Serhat Karakayali
Faculty Fellow 2025-2026
The Sociologist Serhat Karakayali works on migration in various large-scale research projects. His work situates racism as a fundamentally political and contested concept embedded within broader struggles for recognition, emancipation, and justice. Drawing from post-structuralist and materialist traditions, Karakayali argues for a deeply situated approach that recognizes the role of power and identity in shaping both theory and empirical observation. His work examines how rassistic distinctions emerge from specific historical, political, and epistemic contexts, and how they relate to struggles for recognition and identity. He explores the intersections of knowledge production, civil society, and anti-racist critique in both German and international contexts.
Abstract
The Hyphenization of Racism
This research project investigates the increasing fragmentation of the concept of racism through hyphenated constructions such as “anti-Muslim”, “anti-black” or “anti-Asian”. The aim is to analyse the political and social implications of this development. A particular focus is on the question of how this conceptual differentiation is related to political cultures and institutional structures. The project is divided into three parts: The first part highlights the historical separation of anti-Semitism and racism after 1945 and its impact on today's debates. The second part examines how social movements, science and state institutions in Germany and the United States contribute to the dissemination of specific concepts of racism. The third part deals with the role of theoretical concepts in political disputes and their influence on social identity formation.
Education
2008 Phd Sociology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
2000 MA Sociology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Most Recent Academic Position
Professor of Migration and Mobility Studies, Leuphana University Lüneburg
Most Recent Publications
“Counting Racism: Quantitative Methods and the Challenges of Structural Analysis in Germany.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, January (2025): 1–18.
»Institutioneller Rassismus«, in: Bojadzijev, Manuela, Paul Mecheril, Patrice G. Poutrus, and Matthias Quent (eds.), Rassismusforschung: Handbuch für Wissenschaft, Studium und Praxis. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2024.
with Yvonne Albrecht, »Migrantische Repräsentation und Partizipation in der Vereinten Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (ver.di)«. In: Unger, Hella von, Helen Baykara-Krumme, Serhat Karakayali, and Karen Schönwälder (eds.). Organisationaler Wandel durch Migration?: Zur Diversität in der Zivilgesellschaft. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag, 2022.