Emerging Research Topics

Here are the emerging topics! Over the next several weeks and into the summer as you continue your research, the topics will become more refined and/or transform into something new, depending on what you find out through the process of your investigation and the work you will be doing in the community. 

• Space Politics (generally)
• More specifically: Urban Art/Urban Power (i.e. activist art)
• Reclaiming physical space, making identities visible, via murals and tagging
• Economic Mobility of Women Migrants 
• Investigation of integration policies 
• How do "New Germans" communicate their needs to the government. Relational role of government and legislation pertaining to immigrants, refugees, migrants. 
• Immigrant and migrant "border" identity, i.e. identity politics of migrant and immigrant youth (negotiating identities: generational, national, race, class, gender, etc.)
• Language matters. How national narratives and political discourse impact perceptions of migrant communities (U.S./German comparison- political discourse of Trump and Merkel), i.e. rhetoric surrounding migrants 
• The rise of nationalism and related to assimilation into a nation (stories of migrants related to a national narrative).
• Power of networks. What are the networks that provide opportunities to help families and individuals navigate and transition to new country, new community. What is available, what is needed, how is the need understood?
• Platforms for expression of individual personal identity, building trust and friendship on a local level. 
• Comparative look at migration and the history of migration. How do cities working both locally and nationally, integrate (or not) new citizens. How does historical narratives and history of migration contribute current dynamics of nationalism, pushing against or embracing nationalist trends. 
• Children of migrants (children who are part of the migrant streams). Advocacy and policy toward children of migrants. 
• 2nd generation children and cultural identity (complexities/intersectionalities of being bi/tri cultural)
• Causal factors that contribute to an individual's solid sense of identity while being immersed in multiple cultures vs. rejection of culture (identity formation research)
• Inevitable movement away from cultural homogeneity. Hybridity and transformation of cultures. Related, how arts represents and informs this process of transformation and expressing new ways of defining a nation.
• Social Media and community activism. Technology/serving the refugee communities. 
• more...