Home | Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

About the Institute

The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity is one of the foremost centers for the multi-disciplinary study of diversity, in its multiple forms, in today’s globalizing world.

Fieldwork Photo Gallery

The collection of photographs on our website represents the fieldwork activities of our researchers. All social-science research at the Institute, particularly that requiring informed consent and involving visual materials, is designed to follow the ethical guidelines formulated by the American Anthropological Association. (Congregational singing in the dedication of Shimen’gen Church, Fugong County, 27 July 2014. Photo: Ying Diao)

The DATARAMA

A Multimedia-Tool for Research, Teaching and Presentation For scientists who rely on visual data or data visualizations, the limitations of monitors, multiple monitor spans or projection facilities can present serious limitations for data gathering and the analysis and presentation of findings. Arising from MPI-MMG’s ‘GlobaldiverCities’ project, the Datarama is a unique research and presentation tool that provides a significant solution to the limitations of working with visual data.

News & Updates

MPI-MMG in Dialogue

A new series "MPI-MMG in Dialogue“, in which invited scholars discuss cutting-edge research and new ideas with the institute’s scientists was launched on 24 November.
In the first session, Adrian Favell (University of Leeds), Christine Lang (Osnabrück University) and Steven Vertovec (MPI-MMG) discussed the past and presence of nation states and their migration/integration policies and whether we are facing a future of "Migration Studies without the Nation State“. The session was moderated by Karen Schönwälder (MPI-MMG).

What do Germans think about diversity (in German)

Podcast

detektor.fm presenter Lara-Lena Gödde spoke with Karen Schönwälder about diversity in the podcast "Ach, Mensch!". Karen Schönwälder examines how far acceptance in society really goes and straightens such a crooked picture. „Ach, Mensch!“ Is a cooperation with the Max Planck Society.

„Können Organisationen Vielfalt?“

Video

(in German) The film about the ZOMiDi results (11 minutes). The project investigates how and why civil society organizations change in response to migration and societal diversity.

New Podcast Series

Podcast

The City show is a podcast about complexity and how people live and adapt to life in fast-changing cities across Africa, Latin America and Asia. It's made by Dhashen Moddley, Tau Tavengwa, Freddie Boswell, Michael Rahfaldt, and Jo Jackson. It's a collaboration between Cityscapes Magazine, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and African Centre for Cities. It's a Cityscapes/Radio Workshop production. Music by 23rd Parallel.

"Diversity, 'diversity' and the social organization of difference"

Youtube-Video

Keynote by Steven Vertovec at the Conference ‘Studying Diversity after the Reflexive Turn’, Tübingen 7-9 July 2021

Wir haben das geschafft – und uns verändert

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]

Events

Forthcoming Events

No events

MPI-MMG @ Conferences

Megha Amrith: "The Ends of Transnational Care: Aspirations of Ageing Migrant Domestic Workers"

Jan 19, 2022

Zoom Meeting

December 2021

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Victoria Sakti and Alvaro Martinez: "Ageing (Im)mobilities and Imagination: The story of Avó Marta caring for family across borders"

at 15:00

all events

Career

Job Offers

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

November 05, 2021

Research fellows at the postdoctoral level

November 05, 2021

Age as a vantage point on time and migration
Victoria Kumala Sakti, Dora Sampaio, Megha Amrith
Submission deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2021

Contested categories in the context of migration
Ulrike Bialas, Johanna Lukate, Vanessa Rau
Submission deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2021

Migrant Entrepreneurship in times of migrant-led diversity
Sakura Yamamura, Paul Lassalle (, University of Strathclyde)
Submission deadline for abstracts: 1 December 2021

Diversity support: structures, motivations and mobilization
Eloisa Harris, Karen Schönwälder
Submission deadline for abstracts: 9 December 2021

Recent MMG Publications

Books and Edited Volumes

The Global Diversities Book Series

Working Papers

WP 20-04
Steven Vertovec:
Considering the work of ‘integration’
download pdf

WP 20-05
Paul Bramadat (University of Victoria):
Religion and Bioregionalism in Cascadia: The Trouble with Categories
download pdf

Issues

Dorman, B., & Korom, F.J. (eds). (2021). South Asian Nationalisms [Special Issue]. Asian Ethnology, 80(1). Link

Goossaert, V., & van der Veer, P. (Eds.). (2021). Réguler les pluralités religieuses: Mondes indiens et chinois comparés [Special Issue]. Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 193 Link

Schönwälder, K. (ed). (2020). Special Issue: Diversity in local political practice. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(11). Link

Hänsch, V., Stasik, M., & Bekele Debele, S. (eds). (2020). "Temporalities of Waiting in Africa", in Critical African Studies, 12(1). Link

Journal Articles

Ma, Z. (2021). Uncertainty, risk, and merit-making. Tea economy and religious practices in a Southern Yunnan Bulang Community. Social Analysis, 65(3), 88-109. Link

Karimi, A., & Wilkes, R. (2021). A methodological analysis of national models of integration: time to think without the models? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Link

Ngo, T. (2021). Conspicuous performances: ritual competition between Christian and non-Christian Hmong in contemporary Vietnam. Social Anthropology, 29(3), 733-747. Link

McKearney, P., & Amrith, M. (2021). Care. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. CEA. Link

Samanani, F. (2021). Power in a minor key: Rethinking anthropological accounts of power alongside London’s community organisers. Critique of Anthropology, 41(3), 303-319. Link

Taras Fedirko, T. F., Samanani, F., & Williamson, H. F. (2021). Grammars of liberalism. Social Anthropology, 29(2), 373-386. Link

Tu, S. (2021). In search of the ‘best’ option: American private secondary education for upper-middle-class Chinese teenagers. Current Sociology Link.

