Dr Ulrike M Vieten is a Lecturer in Sociology (of Gender, Migration and Difference), who joined Queen's University Belfast as one of the QUB Fellows, in 2015.

Dr Vieten was awarded a Doctor in Philosophy (PhD) by the University of East London (UEL), England, in 2008, and a MA in Gender & Ethnic Studies by the University of Greenwich, also Britain, in 2004. In Germany she read Law (Bremen) and Social Sciences (Oldenburg, MA), and worked on gender equality implementation and law in the 1990s.

Dr Vieten held various post-doc positions and Research Fellowships at the VU Amsterdam, the University of Sheffield and the University Luxembourg, beforehand.

Going beyond the nation state sociological lens she incorporates cosmopolitan and interdisciplinay (feminist-intersectional) methodologies in her research. She is a comparativist, looking at the transformation of (European) societies and considering the increasing meaning of transnational identities.

Theoretically, Dr Vieten is inspired by feminist thinkers such as Nancy Fraser, Iris Marion Young, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Nira Yuval-Davis, but also Sylvia Walby with respect to her work on the notion of 'European societalization'. 

Closely working with British scholar Nira Yuval-Davis (UEL) in the past, and further today (Social Scientists Against Hostile Environment -Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment (wordpress.com) ) Dr Vieten explores the historical and contemporary impact of the politics of belonging and racisms on individual positionality, notions of migration and citizenship.

Related to Dr Vieten's publications on racialised and gendered group boundaries ('othering of difference'), culturalism and racism, her expertise on gender, far right populism and racism in contemporary Europe, is internationally recognized and she contributes regularly to media debates ( e.g. EURONEWS feature; BBC/Ulster Radio or political blogs). 

• Her new monograph (co-authored with Scott Poynting), Normalization of the Global Far-Right: Pandemic Disruption? (2022, Emerald Points) is a timely intervention in ongoing debates on everyday racisms, and the normalization of extremist views in and across different societies, also taking into account the post March 2020 pandemic situtation and implications for this debate.

https://books.emeraldinsight.com/book/detail/normalization-of-the-global-far-right/?k=9781839099571

• Since January 2020, Dr Vieten is Editor-in- Chief of the refereed European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology.

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/recp20/current

Currently, Dr Vieten is working on a new monograph, Loss and Liquid Citzenship: the postmigration condition in a populist age, commissioned by ROUTLEDGE. The monograph investigates the shifting boundaries of the migration-citizenship nexus in different countries considering the post-Brexit situation and using a de-colonial feminist lens. The argument is inspired by Zygmunt Bauman's notion of liquid modernity combining it with Judith Butler's work on temporality.

Between April and July 2023, Dr Vieten will be a Visiting Research Fellow in Australia, being based at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Alfred Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia). She will continue writing her book manuscript, giving guest lectures, and also explore possibilities for further research collaboration with Australian colleagues.

https://adi.deakin.edu.au/?utm_source=deakin.edu.au&utm_medium=referral&_ga=2.261783823.348920086.1660910757-1788937496.1649323615

Dr Vieten does have particular expertise in Gender, Ethnic and Sexualities Studies.

Her research engages theoretically and empirically with the (de-)construction of racialised, classed and gendered group boundaries, looking at processes of normalization and the critique of it. Another way of capturing this is asking how othering operates in discourses and in different situated historical contexts. Dr Vieten published widely on the shifting notions of difference and otherness, in the context of gendered cosmopolitanisms, far-right populisms and archives of racisms, in Europe.

Foremost, Dr Vieten is interested in processes of European societalisation, and the emergence of multi-layered transnational identities. She is a comparativist, who applies a range of qualitative methods (e.g. Critical Discourse Analysis; visual methods/ semiotics; narrative methods). Having worked academically in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and England before coming to Northern Ireland, countries of expertise include: Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Poland, Austria and Turkey.

Dr Vietens' research has been funded by the British Council/ Newton Fund; Northern Ireland Department for the Economy (DfE)/ Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), Stormont. The pilot study 'Loss and the Language of Dance' (2017-2018), for example, explored how the experience of loss can be culturally translated across different countries and collective memories, such as Northern Ireland and Turkey'.

 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/refugees-displacement-and-moving-bodies-studying-loss-and-language-of-dance/

Before 2002

Before migrating to London/ UK, in 2002, and embarking on an academic career, Dr Vieten worked professionally (Organisational Sociology) on gender equality implementation as far as Germany is concerned.

The legal commentary in the field of gender equality and German anti-discimination law was published in 2002:

'Frauengleichstellungsgesetze des Bundes und der Laender', (2002), co-authored with Prof Dr Dagmar Schiek, Prof Dr Heike Dieball et al., published with the BUND Verlag in Frankfurt/ Main.

Beyond 2002

Dr Vieten co-edited with Prof Nira Yuval-Davis (UEL), The Situated Politics of Belonging (also with Prof Kalpana Kannabiran), published in 2006 (with SAGE).

