Naika Foroutan
Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University
Fall 2024
Research focus while a CERC Scholar - The Narratives of Exclusion: Comparing Racisms in Germany and North America
A series of racially motivated murders over the past decade has brought the issue of racism into the political consciousness of German society. The killing of nine immigrants in the city of Hanau by a white supremacist and an attempted mass murder of Jews on Yom Kippur in the city of Halle led the German government to acknowledge in 2020 that right-wing extremism and racism have become a serious and imminent threat to the country’s democracy. The German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), headed by Naika, was commissioned by the German government to develop a long-term National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa). Its aim is to record and understand the extent as well as causes and consequences of racism in Germany. Initial data collection on the German population’s perception of racism has shown that there may be analytical, empirical, and phenomenological differences between Germany and North America when it comes to understanding racisms.
While a CERC Scholar of Excellence, Naika will explore the idea of "collateral racism". Racism and discrimination can be experienced in many forms. Racism can be directly experienced, with specific effects on racialized groups (Banton 1977; Miles 1993). But racist experiences can also enter one's life indirectly through observation or witnessing (Truong, Museus, and McGuire 2016). Harrel (2000) defines this as indirect forms and effects of racism, and Alvarez, Juang, and Liang (2006) note that this is the most common form in which young adults encounter racism. Jochman et al. (2019) describe the effects of witnessing and being witnessed as "rumination." Witnessing another person being racially discriminated against can cause stress, anger, aggression, and guilt (Harrell 2000; Priest et al. 2013). Naika will explore this idea with special reference to racialized hierarchies and narratives of deservingness when it comes to narratives of exclusion towards immigrants.
Related to CERC research theme: Narratives and Politics on Migration and Integration
Career Achievements
Naika Foroutan is Professor of Social Sciences at the Humboldt-University in Berlin where she heads the department of integration studies and social policy at the Berlin Institute on Integration and Migration (BIM). She also co-directs the German Center for Integration and Migration (DeZIM) a Ministry-funded research institute that provides empirical analysis on migration integration and racism, monitoring Racist Realities in Germany. Foroutan’s research focuses on countries of immigration, their shifting identities as well as prevalent attitudes towards minorities and the impact of pluralization on norms and values. In her book The Post-migrant society: A promise of plural democracy she developed a theoretical framework for analyzing social transformations in migration-impacted societies.
Relevant Publications
Monographs
Foroutan, Naika (2023): Es wäre einmal deutsch…, Berlin: Aufbau Verlag/ Christoph Links
Foroutan, Naika/ Hensel, Jana (2020): Die Gesellschaft der Anderen. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag.
Foroutan, Naika (2019): Die postmigrantische Gesellschaft: Ein Versprechen der pluralen Demokratie. Bielefeld: transcript.
Journal Articles/Contributions to Edited Books
Naika Foroutan and Frank Kalter (forthcoming): How much integration is wanted? A vignette study on outgroup mobility threat (OMT) in Germany, In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Special Issue on “Assimilation and Integration in the Twenty-First Century: Where Have We Been and Where are we Going?”
Foroutan, N. & Wölfer, R. (2022). Plurality Resistance: Effects on Intergroup Relations and the Mediating Role of Stereotypes. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 87, 42-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2022.01.005.
Foroutan, N. & Kalter, F. (2021). Race for second place? Explaining East-West differences in anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany. Frontiers in Sociology, section Race and Ethnicity, Vol. 6. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.735421.
Naika Foroutan, David Meiering and Aziz Dziri (2020): Connecting structures: resistance, heroic masculinity and anti-feminism as bridging narratives within group radicalization. International Journal of Conflict and Violence 14(2), S. 1-19.
Naika Foroutan (2019): The post-migrant paradigm. In: Jan-Jonathan Bock und Sharon Macdonald (Hg.): Refugees Welcome? Difference and Diversity in a Changing Germany. Oxford/ New York: Berghahn Books, S. 121-142
Naika Foroutan and Coskun Canan (2016): Changing perceptions? Effects of multiple social categorisation on German population’s perception of Muslims. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (12), S. 1905-1924