Integration Research and Social Policy

BIM | Integration Research and Social Policy

Integration Research and Social Policy

The Department of Integration Research and Social Policy engages with the past, present, and future of societies in Europe and the Middle East through a transnational migration lens. It seeks to light on societal transformations, transnational interconnections, and the mobility of people, ideas, and political relations.

A central analytical perspective of the department is future-oriented. We investigate how social change unfolds over time and how emerging developments reshape institutions, political imaginaries and policy frameworks. Particular attention is paid to the transnational interconnections between global processes and local societal dynamics.

Within this context, social policy constitutes a key field of inquiry. We analyze how welfare regimes, integration policies and regulatory frameworks respond to, and actively shape, societal transformation. This includes studying how social policy influences patterns of inclusion and exclusion, recognition and marginalization, and how it mediates conflicts within plural and unequal societies.

We teach and supervise students at all levels: undergraduate, master’s, and PhD. Beyond teaching, we have established a growing network of scholars and experts on the Middle East (MERGE) to foster collaboration across regions. Last but not least, we are pioneering efforts to bring relevant discussions to the wider public and transcend academic boundaries through events, publications and public interventions.

(Post)migrant societal transformation, Cofnlict and Racisms

A central focus of the department is the analysis of postmigrant societal transformation and the conflicts, negotiations and power dynamics that emerge within migration societies. Migration serves as an analytical starting point; however, the perspective is not limited to migration alone. It encompasses broader axes of social differentiation and transformation, including regional contexts such as East Germany and other historically specific societal configurations.

Building on postmigrant theory, the department examines societal constellations that emerge beyond a migrant-centered framework. Research addresses processes of alliance formation, dynamics of recognition and devaluation and the role of religion in shaping social belonging and conflict.

A key area of expertise is the study of racism and discrimination. Research investigates different forms of racism, their historical development and their intersections with other structures of inequality. The analysis of societal religious conflict, radicalization processes and postmigrant negotiations of belonging forms an integral part of this research agenda.

Global Middle East and Middle Eastern Futurism

A second analytical pillar of the department’s teaching and research is the study of the Middle East as a globally entangled region. Rather than treating the Middle East as a fixed geographic or homogeneous cultural entity, we approach it as a dynamic space shaped by transregional connections, historical ruptures, political imaginaries and competing projects of belonging.

Our work is grounded in a sustained critique of European and German knowledge production on the Middle East. We examine how colonial legacies, Orientalist epistemologies and security-driven discourses have shaped dominant academic knowledge about the region. In response, and by engaging with the complex and multiple histories shaping the present moment in the Middle East, we prioritize the subjectivities of its peoples beyond discourses of victimhood. As such, we reject essentialist approaches that reduce the region to culture, as well as exceptionalist perspectives that cast its future as predetermined.

Central to this pillar is the concept of Middle Eastern Futurism. This perspective foregrounds political, social and cultural imaginaries emerging from within the region and its diasporas. It shifts attention from externally imposed analytical frameworks toward locally articulated visions of transformation, resistance and alternative futures.

A particular focus lies on revolutions, revolutionary moments and uprisings in the Middle East. We analyze these events both in their specific historical contexts and in their interconnectedness across national boundaries. This includes attention to nationalism, state formation, political contestation and the transformation of collective identities.

Transnational Resonances and the Mobility of Ideas

The third pillar of the department’s research examines transnational resonances, with particular attention to the traveling of political concepts, struggles and mobilization practices across borders. Central to this focus is the Middle Eastern diaspora in Germany, with people connected to, among others, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Kurdish regions.

We analyze how diasporic communities in Germany and Europe participate in and contribute to politics beyond national contexts, investigating how political ideas, protest repertoires and emancipatory imaginaries circulate across local, national and transnational arenas. Concepts such as political remittances and exile are central to this analytical framework.

A further emphasis lies on the globalization of anticolonial liberation struggles. We study how historical and contemporary movements resonate across contexts, how solidarities are forged, and how struggles are rearticulated within a globalized political landscape. By tracing these entanglements, this pillar highlights the Middle East and its diasporas as active producers of political knowledge and transnational transformation rather than as peripheral recipients of global dynamics.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM)