Research
CeMig’s distinguishing approach is that it analyses migration and flight on a global scale. Its transregional perspective as well as the breadth of participating fields offers the opportunity to develop interdisciplinary projects on specific topics.
Research Projects
CeMig organises its research along several thematic areas:
Legal and Policy Regimes as well as Migration Governance...
... are systematically explored and explained on a state, regional and international level. It is examined how different governments deal with migration and refugee flows.
The Political Economy of Migration...
... deals with the economic contexts. Researchers are interested in the determinants and effects of migration and refuge on the one hand, and study the relationship between labour and migration more generally on the other.
Environmental Issues and Migration...
... addresses the question of how environmental contexts and factors interrelate with migration decisions and patterns, and how communities deal with these circumstances.
Ongoing Projects:
Economic, Political and Social Integration...
... addresses the necessary conditions for successful integration. Here, not only legal statuses but also rather classical sociological categories of ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, cultural background and level of education explain the integration pathways and trajectories of migrants and refugees.
Ongoing Projects:- "Religious Communalization of Migrants in the Countryside" 2021 - 2024 (Alexander-Kenneth Nagel)
- "Labor, Livelihood, and Immigration in a Brazilian Plantation: the Archives of Ibicaba Farm (1890-1970)" 2019 - 2022 (Bruno Witzel de Souza)
- "Biographies of Migrants from Syria and West Africa in Brazil and in Germany – Processes of Inclusion and Participation in the Context of So-Called Irregular Migration?" 2019 – 2022 (Eva Bahl, Gabriele Rosenthal, Arne Worm)
- POWER, Peace, War and the World in European Security Challenges
- Urban Lab: Migration Moves Göttingen
- Refugees@work. Perspektiven der betrieblichen Integration von Flüchtlingen in Niedersachsen
- Dynamic Figurations of Refugees, Migrants, and Longtime Residents in Jordan since 1946: Between Peaceable and Tension-Ridden Co-Existence?
- Religious Times, Media Genres, and their Technical Execution: An Ethnographic Investigation of Audiovisual Media Practices among Shi'ites in Hyderabad
- Gender, Forced Migration and the Politics of Reception
Migrants' Perspectives and Voices...
... brings migrants’ and refugees’ practices, as well as their own subjective understandings and conceptualisations, to the fore. This research focus is interested in practices of mobility and translocal life projects, alongside migrants’ and refugees’ experiences with belonging, home-making and participation in nationally organised societies.
Ongoing Projects:- "On the materiality of (forced) migration. From ‘bare necessities’ to ‘promising things" 2018 – 2021 (Antonie Fuhse, Friedemann Yi-Neumann)
- "Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe" 2021 - 2023 (Sabine Hess, Eva Apelt)
Socio-legal perspectives on migration and borders...
... explores the added value of a common perspective ("third space") of law and social sciences (legal anthropology/ geography/ political science/ sociology) from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Migration and Public Health ...
... examines how the "protection of life" and the "right to health" are defined and implemented for migrants and postcolonial minorities and what ethical, social and political questions arise from this practice, based on the unequal distribution of health care worldwide.
Ongoing Projects:
Further projects...
consider migration as a factor in the context of current research topics and issues.
Ongoing Projects:- "ENKOR - Engagement constella-tions in rural areas" 2021 - 2024 (Claudia Neu)
- "Social transformation processes and sustainable resource use in rural Jambi" 2016 - 2023 (Heiko Faust)
- "The living situation of women on farms in rural regions of Germany - a socio-economic analysis" 2019 - 2023 (Claudia Neu)
- "Yesterday as today - showing attitude" 2021 - 2023 (Claudia Neu)
A detailed description of ongoing research at CeMig can be found in our Annual Reports. See right column.
__________________________________________________________________________________Regional Foci
CeMig researchers focus on countries of origin, transit and destination across the globe, each with a different history of emigration, immigration and transnational entanglements. From a comparative perspective it becomes clear that societies deal quite differently with (forced) migration and associated challenges. Also, these studies from around the globe point to the various migration decisions to leave, move on, settle in or return, thereby covering the entire migration process. These varied insights into national, regional and local contexts of migration, into situated practices, allow for a global and decentralised perspective – as well as for greater understanding of transnational entanglements.
CeMig combines research results from:

- Prof. Dr. Claudia Neu
- Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess
- Christian Hinrichs M.A.
- Prof. Dr. Heiko Faust
- Prof. Timo Weishaupt, Ph.D.
- Prof. Dr. Nicole Mayer-Ahuja
- Prof. Dr. Alexander-Kenneth Nagel
- Friedemann Yi-Neumann M.A.
- Dr. phil. Zümrüt Alpınar Şencan
- Dr. Peter Birke
- Eva Bahl M.A.
- Dr. Lars Klein
- Antonie Fuhse M.A.
- Dr. Annegret Middeke
You can find a complete overview of our members listed according to faculties here.