic study of the Black hair care and beauty landscape and Black women’s racial identity constructions in England [Special Issue]. Journal of Social Issues, 78(1), 107-125. DOI: 10.1111/josi.12433

Mao, M., Blackwell, A.F., Lukate J.M., & Good, D.A. (2016) Supporting retirement socially and musically by technology: An ethnographic study of local community musicians. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. DOI: 10.1145/2851581.2892285

Book chapters

Lukate, J.M. (2019). Blackness disrupts my Germanness. On embodied intersectionality and questions of identity and belonging among women of colour in Germany. In: Emejulu, A., & Sobande, F. (Eds.). To exist is to resists: Black feminism in Europe. London: Pluto Press.

Lukate, J.M. (2009). Essay über das Verhältnis von Geschichte und Identität. In: Georgi, B., & Ohling, R. (Ed.). Crossover Geschichte – Historisches Bewusstsein Jugendlicher in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft. Hamburg: Körber-Stiftung.

Other

Lukate, J.M. (2018). Why policies about hair matter for educational equality. Scholars Strategy Network.