On this page you will find information on the current research in our research area "Identity and Representation".
In our research, the focus is on political ethnography: what state actors do and what they say they do diverges in interesting ways and makes the functioning of the state - in specific situations at least - as an apparatus of domination a little more transparent. This is what Rebecca Pates is working on, and over the years she has secured a number of projects on topics such as human trafficking (HWP, EU-AGIS, DFG), right-wing extremism (EU-Daphne, Thyssen) and belonging and nationalism (BMBF).
At the moment Rebecca Pates is leading the research project Strangers in our own country?, which is about the question of what hostility towards migration and friendliness towards migration mean for the cohesion of society. More information on this project can be found in the website linked below.