Production Site - The Podcast about the Societal Negotiation of Migration

How activist can, may, or must migration research be — especially in times of rising authoritarianism and an observable erosion of human rights and migrants’ rights? In this episode, professors Christine Lang and Janine Dahinden discuss this with internationally renowned migration researcher Nina Glick Schiller. How politically neutral can research ever be, and what social responsibility does it carry?

Climate change drives migration, but who moves, who stays, and why? Aurora A. Sauter speaks with climate adaptation expert Jesse M. Keenan, Tulane University, about the links between climate change, migration, and immobility — with a focus on the United States: one of the world's largest carbon emitters, now increasingly confronting climate disaster on its own soil. At the end of the episode, Aurora is joined by her colleague Thomas Scheffer to discuss what the US case reveals about the production of migration.

Large cities are becoming increasingly diverse. In some neighborhoods, no single group constitutes a numerical majority anymore — people without a migration background have become one minority among many. What does this mean for social cohesion and prevailing ideas about integration? Maurice Crul and Frans Lelie of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have researched these questions and discuss their findings with migration researcher Jens Schneider, who is joined by colleague Norma Schemschat in a concluding dialogue.

Herbst 2025: Die sogenannte Stadtbilddebatte, angestoßen vom Bundeskanzler und CDU-Vorsitzenden Friedrich Merz, erhitzt die Gemüter: Migration als „Problem im Stadtbild?“ Anlass genug, einmal genauer über das Verhältnis von Migration und Stadt nachzudenken. Wie und von wem wird Wissen über Migration in der Stadt produziert? Wie wird Migration verräumlicht? Welche machtvollen Begriffe und Kategorien wirken – und welche Alternativen zum problemzentrierten Blick lassen sich ausmachen? Darum geht es in dieser Episode.

Wie erlebte in den 1980er Jahren ein als türkischer Straßenkehrer verkleideter Deutscher den Alltag in einer migrantisierten Arbeitswelt? Welche Erfahrungen machte er in dieser Rolle und wie haben sie seine Sicht auf die deutsche Gesellschaft geprägt? Darüber spricht der Journalist Gerhard Kromschröder in dieser Folge. Dabei geht es auch um Alltagsrassismus, seine Recherchen in der rechten Szene, den Umgang mit verdrängter deutscher Geschichte und die Verantwortung des Journalismus.

She helped shape migration research in Germany during its earliest days: Czarina Wilpert. As a scholar who had herself migrated, how did she carve out a place in a field dominated by white men? What life experiences informed her research and her perspective on immigrants and their descendants? And what was she able to see that researchers with a “purely German gaze” could not?

In this bonus episode, we take a closer look at the Collaborative Research Centre “The Production of Migration” (SFB 1604). What terms and concepts does it use, and how is it structured? What does “Production of Migration” actually mean? And why does the research conducted in the SFB affect us all? Science communicators Feline Engling Cardoso and Vera Hanewinkel host this episode and meet with researchers who explain what SFB 1604 does.