Figures of migration – Helge Schwiertz and Serhat Karakayalı

Based on Cana Bili-Meier’s film “Ein neues Wort” (2025, 24:56) and the anthology “Gesellschaft der Migration,” the event explores “figures of migration,” their regulatory function, and, consequently, the relationship between migration, knowledge  and structures of biopolitical power.

11.11.2026, 6-8pm, Kunstraum, C 25

To celebrate the recent publication of their anthology „Gesellschaft der Migration“, Helge Schwiertz and Serhat Karakayalı invite you to a film screening and discussion. „Gesellschaft der Migration“ brings social theory and migration research into dialogue: How does our understanding of society change when we consider migration as one of its constitutive elements?

The evening will focus on the figures through which migration takes shape in society. “Gastarbeiter,” “Ausländer,” or “Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund”: such labels embody notions of work, belonging, and social order. They move between everyday life, politics, administration, and academia, shifting their meaning and being both embraced and questioned by those they describe. Using texts and scenes, the editors, together with filmmaker Cana Bilir-Meier, discuss what these figures reveal about the society that produces them.

The event will feature a screening of Bilir-Meier’s short film “Ein neues Wort” (“A New Word”, 2025, 24:56), which draws on a 1970 WDR listener campaign: the goal was to find a new term to replace the term “guest workers.” The more than 30,000 submissions can be read as an archive of the collective consciousness of a society shaped by migration. In the film, a choir musically reworks the name suggestions from that time—and transforms the history of being named into artistic material in its own right.

Helge Schwiertz (Ph.D.) is an adjunct professor of general sociology at the University of Hamburg and a corresponding member of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück. His research focuses on social theory and political theory, the history of sociology, citizenship, solidarity, and radical democratic theory, political sociology and social movements, as well as research on racism and migration.

Serhat Karakayalı (Prof. Dr.) teaches sociology at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. His research focuses on migration and racism, as well as political sociology and social theory.

Cana Bilir-Meier is a filmmaker and artist. Her cinematic, performative and text-based works move at the intersections of archival work, text production, historical research, contemporary media reflexivity and archaeology. She is co-founder of the initiative in honour of Semra Ertan and co-editor of the poetry collection ‘Mein Name ist Ausländer – Benim Adım Yabancı’ (My Name is Foreigner). 

Hosted by Chair of Migration and Mobility Studies and CCS