In 2012, Dr Vieten's first MONOGRAPH was published with ASHGATE (by now with ROUTLEGE): 

Gender and Cosmopolitanism in Europe: A Feminist Approach

https://www.routledge.com/Gender-and-Cosmopolitanism-in-Europe-A-Feminist-Perspective/Vieten/p/book/9781138250734

Book Reviews are here: 

Leanne Dawson in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14782804.2013.766468) • Maki Kimura in Gender & Education http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540253.2013.868859#.Uwn2V4UtWls

In 2016, Dr Vieten published the co-edited book (with G. Valentine) 'Cartographies of Differences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives', this book is now available (August 2018) as OPEN ACCESS.

https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/46955?tab=aboutauthor&format=MOBI

Dr Vieten's theoretical interest in the tension between processes of normalisation (and the critique of it) on the one hand and notions of democratic inclusion led first to a symposium she organised in Amsterdam in 2012; and second, in 2014 to an edited collection:

REVISITING IRIS MARION YOUNG ON NORMALISATION, INCLUSION and DEMOCRACY

Dr Vieten will be a Visiting Research Fellow in Melbourne (Australia), at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, between mid of April and beginning of July 2023.

https://adi.deakin.edu.au/?utm_source=deakin.edu.au&utm_medium=referral&_ga=2.261783823.348920086.1660910757-1788937496.1649323615

Internationally and professionally Dr Vieten is organised with the International Sociological Association (ISA), since 2003. Between 2010 and summer 2018 she was elected Board Member of the ISA Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity (RC05).

As part of these international activities she convened and contributed to different ISA Forum and World Congresses of Sociology, e.g. in Durban/ SA (2006), Goeteborg/ Sweden (2010) Buenos Aires/ Argentina (2012), Yokohama/ Japan (2014), Vienna/ Austria (2016), Toronto/ Canada (2018) and Porto Allegre/ Brazil (2020).

The 2023 ISA World Congress with take place enf of June until beginning of July, in Melbourne, and Dr Vieten is convening a RC05 panel on the Normalization of the Global Far Right (with Prof Scott Poynting), and further giving a paper at another panel releated to her new book project, on 'Liquid Citizenship and the post-migration condition'.

Since 2019, Dr Vieten is member of the Irish Sociological Association (SAI), and the European Association of Sociology (ESA).

Since January 2020, she is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology.

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/recp20/current

TEACHING at QUB - Convenor of:

• MA Conflict and Social Justice -  Dissertation Module (Mitchell Institute)                                       CSJ7002 (2017-2019)
• Dr Vieten also contributed with a specially designed slot on 'gender, conflict and justice' to the Theoretical Core Module Global Concepts and Practices of Conflict Transformation -  CSJ7001 (2017-2019)

In the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) she convened in 2019/2020

• MRes Module  - Approaches to Social Research, SOC9012

and continues convenining modules in Undergraduate Teaching:

• Sociology elective  - Understanding Gender & Migration (SOC2051)  - since 2019/ 2020

This module - newly designed in 2019 - responds to the need to expand an explicit focus on gender in mainstream sociological teaching and thinking in SSESW, and connecting gender to ongoing international debates on migration. In the previous years global, regional as well as intra-Europan migration issues (e.g. EU citizenship, cross border mobility) were prominent, but due to the Brexit situation (post-2020) the module will deliver a slightly revised approach focusing on global migration, also taking into account the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, in autumn 2021. 

• Sociology - mandatory - Qualitative Research Skills, SOC2003 (since 2020/2021)

Dr Vieten also is involved in the curriculum development and delivery of the theory module ('Theories, Frameworks and Concepts') as part of the innovative Integrated PhD (IPhD), launched in 2020.

Before coming to NI, and teaching at QUB, Dr Vieten was involved in teaching, designing and convening modules at British universities (UEL/ London Metropolitan University), in the Netherlands (VU Amsterdam) as well as in Germany (University of Applied Studies, Hanover) on 

Undergraduate Teaching/ modules (between 2004 and 2008)

• Communication and Media
• Youth Cultures
• Media Meanings
• Global Justice and Human Rights
• Globalisation and Society
• Gender & Race

• Diversity, Difference and Identity in Organisations, Winter term 2011/2012 (VU Amsterdam)

Postgraduate module/ workshop

on 'Roma Studies' (2001-2002), University of Applied Studies Hanover ('Social Work')

Successfully supervised PhDs:

• Netherlands

Dr Melanie Eijberts (2013). Migrant Women Shout It Out Loud. The Integration/ Participation Strategies and Sense of Home of First- and Second-Generation Women of Moroccan and Turkish Descent. VU University Amsterdam (cuma sum laude).

•  UK/ Northern Ireland

Emily Mitchell-Bajic (2022), The Silencing of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Survivors in the Post-Yugoslav Space, Belfast, DfE funded scholarship

Ongoing PhD supervision:

Salah Uddin, Forced Migration of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh

Judith Atwell, An Ethnographic challenge to Resettlement as a “durable solution”: Syrian refugees and Northern Ireland. - DfE funded scholarship.

In September 2022, Dr Vieten was appointed as the External Examiner to the MA program 'Refugee Integration', Dublin City University, Ireland.