Arts, culture and migration

The "Arts, culture and migration" (DIVCULT) standing committe aims to better understand the relevance of arts and culture in the theoretical and policy debates about immigrant incorporation and diversity in Europe and beyond. Over the last years, artistic activities have found increasing interest among migration researchers because they prove to be a means of moving beyond ethnic differences towards narratives of identity and belonging that are more apt to capture the current post-migrant reality in many cities and countries.

We intend to cover a wide range of artistic and cultural activities in our analyses ranging from music, literature, cinema and theatre to sports, fashion, clothing, design and food.

The idea is to jointly work on the following dimensions:

Theoretical and conceptual issues
Methodologies
Relevance and social impact

These dimensions constitute the general framework in which the researchers involved can initiate joint research activities, organise workshops and conferences and prepare publications.

DIVCULT builds on previous work carried out in the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Popular Art, Diversity and Cultural Policies in Post-Migration Urban Settings (POPADIVCIT) founded in 2010. POPADIVCIT focussed on the political and institutional framework of immigrant artistic activities, the social relations between all actors involved as well as on their impact in particular in terms of political participation and mobilisation. The work has resulted in several special issues of journals.

For further information on DIVCULT activities, you can contact Elsa Mescoli (Assistant Coordinator) at the following address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The application document describing the aims and functioning of our Standing Committe is available default here(210 KB) .

The current DIVCULT PhD representative (2022-2024) is Joanna Jurkiewicz (Technische Universität Darmstadt, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). An overview of the role of the DIVCULT PhD representative is available pdf here(88 KB) .

Names of coordinators

Marco Martiniello

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Wiebke Sievers

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Executive board members (beside the coordinators)

Berndt Clavier

Diana Duarte Bernal

Universidad de Chile, Chile

Selected publications

2021 Barsky, R. F. and Martiniello, M. (eds.) Cultural and Artistic Participation of Migrants: A Pathway Towards Sociopolitical Integration. Full Special Issue on AmeriQuests, Vol. 16(1).
Sievers, W., & Levitt, P. (2020). Scale Shifting: New Insights into Global Literary Circulation, Journal of World Literature, 5(4).
2019 Kasinitz, P. and Martiniello, M. (eds.) Music, migration and the city. Full Special Issue on Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42:6.
2019 Martiniello, M. Arts and Refugees: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Full Special Issue on Arts, 8(1).
Ricard Zapata-Barrero, Marco Martiniello & Wiebke Sievers (Eds.): Special issue: Diversity incorporation in the cultural policy mainstream: Exploring the main frameworks and approaches bridging cultural and migration studies, Crossings. Journal of Migration & Culture, 8, 1, 2017
Marco Martiniello (Ed.): Special issue: Artistic separation vs artistic mixing in European multicultural cities. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 21, 1, 2014
Marco Martiniello and Jean-Michel Lafleur Eds.): Special issue: Ethnic Minorities’ Cultural Practices as Forms of Political Expression. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34, 8, 2008

Standing Committee