Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Diversity and Social Conflict

ORCID ID 0000-0002-2604-0743

Research Gate  

Gökce Yurdakul is Georg Simmel Professor of Diversity and Social Conflict at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.  Previously, she was the Director of the Department of Social Sciences at her university (2019-21) and the Director of the Berlin Institute of Migration and Integration Research (BIM, 2022-24). Her research and teaching areas are gender, immigration, citizenship. Her research has been funded by national and international grants, including ERC Advanced Grant 2024. She was a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at the Harvard University (2019), University of South Pacific (Fiji, 2024) and University of Sussex (the UK, 2024). She wrote and edited five books as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Yurdakul is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook on Intersectional Approach to Migration, Gender,  and Sexuality (with Jean Beaman, Liza Mügge, Sarah Scuzzarello and Sirijit Sunanta), scheduled to be published in 2026. 

Current Project: 

European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant (2026-2031)

 
The successful integration of migrant populations requires that individuals who permanently relocate to a host country develop a sense of belonging. This involves not only economic and legal integration, but also the sharing of values, practices, and social networks with others. Single men form one of the largest group within global migration flows but face the harshest challenges to successful integration and belonging. They are frequently viewed as taking away opportunities from citizens and are deprioritized in social services in favour of families and women. They are also often stereotyped as hypersexualized or criminal.
In the face of these obstacles, single migrant men create a range of unique belonging strategies that take place outside family networks and formal integration processes. Yet existing migration research tends to focus on the experience of women and families and the integration of specific groups of migrant men (usually Muslim) in Western democracies. As a result, we know very little about how single migrant men develop a sense of belonging outside of these restricted contexts. In this project, I investigate single migrant men’s experiences of belonging across five countries that have experienced abrupt, large-scale migration flows and that have different gender equality levels and integration policies. These groups include Syrians in Türkiye, Mexicans in Canada, Turks in Germany, Myanmarese in Thailand, and Venezuelans in Chile. My team includes country experts from the disciplines of migration studies, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, and community mental health with expertise in archival research, experimental surveys, interviews and photovoice. I draw on these perspectives to develop a theory of migrant belonging. This comprehensive approach will impact theories of migration and gender by providing intersectional and international insights into how single migrant men develop a sense of belonging in the face of serious challenges.

PI: Prof. Dr. Gokce Yurdakul (Berlin Institute for Migration and Integration Research / BIM)

Beneficiaries: Assoc. Prof. Susan Rottmann, (Özyeğin University, Istanbul, Turkey); Maria Luisa Méndez Layera (Pontifical Catholic University, Santiago, Chile); Sirijit Sunanta (Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand); Nancy Clark (University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)

Duration: 2026-2031

Planned Output: Publications, Conferences, Transfer

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Spaces of Migration (GeRäuMig: Gesellschäftliche Räume der Migration)

Funding Agency: Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (Drittmittel)

Duration: 01.01.2025-31.12.2027

Partner: DeZIM-Community: BIM; University of Bielefeld-Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict & Violence (IKG); University of Osnabrück-IMIS; University of Duisburg-InZentIM

Planned Output: Publications, conferences and transfer

Past Projects: 

Intersectional Boundary Processes – Civic organizations and their engagements with refugees

Funding Agency: Berlin University Alliance Oxford-Berlin Research Exchange

Duration: 01.07.2024-30.12.2024

Partner: COMPAS Oxford University

Output: Two workshops with 11 Delegates

Intersektionelle Politik: Zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen von Immigrant:innen und ihr Engagement für Geflüchtete Frauen und Kinder aus der Ukraine (INTERSECT) (SoSe 2024)

Funding Agency: Berlin University Alliance Open Humboldt Freiräume Award 

Duration: 01.04.2024-30.09.2024

Website: https://migsoc.de/intersect/

Output: One essay for general public readership, one public event with Projekt Together

Climate Change, Gender & Immigration

Funding Agency: Erasmus+ Key Action 171 / DAAD

Duration: 01.08.2023 - 31.07.2025

Partner: HU-Agrarökonomie, University of the South Pacific

Output: Faculty & Graduate Student Exchange

Participation and democracy: The role of women and LGBTQ immigrant initiatives from Turkey in Germany under the general project Social Conflicts and Dynamics of Party Competition in Times of Migration and Integration (MigRep)

