Changing Boundaries and Emerging Identities

An interdisciplinary research group of sociologists, ethnologists, and legal scholars, discussed the development of new identities in the face of globalization and international migration
Religious, linguistic and ethnic diversity has become one of the main features of modern societies. In the wake of globalization and international migration, the emergence of new identities and the recognition of cultural differences are becoming increasingly important. This development was discussed in the interdisciplinary workshop: "Changing Boundaries and Emerging Identities“ that was held on 4 and 5 June 2008.



"Well into the twentieth century, the culturally homogenous nation state served as the ideal of social order. However, symbolic borders have been changing for a long time, and new identities are emerging whose political mobilization is leading to institutional changes in the social order," Matthias Koenig, Professor of the Sociology of Religion, remarks. "In the social sciences, cultural diversity increasingly gains recognition as an important subject. However, no interdisciplinary research effort so far has been able to integrate the individual subdisciplines and explain the processes of reconstructing collective identities in modern societies."
At the beginning of the workshop, the question of how to describe religious, ethnic and linguistic boundaries as well as identities was addressed. Then participants discussed the criteria on which collective identity formation and political mobilization depend and how cultural diversity can be legally and politically regulated. Scholars from the Göttingen Research Campus discussed their research efforts with seven experts from Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the USA. The event was initiated by Professor Koenig and Junior Professor Claudia Diehl, both from the Institute for Sociology, together with Professor Steven Vertovec, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.
Keynote speaker Andreas Wimmer, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles gave a public lecture on "How (not) to think about ethnicity in immigrant societies." Wimmer is also member of the Advisory Board of Göttingen's Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.