"Mobility, Activism and Politics". Public Lecture Series by Einstein Fellows Research Group @HU
The last couple of decades have witnessed significant political and social changes that left scholars and policymakers in bewilderment. The rise of far-right politics and the increasing salience of polarizing political discourses as global phenomena have wiped away the optimistic prospects of the 1990s and early 2000s for widespread democratization. Simultaneously, there has been an upsurge in the movement of people across boundaries. According to the recent figures by the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the growing number of migrants has now outpaced the growth rate of the world's population. Refugees and asylum seekers constitute approximately a quarter of global increases due to fast-growing rates of forced displacements.
These two processes – democratic de-consolidation and increasing migration – are indeed not isolated from one another. Far from that, migration has, for instance, become a keyword for far-right political actors to mobilize and polarize constituencies within and across boundaries. Against this background, this Lecture Series organized by Einstein Fellows Research Group explores these two processes, primarily, but not only, using Turkey. Through an inter- and multi-disciplinary approach, lectures by the Fellows invite students and scholars to think together about questions of i) regime change and authoritarianism, ii) diaspora politics and new migration(s), and last, but not least, iii) resistance and insurgency.
Besides Einstein Fellows, three renowned scholars - Christian Volk, Arjun Appadurai, and Philip Gorski - will also give lectures with empirical foci on cases beyond Turkey. These lectures are aimed to put the discussion on Turkey in a broader context and to pose questions about similarities and differences across cases. Through this comparative focus, the series aims to put in conversation theory and praxis. We invite all the interested students and scholars to contemplate together about these pressing issues of our times.