Civil Society Integration through Conflict? Functions, Trajectories and Consequences of Migrant-Related and Non-Migrant-Related Conflicts in Duisburg

• Applicant: Professor Thomas Faist, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449165936

The development of modern urban societies is accompanied by changing topics and constellations of conflict, and by synchronic and diachronic criss-crossings of different lines of conflict. This process of change implies that local conflict parties will dissolve again over time, with the actors involved in them orientating on and gathering around newly emerging conflict lines. Sometimes actors will be simultaneously involved in very different conflict constellations. The relevant questions are: What are the effects on the actors in an urban society characterised by migration-related diversity if, as a result of changing or criss-crossing conflict constellations and alliances, adversaries become allies and friends become foes? And: do criss-crossing conflict lines contribute to the emergence of new local forms of civil society integration? Is the phenomenon we observe here in fact the emergence of the lifeworld foundations of what some migration researchers term the “post-migrant society”?The project investigates these questions in relation to both historic and contemporary conflicts in Duisburg, focusing on the effects of the synchronic and/or diachronic occurrence of two different forms of conflict. The first of these is conflicts observed where the process of forming conflict parties is associated with attributions of migration-related difference to both sides: “migrant-related conflicts”. In these the conflict parties may be internally very heterogeneous in many respects, but reference to the migration status of those involved (migrant or non-migrant) represents a central category of attribution in the process of their formation. In the second form of conflict the attribution of asserted or actual migration-related characteristics plays no role in the formation of the conflict parties: “non-migrant-related conflicts”. The conflicts of interest will be investigated in relation to the following four sets of questions: 1. To what extent do they correspond to the “pure” types of migrant-related and non-migrant-related conflict? Or are they mixed and/or transitional forms, or something else entirely? Does the initial heuristic distinction between two conflict types need to be revised accordingly? 2. What types of trajectory do the identified migrant-related conflicts follow and what roles are played by intra-group conflicts, intra-organisational conflicts and specific individuals? 3. To what extent do interactions between the different forms of conflict and resulting criss-crossings change the local civil society and its actors? Does a new form of civil society integration develop on the basis of local criss-crossings and associated learning processes? 4. To what extent is the development of the civil society conflict forms and types related to structural transformation processes, which would include local effects of globalisation, post-industrialisation, inequality, demographic change, social mobility and ongoing inward migration to the city?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants