Dr. Vanessa Rau, 2019-2025
Curriculum Vitae
Vanessa Rau was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity specializing in migration, diversity and the politics of difference, particularly in the context of religion and secularism, disability, race as well as gender and sexuality. She is a guest in 2025.
Her current project focusses on migration and intimate relationships and emotional lives and is specifically interested in the negotiation of difference, diversity and love between migrants and permanent residents, predominantly refugees and German nationals. Besides that, she is a researcher and advisor in the international research project “Encounters – Jewish-Muslim relations in urban Europe.” Prior to this project, Vanessa was part of the collaborative research project on Civil Societies and the Challenges of Migration and Diversity where she focused on migration and diversity related to disability and sexual minorities. Vanessa holds a Ph.D. in Sociology at from the University of Cambridge for which she conducted research on the trajectories of Israeli migrants and the emergence of a new Hebrew-Jewish scene in Berlin. The dissertation was awarded with the German Dissertation prize of the Koerber Foundation. Being dedicated to ethnography and biographical research, Vanessa is interested in different theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, particularly post-colonial, antiracist and psychoanalytical theory. Vanessa has cooperated with different organisations and foundations in Germany and abroad including the UK, Israel, South Africa, Botswana and Rwanda.
If you are interested in Vanessa’s research and projects, please get in touch.
Research projects
- Becoming Jewish Berlin-style
- ZOMiDi · Civil society organizations and the challenges of migration and diversity: agents of change. Teilprojekt "Behinderung/sexuelle Minderheiten"
- ORA Joint Research Project ENCOUNTERS · Muslim-Jewish encounter, diversity & distance in urban Europe: Religion, culture and social model
- Love in times of superdiversity - negotiating difference and diversity in intimacy and sexuality
Media
Podcast Series "Beyond Encounters" (2024), moderated by Vanessa Rau and Shai Hoffmann.
Rau, V. (2023, July 11). Weniger Kirche, mehr religiöse Pluralität: Religionsverfassungsrecht revisited. Retrieved from Deutschlandfunk Podcast. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/weniger-kirche-mehr-religioese-pluralitaet-religionsverfassungsrecht-revisited-dlf-fc037244-100.html
MPI-MMG in Dialogue, October 2022. "Navigating a Political Minefield? Researching Muslim-Jewish Encounters"
MPI-MMG in Dialogue, July 2022. "Can advocacy organisations be intersectional?"
„Können Organisationen Vielfalt?“ Der Film zu den ZOMiDi-Ergebnissen, August 2021.