Renegotiating Local Orders: Migration-Induced Diversity, Intergroup Relations, Conflicts and Integration Dynamics in the District

The comparative-explorative project is dedicated to the coexistence of "groups" in selected neighbourhoods of Dortmund, Bonn and Magdeburg that are characterised by migration-related diversity. It explores how the orders of coexistence are reproduced, varied and changed through local interactions of conflict and negotiation. The selection of the study cities is explained by the aim of taking socio-spatial inequality and different manifestations of migration-related diversity into account as a comparative dimension. The research approach used is a combination of figuration-sociological conflict analysis, negotiated-order and symbolic-boundary-making approaches. In this way, not only intentional manifest, but also non-intentional pre-flexive negotiation processes of local-spatial everyday interaction come into view.
Research questions include: What problems are perceived in the social spaces concerned? Which are framed in terms of migration-related categories (ethnicity, culture, religion, regional origin, reason for migration)? Which problems are not? Which of the subjectively migration-related problems are taken up by conflict and/or negotiation interactions? And how does this affect the ensemble of local conflict and negotiation interactions? What effects do conflict and negotiation interactions have on group formations and everyday border regimes in the respective neighbourhood?