Miyamoto, M., Magnusson, J., & Korom, F. J. (2021). Animal slaughter and religious nationalism in Bhutan. Asian Ethnology, 80(1), 121-145. Link

Suerbaum, M. (2021). Embodying legal precarity: Living with ongoing short-term protection in Germany. International Migration. Link

Korom, F. J., & Magnusson, J. (2021). Guest editors’ introduction: South Asian nationalisms. Asian Ethnology, 80 (1), 5-18. Link

van der Veer, P. (2021). What transcends the nation? Asian Ethnology, 80 (1), 19-30. Link

Ngo, T. (2021). Bones of contention: Situating the dead of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese border war. American Ethnologist (AE) doi:10.1111/amet.13015.

Contributions to a collected Edition

Sampaio, D. (2021). The sea as a lifestyle: (Im)mobilities, liminality, and life course transitions among permanently settled sailors in the Azores (Portugal). In J. Domínguez-Mujica, J. McGarrigle, & J. M. Parreño-Castellano (Eds.), International Residential Mobilities: From Lifestyle Migrations to Tourism Gentrification (pp. 33-50). S.l.: Springer-Nature. Link

Yamamura, S., & Lassalle, P. (2021). Notions and practices of differences: An epilogue on the diversity of entrepreneurship and migration. In N. Vershinina, P. Rodgers, M. Xheneti, J. Brzozowski, & P. Lassalle (Eds.), Global Migration, Entrepreneurship and Society (pp. 195-211). Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Publishing Limited. Link

van der Veer, P. (2021). Introduction: Refugees and religion. In B. Meyer, & P. van der Veer (Eds.), Refugees and religion: Ethnographic studies of global trajectories (pp. 1-11). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Link

van der Veer, P.(2021). German refugees and refugees in Germany. In B. Meyer, & P. van der Veer (Eds.), Refugees and religion: Ethnographic studies of global trajectories (pp. 34-47). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Link

Ngo, T., & Mai, N. T. T. (2021). In search of a Vietnamese Buddhist space in Germany. In B. Meyer, & P. van der Veer (Eds.), Refugees and religion: Ethnographic studies of global trajectories (pp. 105-122). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Link

Punathil, S. (2021). Between hope and fear: Migrant “illegality” and camp life in Assam, India. In B. Meyer, & P. van der Veer (Eds.), Refugees and religion: Ethnographic studies of global trajectories (pp. 198-216). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Link

Koenig, M. (2021). Religion. In B. Hollstein, R. Greshoff, U. Schimank, & A. Weiß (Eds.), Soziologie: Sociology in the German-Speaking World: Special Issue Soziologische Revue 2020 (pp. 331-343). Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Link

Castro Varela, MdM., & Mohamed, S. (2021). Bodies on the outside: Artistic imagination in Afrofuturism. In D. Neugebauer (Ed.), Counter_Readings of the Body (pp. 57-64). Leipzig: Spector Books. Link

Mohamed, S., & Castro Varela, MdM. (2021). Intersektionalität und postkoloniale soziale Arbeit. In A. Biele Mefebue, A. Bührmann, & S. Grenz (Eds.), Handbuch Intersektionalitätsforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. Link

Kang, J. (2021). Chinese Christian community in Germany: Home-making and Chineseness. In N. Cao, G. Giordan, & F. Yang (Eds.), Chinese religions going global (pp. 97-114). Leiden: Brill. Link

Online Lectures

Here you will find videos from lectures given by distinguished researchers at the MPI MMG.

Blogs

Researchers from the institute describe the development of their projects and the challenges, delights and frustrations of conducting social scientific research.

Diversity Interviews

Here you will find transcripts of interviews with distinguished scientists, led by staff members of the MMG.

MPI-MMG linked Journals

NEW DIVERSITIES

New Diversities is an international, peer reviewed, scholarly and professional journal, published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.

Global Networks

Global Networks publishes high quality, peer-reviewed research on global networks, transnational affairs and practices, and their relation to wider theories of globalization. The journal provides a forum for discussion, debate and the refinement of key ideas in this emerging field.

CityScapes

CityScapes is a 144 page biannual print publication. It is a hybrid of forms, simultaneously invested in scholarly discourse around contemporary urbanism in Africa and the global south, as much as individual everyday experiences and activities of the multitude of actors that are actively involved in shaping cities across the continent and the rest of the developing world.

MAX, the Max Planck Network

All social scientific research at the Institute, particularly concerning informed consent and involving visual materials, is designed to follow the ethical guidelines formulated by the American Anthropological Association (see http://www.aaanet.org/... ).

All material on the Institute’s website is protected by copyright. If you wish to use material from the website, please contact our Research Coordinator, Dr. Norbert Winnige (winnige(at)mmg.mpg.de).