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Prof. Dr. Serhat Karakayali

21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C5.235
Fon +49.4131.677-2753, serhat.karakayali@leuphana.de
Professor, Professorship of Migration and Mobility Studies

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Vita

Serhat Karakayalı received his PhD from Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and wrote his dissertation on the genealogy of illegal migration in Germany. At the same time, he co-designed and implemented the TRANSIT Migration project at the Institute for European Ethnology (Frankfurt). In this interdisciplinary research group, the concept of migration regime was linked back to empirical research, resulting in methods such as "ethnographic regime analysis", mediation tools and also a new network for critical migration research. In the meantime, he was, among other things, head of a project on anti-Semitism in the immigration society in Berlin and curator of an exhibition on modern architecture in the colonial context of North Africa.

From 2009, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of General Sociology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. From 2014, he was involved as a post-doc in the establishment of the newly founded Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research. His research focused on voluntary engagement with refugees, cosmopolitan concepts of solidarity, and civil society as a site of political socialization in the migration society. 

In 2016, he led the first representative survey to determine the proportion of members with a migration background in a large civil society organization – the metalworker’s union IG Metall, with over 2 million members. Following the findings of this project, he conducted a study on the motives and trajectories of migrant involvement in workplace co-determination, which was funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation. In the BMBF-funded collaborative project entitled "ZoMiDi," he worked with colleagues from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen to examine how various civil society organizations deal with migration-related diversity in their structures. At BIM, he also led the Einstein Research Group on "Migration and Diaspora" and established the MERGE network.

From 2020, he was head of the "Migration" department at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research, a research institution funded by the German government, where he conducted research on migration in and from the Middle East as well as a series of public events, including on the crisis of refugee protection in Europe. The DeZIM Institute is also home to the Racism Monitor, commissioned by the German government, where Prof. Karakayali continues to be responsible for networking with international research and theoretical foundations. Since July 2021, he has been Professor of Migration and Mobility Studies at the School of Cultural Studies at Leuphana University.

Publications

Books and anthologies

  1. Organisationaler Wandel durch Migration?: Zur Diversität in der Zivilgesellschaft
    Hella von Unger (Editor) , Helen Baykara-Krumme (Editor) , Serhat Karakayali (Editor) , Karen Schönwälder (Editor) , 2022 Bielefeld , 268 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Collected editions and anthologies › Research

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Journal contributions

  1. The Flüchtlingskrise in Germany: Crisis of the Refugees, by the Refugees, for the Refugees
    Serhat Karakayali (Author) , 01.06.2018 , in: Sociology, 52, 3 , p. 606-611 , 6 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Scientific review articles › Research

  2. Volunteers: From solidarity to integration
    Serhat Karakayali (Author) , 01.04.2018 , in: South Atlantic Quarterly, 117, 2 , p. 313-331 , 19 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  3. Borders
    Serhat Karakayali (Author) , 01.01.2018 , in: Krisis, 2/2018 , p. 23-25 , 3 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Other (editorial matter etc.) › Research

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Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

  1. Solidarität in postmigrantischen Allianzen:: Die Suche nach dem Common Ground jenseits individueller Erfahrungskontexte
    Katarina Stepjandic (Author) , Serhat Karakayali (Author) , 01.01.2019 Frankfurt am Main , p. 237-252 , 16 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research

  2. Emergent infrastructures: Solidarity, spontaneity and encounter at Istanbul's Gezi Park uprising
    Özge Yaka (Author) , Serhat Karakayali (Author) , 29.03.2017 , p. 53-69 , 17 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review

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Activities

  1. Rassismus oder Rassismen
    Serhat Karakayali (Speaker) , Manuela Bojadzijev (Speaker)

    Activity: Guest lectures › Research

  2. Institutional dynamics of affecting and being affected: The emotionalization of injustice and the threat of withdrawing the organizational identification
    Serhat Karakayali (Speaker) , Yvonne Albrecht (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  3. Rassismuskritik nach Hanau
    Serhat Karakayali (Speaker) , Vanessa Thompson (Speaker)

