My research focuses on Comparative Studies of Minorities, Citizenship, Migration and Gender in Europe, anchoring my interdisciplinary and international expertise in Gender & Ethnic Studies. 

Apart from being a Fellow of the Mitchell Institute, I am also one of the founding members, and on the Executive Committee, of the Centre for European and Transnational Studies, 2018, based in the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast.

qub.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-european-transnational-studies/

I am a Lecturer in Sociology, based in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work here at QUB. I joined QUB via the prestigious QUB Fellowship (March 2015 - June 2019, Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice).

My research engages theoretically and empirically with the (de-)construction of racialised, classed and gendered group boundaries, looking at processes of normalisation and the critique of it. I have published on the shifting notions of difference and otherness, in the context of gendered cosmopolitanisms, populisms and archives of racisms, in Europe.

Foremost, I am interested in processes of European socialisation, and the emergence of multi-layered transnational identities. I am 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.

My 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/

Currently, I am writing two books: my second monograph, Loss and Liquid Citizenship: the post-migration condition in a populist age looks at the fragile conditionality of citizenship rights as well at the migration and mobility nexus in a populist age (with ROUTLEDGE). The second book is co-authored (with Scott Poynting, Autralia) and concentrates on the normalisation of the global far right.

This book is commissioned by Emerald Publishing, and was chosen to be included in the Knowledge Unleashed program, to make it accessible as open access title.

Before 2002

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

The legal commentary on legislation in the field of gender equality and 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

I co-edited with my dearest mentor, friend and colleague Prof Nira Yuval-Davis (UEL), 'The Situated Politics of Belonging' (also with Prof Kalpana Kannabiran), published in 2006 (with SAGE).

My first monograph, Gender and Cosmopolitanism in Europe: a feminist perspective' was published with ASHGATE (now ROUTLEDGE),  in 2012.

https://www.routledge.com/Gender-and-Cosmopolitanism-in-Europe-A-Feminist-Perspective/Vieten/p/book/9781409433835

In 2016, I 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

My 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 I organised in Amsterdam in 2012; and second, in 2014 to an edited collection:

REVISITING IRIS MARION YOUNG ON NORMALISATION, INCLUSION and DEMOCRACY

I am internationally and professionally organised with the International Sociological Association (ISA), since 2003. Between 2010 and summer 2018 I was elected Board Member of the ISA Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity (RC05). As part of these internatuional activities I am convening and contributing 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).

Further, I am member of the Irish Sociological Association (SAI), and the European Association of Sociology (ESA), here with the RN15  (global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology) and RN32 (political sociology), connecting to my expertise on gender, ethnicity and transnational Europeanisation. 

From January 2020, I am on the new editorial team (special responsibility: book reviews) of the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology.

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

I convened the MA Dissertation Module of the Mitchell Institute's Master programme, 2018/ 2019, and 2019/2020. Further, I taught 'gender, conflict and justice' as part of the theoretical module of the Master programme, in 2017/2018, and 2018/ 2019.

Since June 2019, I am convening SOC9012 (Approaches to Social Research) as part of the MRes program, in 2019/ 2020, and convene 'Understanding Gender & Migration' (SOC2051).

Postgraduate (PhD) supervision:

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.