Funding Agency: BMBFSJ, Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Germany)

Duration: 01.01.2020 – 31.12.2024

Partner: Collaborator with Tunay Altay (PI, Humboldt University of Berlin); 

Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM), Berlin

Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (InZentIM), Duisburg-Essen

Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES), Mannheim

Website: here

Output: Two journal articles under review, one in preparation

Borders, boundaries, and bodies in the production of non-belonging: Regulating the return of European women who joined ISIS

Funding Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant

Duration: 2020-2023 

Partner: Collaborator with Anna Korteweg (Principal Investigator, University of Toronto)

Website:here

Output: Journal articles

• Korteweg, Anna and Gökce Yurdakul (forthcoming in 2024) „Non-Belonging: Borders, Bodies and Boundaries at the Interface of Migration and Citizenship Studies“ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
• Korteweg Anna, Gökce Yurdakul, Jillian Sunderland and Marloes Streppel (2023)  "Social Reproduction Gone Wrong? The Citizenship Revocation and Rehabilitation of Young European Women Who Joined ISIS“ Social Politics, https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxad015

Getting Respect in Germany: How Turks Respond to Racism

Funding Agency: German Center for Migration and Integration Research (DeZIM) Racism Monitoring Program (NaDira)

Completed: 2021

Partner: Tunay Altay

Website: here. 

Output: Gökçe Yurdakul & Tunay Altay (2022) Overcoming stigma: the boundary work of privileged mothers of Turkish background in Berlin’s private schools, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2022.2152720

German translation: Stigmatisierung überwinden: Die Grenzarbeit privilegierter Mütter mit türkeistämmiger Migrationsgeschichte an Berliner Privatschulen

Media, Migrants and Politics: Comparative Study of Media Representations of Immigrants in Australia and Germany

Funding Agency: Berlin University Alliance (BUA)

Completed: 2021

Partner: Karen Farquharson, University of Melbourne

Website: here. 

Output: Özvatan, Özgür, Bastian Neuhauser and Gökçe Yurdakul (2023) "The ‘Arab Clans’ Discourse: Narrating Racialization, Kinship, and Crime in the German Media," Social Sciences, 12(2), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12020104

Border-Making in Berlin: Sexual Citizenship and Social Boundaries in Street Sex-Work

Funding Agency: None.

Completed: 2020

Partner: Tunay Altay

Output: Altay, Tunay, Gökçe Yurdakul & Anna C. Korteweg (2021) Crossing borders: the intersectional marginalisation of Bulgarian Muslim trans*immigrant sex workers in Berlin, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47:9, 1922-1939, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1862646

Body Politics, Bioethics and Gendered Identities

Funding Agency: German-Israeli Science Foundation (GIF)

Completed: 2019

Partner: Shai Lavi, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law

Website: here. 

Output: Yurdakul, Gökce, Gala Rexer, Shvat Eilat and Nil Mutluer (2019) "Contested Authorities over Life Politics: Religious-Secular Tensions in Abortion Debates in Germany, Turkey, and Israel," Comparative Sociology, 18(5-6), 706-734.  

Key publications: 

(2022) Overcoming stigma: the boundary work of privileged mothers of Turkish background in Berlin’s private schools, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI:

10.1080/01419870.2022.2152720 (with Tunay Altay)

(2021) "Crossing borders: The intersectional marginalization of Bulgarian Muslim trans*immigrant sex workers in Berlin", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (with Tunay Altay and Anna Korteweg)

(2020) "Boundary Regimes and the Gendered Racialized Production of Muslim Masculinities: Cases from Canada and Germany" Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies (with Anna Korteweg)

(2008) “Citizenship and Immigration: Assimilation, Multiculturalism and the Challenges to the Nation State” Annual Review of Sociology 34: 153-179. (equal authors with Irene Bloemraad and Anna C. Korteweg) 

Publications:

transcript Verlag, 2016                              Stanford University Press, 2014

(deutsche Übersetzung)

Verlag Sozialwissenschaften, 2010              Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009

Edited Volumes: Palgrave Macmillan 2006 and 2007