Dr. Johanna M. Lukate

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 Issues

Reddy, G., Coultas, C. & Lukate, J.M. (Eds.) (2023). Towards a social psychology of precarity [Special Issue]. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(S1). DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12629

Bialas, U., Lukate, J. M., & Vertovec, S. (2025). Contested categories in the context of international migration: introduction to the special issue. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 48(4), 695-717. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2404493

Lukate, J. M. (2024). Becoming black? African migrants’ social identity constructions and experiences of racialization in Germany. Identity, 1-19. DOI: 10.1080/15283488.2024.2426000

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

Contributions to a Collected Edition

Lukate, J.M. (2024). Ein Nachwort auf (Schwarze) Haare. In Murandu, E.H. (Ed.). A Book About Hair (pp.330 - 348). Weimar: Lucia Verlag. 

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, V. B., & Ohliger, R. (Eds.). Crossover Geschichte – Historisches Bewusstsein Jugendlicher in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft. Hamburg: Ed. Körber-Stiftung.

Other Publications

Lukate, J. M. (2018, May 24). Why Policies about Hair Matter for Educational Equality. Retrieved 17 November 2023, from Scholars Strategy Network—SSN Key Findings website: https://scholars.org/brief/why-policies-about-hair-matter-educational-equality

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