    Activity: talk or presentation in privat or public events › Research

  4. Affekte der Migration - Habitus als verkörperlichte Urteilskraft
    Serhat Karakayali (Speaker)

    Activity: Guest lectures › Research

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Courses

Organisation in movement: work, migration and platform capitalism
Serhat Karakayali
Wie werden Arbeit, Mobilität und Kooperation unter den Bedingungen digitaler Ökonomien organisiert? Das Seminar untersucht Plattformen als neue Organisationsformen, die Märkte herstellen, Arbeitskräfte vermitteln oder Tätigkeiten koordinieren. Im Zentrum stehen dabei Bereiche, in denen migrantische und mobile Arbeitskräfte eine besondere Rolle spielen – etwa Lieferarbeit, Personenbeförderung, Logistik, Crowdwork und Care. Ausgehend von Ansätzen der Arbeits-, Migrations- und Organisationsforschung fragen wir, wie unterschiedliche Infrastrukturen – Unternehmen, Plattformen, Grenzen, Vermittlungsagenturen, soziale Netzwerke und digitale Interfaces – daran beteiligt sind, Arbeitskraft verfügbar zu machen und zu differenzieren. Konzepte wie segmentierter Arbeitsmarkt, differentielle Inklusion, Logistik, Infrastruktur und „multiplication of labour“ bilden hierfür den theoretischen Rahmen. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Plattformisierung kultureller Produktion und kreativer Arbeit. Ergänzend untersuchen wir, welche Formen von Subjektivität, Konflikt und kollektiver Organisierung aus diesen Arbeits- und Organisationsformen hervorgehen können. Die Studierenden lernen grundlegende Ansätze der politischen Ökonomie, Migrationsforschung und Organisationsanalyse kennen und entwickeln ein Verständnis dafür, wie ökonomische, technische und kulturelle Prozesse in konkreten Organisationsformen zusammenwirken.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-10-13 at 10:15
Room: C 14.203 Seminarraum
Research colloquium sociology and cultural organisation
Armin Beverungen, Serhat Karakayali, Andrea Kretschmann, Anna Lisa Ramella, Stephan Scheel
Das Promotionskolloquium dient der Präsentation und vertieften Diskussion der Forschungsvorhaben im Kreise der Mitglieder des Promotionskollegs. Pro Kandidat*in steht üblicherweise 1 Stunde für Vortrag und Diskussion zur Verfügung. Die Präsentationen und Diskussion finden in deutscher oder englischer Sprache statt.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-12-15 at 14:00
Room: C 40.704 Seminarraum
The Sociological Study of Culture
Serhat Karakayali
With the cultural turn in the social sciences, cultural approaches have become more prominent as well as increasingly differentiated in sociology. Today, sociology of culture can no longer be reduced to a subfield of sociology in the sense of a sociology of the arts or mass culture. Rather, it represents an independent sociological perspective with its very own research programme and key concepts. Besides a selection of these key concepts - such as body, things, power, subjects and identities - the seminar offers an overview of perspectives, questions, methodologies as well as methods of cultural sociology. It combines the abstract work on key concepts with their practical exploration along with one of the central methods of cultural sociology: ethnography. This first-hand experience aims to enable students to gain an insight into one of cultural sociology ‘s core empirical research tools in order get behind the emergence of the pertinent scholarship, and the processes of theory production.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-10-13 at 14:15
Room: C 14.203 Seminarraum
What Is a Method? Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis (for the Social Sciences and Humanities)
Serhat Karakayali
Das Seminar führt in grundlegende Techniken qualitativer Datenerhebung und Datenauswertung ein. Anhand praktischer Übungen zu Beobachtung, Interviewführung, Dokumentation, Transkription, Codierung und Interpretation wird erarbeitet, was eine sozial- bzw. kulturwissenschaftliche Methode ausmacht. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie aus sozialen Situationen, Gesprächen oder Dokumenten wissenschaftlich bearbeitbares Material wird und nach welchen Regeln dieses Material ausgewertet werden kann.
Die Studierenden lernen zentrale Verfahren qualitativer Forschung kennen und wenden diese exemplarisch an.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-12-02 at 08:15
Room: C 14.203 Seminarraum