PD Dr Stefan Groth

• Political Anthropology and Europeanization Studies
• Narratology and Linguistic Anthropology
• Cultural Heritage and Cultural Property
• Methods in Empirical Cultural Studies
• Anthropology of Sports

• Europe from Outside and from the Margins: The Everyday Production of Europe in Borderlands and Non-European Contexts

• Popular Narratives of the Political

• The Everyday: Perspectives from Empirical Cultural Studies (Book Project)

• German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies
• Societé Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF), SIEF Working Groups Narrative Cultures; Cultural Heritage and Property
• European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), EASA Networks Anthropology of Law, Rights and Governance (LAWNET); Linguistic Anthropology (ELAN)
• DFG Network Competition (2014–2018)
• DFG Network Experience (since 2021)

PD Dr Stefan Groth joined the research group 'Global cooperation and diverse conceptions of world order' in November 2021 and will be a Senior Research Fellow until April 2023.

Everyday Narratives of (De-)Legitimation: How Stories about Migration Policies and Expert Regimes are told in Everyday Contexts

From an anthropological perspective, the project analyzes how migration policies are narrated in everyday contexts. It asks how stories about global cooperation in migration provide insight into perceptions of expert regimes drafting migration policies, including their legitimacy or illegitimacy. While research on narrative in policy processes has increased significantly over the last couple of years, narratives in their everyday dimensions and performative aspects of stories have so far only been tangentially considered – especially in relation to processes of global cooperation. The project argues that the analysis of everyday narratives of migration policies (e.g., stories about supranational agreements about the distribution of refugees, about multilateral debates on the impact of climate change on migration and resulting migration flows, or about bilateral practices of immigration control at borders) and an ethnographic perspective can deepen our understanding of how the legitimacy of migration policies – and with it the expert regimes in which such polices are drafted or negotiated – is questioned or critiqued in everyday contexts.

• Board Member, Research Network Cultural Citizenship (University of Zurich, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich University of Applied Science), 2018–2021
• Co-Speaker, Section Cultures of Work, German Society of Folklore (dgv), since 2017
• Working Group Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Zurich (2016–2021)
• Delegate, Commission for Research and Promotion of Junior Researchers, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Zurich (2017–2020)
• Board Member, Institute for Archeology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Bonn (2015–2016)
• Board Member, Center for Theory of Culture and Society, University of Göttingen, Germany (2010–2014)
• Reviewer for Journals (Critical Discourse Studies, American Ethnologist, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, Narrative Culture, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Jahrbuch für Europäische Ethnologie)

University of Zurich, Bonn, Göttingen and Basel (BA/MA level)