News & Updates 2020

December 2020
Congratulations to Jeremy F. Walton, who received one of the ERC Consolidator Grants 2020. · How and why do historical figures become key to our memories of the past? How do specific places become sites of post-imperial memory? And how are former empires personified through objects and material culture? Analysing the Habsburg, Ottoman and Romanov Empires, Jeremy Walton will look at how collective memories are created through persons, places and things. more

December 2020
Social scientist Miriam Schader and legal expert Constantin Hruschka talk about their involvement with the Science Initiative Migration.
Source: www.mpg.de more

December 2020
In this research report, the researchers of the Max Planck Society's science initiative "Challenges of Migration, Integration and Exclusion" (WiMi) take stock of the "long summer of migration 2015" and derive eight recommendations from the findings, which they have summarized in a position paper. [in German] more

November 2020
ORA Joint Research Project
Funded by the Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences, this joint research project studies intercultural, interethnic and interreligious encounters as exemplified by Jews and Muslims in urban Europe. more

November 2020
The newly designed GEOMAX shows reasons for migration and effects of the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and economic recession on global migration patterns. Max Planck researcher Steven Vertovec explains the "superdiversity" research field. [in German] more

October 2020
In her lecture and the subsequent discussion with Patrick Cramer (MPI for Biophysical Chemistry), Ayelet Shachar looks at the concept of the border, which today is much more than a rigid geographical line. more

October 2020
In this sixth conversation in the Global Religious and Secular Dynamics Discussion Series, Peter van der Veer joined Berkley Center Senior Fellow José Casanova to talk about his comparative work linking India, China, and the West, as well as his training of the next generation of anthropologists, social scientists, historians, and religious studies scholars working on religion in Asian global cities. Van der Veer also discussed his forthcoming co-edited volume, Refugees and Religion: Ethnographic Studies of Global Trajectories (2021), and the COVID-19 pandemic and its current geopolitical dynamics and trends. more

September 2020
Karen Schönwälder was one of the discussion partners on the podium. The 78th ZEIT Forum Wissenschaft can be seen on YouTube. more

August 2020
more

August 2020
Megha Amrith  on ‘Latest Thinking’ about the Processes of Aging and Migration
© Latest Thinking, 2020 more

by Miriam Schader
August 2020
When several hundred thousand refugees came to Germany within a short period of time five years ago, the responsible local administrations were put to the test. That meant a challenge for the state with its social systems and the administration, but by no means excessive demands. Rather, the local administration basically demonstrated its efficiency in 2015/16. However, in the course of admission by the municipalities, those seeking protection were also excluded. This is the result of a study by the Max Planck Institute for research into multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies in Göttingen, in which three municipalities in Lower Saxony were examined.

Source: www.mpg.de more

July 2020
The future of societies worldwide is currently being reshaped at a fundamental level by concurrent crises: the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic recession and climate change. Steven Vertovec considers how these three crises are seriously affecting global migration. He describes the complex factors that relate to global migration and outlines the challenges that loom ahead.
Max Planck Research · 3 | 2020 more

July 2020
MPI MMG researcher Elisabeth Badenhoop wins the 2019 IRN Best Paper Award. more

July 2020
Article by Ayelet Shachar published in The UNESCO Courier.
Today's borders are no longer necessarily made of bricks and barbed wire. They are increasingly becoming moving barriers that rely on cutting-edge technologies and complex regulations to impose travel restrictions on citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accentuated this phenomenon. more

June 2020
This inhouse discussion explores how we as a Max Planck institute can contribute to the fight against the global climate crisis by researching it’s consequences on migration and by becoming more aware of our individual and institutional responsibilities and opportunities for change. more

June 2020
Keynote Lecture by Steven Vervovec at the Twentieth International Conference on "Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations", University of Milan, Italy, 10-12 June 2020. more

June 2020
Congratulations to our colleague Nicole Iturriaga who received the ASA Sociology of Human Rights Section's Best Article Award 2020 for her article “At the Foot of the Grave: Challenging Collective Memories of Violence in Post-Franco Spain”. more

May 2020
Institute Director Steven Vertovec gave a live television interview on Deutsche Welle and PBS America to comment on the coronavirus pandemic, xenophobia and group stigmas.
DWnews TV Interview Thursday, 7th May 2020 with Steven Vertovec, conducted by Anchor Brent Goff more

April 2020
by Steven Vertovec In the pandemic, populists and campaigners are currently stirring up prejudice against migrants and blaming them for the spread of the virus. The freedom of movement of refugees or certain ethnic groups is being restricted more drastically than that of the native population in order to prevent further spread of the disease - as it is officially called - but this also stigmatises those affected. Steven Vertovec, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, considers this a dangerous development and calls for countermeasures.

Source: www.mpg.de more

April 2020 Seminar speakers: Steven Vertovec, Kerilyn Schewel, Biao Xiang and Olena Babakova
Seminar moderators: Konrad Pędziwiatr, Jan Brzozowski
Jorgen Carling in his text on Cape Verdean migration experiences (2002) argues that far more people would like to migrate than actually do and rather than an “Age of Migration” (Castles et al 2014), our times are better characterized as an age of “involuntary immobility”. In the time of coronavirus pandemic this has transformed into forced immobility for migrants and non-migrants alike. One of the groups that has been particularly harshly affected by this immobility are migrants. more

February 2020
In her remarkably timely new book, Ayelet Shachar analyzes the return of borders & their radical transformation.
Essential for understanding government responses to people on the move, Shachar's vivid description, analytical precision and reasoned persuasion combine to challenge conventional wisdoms about "borders" and how they work. The result: exceptional insights into how migration control can be more just. The Shifting Border offers an indispensable roadmap to immigration and refugee debates all around the world. more

February 2020
Together with two other colleagues (one at LSE and one at Ghent) Farhan Samanani was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Wenner Gren foundation to run a workshop on politics, irony and new social movements in the late summer/early autumn 2020. more

February 2020 ENMISA Book Award
Congratulations to our former colleague Alan Gamlen, who received the ENMISA Book Prize 2020 for the best book in the field of ethnicity, nationalism or migration studies. ENMISA Paper Award
We also congratulate our former colleague Darshan Vigneswaran, who was awarded the ENMISA Prize 2020 for outstanding conference papers. Konferenzpapiere ausgezeichnet wurde. more

January 2020
What role can researchers play in the current discussion about migration, flight and integration?
The moderator Dr. Elisabeth Badenhoop (MPI-MMG) with Prof. Dr. Petra Bendel (Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Integration und Migration), Prof. Dr. Thomas Faist (Rat für Migration) and Dr. Mehmet Ata (Mediendienst Integration). more