The DeZIM Research Community

The DeZIM Research Community brings together the central actors in migration and integration research in Germany. Until the founding of DeZIM, research on integration and migration in Germany was decentralized, scattered across different institutions and without a bundling of these forces. The research community should contribute to a coordinated cooperation of the individual institutions and help to close research gaps, to promote an excellently trained young academic generation and to make integration and migration topics more visible.

In short: The cooperation of the DeZIM Institute with the institutions in the DeZIM Research Community strengthens migration research in Germany.

The 6th DeZIM conference for PhD students of the DeZIM research community and the DeZIM Institute will take place from October 25-27, 2023 at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB).

The meeting serves the exchange as well as the promotion of scientists* who are at the beginning of their career and are currently doing their PhD, have recently completed their PhD or are about to start it. We invite all PhD students from the disciplines of the DeZIM community. This includes, among others, social sciences, humanities, economics, health sciences, anthropology to psychology and sports sciences. We look forward to research perspectives with different methodological-analytical approaches on the topics of integration and migration, consensus and conflict, social participation and racism.

All information can be found on the event page.

The institutions in the DeZIM Research Community cooperate in their research into integration and migration. Since 2019, the DeZIM Research Community has coordinated its activities by means of a concerted five-year research programme. This consists of three key research areas which correspond to the topics (and departments) of the DeZIM Institute, and thus support the development of DeZIM as a whole. The first key research area focuses on migration movements, the second on integration and the third on conflicts in migration societies.

Key research area 1: Dynamics of migration in the context of the household and family

This key research area examines the conditions and dynamics of migration movements. In particular, it considers how demographic change, family structures and gender relations impact the dynamics of global migration movements, and vice versa. The scientists involved study the family relationships not only of migrants, but also of non-migrants. They also aim to analyse the correlations between (re-)migration, social groups, networks and (re- )integration in both the source and target regions of international migration movements.

Key research area 2: Sociospatial conditions, networks and dynamics of integration

Migration and integration processes take place in different spaces, which can be defined as social, symbolic, institutional or education spaces. As well as the national government level, municipalities, towns and regions also play a major role in structuring migration and integration processes. This key area addresses the question of how such spaces influence the integration of different groups, from assimilation to residential segregation. The aim is to identify the spatial factors, in other words the local, regional and national conditions, which facilitate or hinder integration. This area also examines the significance of regional changes being caused by migration.

Key research area 3: Conflicts in the migration society

Migration is accompanied by conflicts which persons, groups and institutions negotiate and settle among themselves. Such conflicts can be provoked, for example, by differences in resources, identity or values between groups and institutions, and can both facilitate and hinder integration. By addressing this cluster of topics empirically, this key area considers how migration influences societal and social lines of conflict, and examines the processes associated with this. What are the causes and consequences of conflicts around migration, or the necessary conditions and ways of regulating conflicts? The research focuses on conflicts which current research has shown to be particularly significant, but which are not yet sufficiently well understood.

In December 2021, the Cabinet Committee for the Fight Against Racism and Right-wing Extremism approved funds for the period to 2024, which has enabled the research community to further develop its range of projects. The projects approved included the Research Association on Discrimination and Racism (FoDiRa) and the cooperative project “Spaces of the Migration Society”, which both started work in 2022.