FOR 5321:  Human Rights Discourse in Migration Societies (MeDiMi)

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences ; Humanities ; Medicine
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458456362

The subject of this interdisciplinary research project is to determine the scope, forms and consequences of the expansion of human rights discourse in contemporary migration societies. MeDiMi’s starting observation is that actors in these societies often refer to human rights norms discursively to articulate images of themselves as well as their interests. The project describes this process as "the advance of human rights" (Vermenschenrechtlichung; literally, “human-rightization”).MeDiMi traces the advance of human rights in migration discourse in three contexts. These contexts include the legal system, areas of political action, as well as other professional and everyday socio-cultural contexts in which perceptions of self and the attitudes of actors within migration societies are expressed and formed. Legal analysis, social-science research and cultural studies of ten selected fields will provide the empirical basis for a theory of discursive practice in migration societies. This will enable us to achieve a new understanding of the role of human rights in contemporary societies, especially European ones.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Netherlands

Projects

• Coordination Funds (Applicant Bast, Jürgen )
• Dehumanizing, Victimizing, or Universalizing? How Images of Migration Interact with Human Rights Discourse (Applicant Olson, Greta )
• "Doing Human Rights": How the categories of "human" and "migrant" are made (ir-)relevant in everyday life (Applicant Zifonun, Darius )
• Human Rights as Reference Point of Professional Ethics for Social-Educational Practice in Migration Societies (Applicant Wiezorek, Christine )
• Human Rights Crimes, Norm Entrepreneurs, and the Implementation of the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction in Germany. A Study on Human Rights Consciousness among Syrian Refugees (Applicant Buckley-Zistel, Susanne )
• Human Rights Discourse in Political Protests of Refugees and Undocumented Migrants in Germany and the US (Applicant Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación )
• Human Rights Transformations of German Migration Law (Applicant von Harbou, Frederik )
• Migration and the Advance of Human Rights in "Health": Paradigms, Practices, and Conflicts (Applicant Knipper, Michael )
• Systemic Deficiencies in the System of Protecting the Human Rights of Migrants: the Inter-American and the European Court of Human Rights in Comparision (Applicant Hailbronner, Michaela )
• Territoriality, Public Authority, and Rights: the EU's Border Regimes (Applicant Bast, Jürgen )
• Who is empowered by Strasbourg? Migrants and States before the ECtHR (Applicant Wessels, Ph.D., Janna )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jürgen Bast