PD Dr. Johannes Becker
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Positions
Degrees
Scholarships and Awards
Field Research / Archival Research
2023– East Westphalia (Germany), 2 months
2017–2019 Amman (Jordan), 7 months
2010–2014 Jerusalem/West Bank, 10 months
2007–2008 Archival research Bonn/Berlin, 2 months
Language Skills
- German
- English: fluent
- Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic); conversation level
Publications
Becker, J./ Burchardt, M. (will be published in 2026). Globale Kultursoziologie: Einführung. Baden-Baden: Nomos. [Global cultural sociology: Introduction]
Becker, J. (will be published in 2025). Emplacements in the Old City of Jerusalem: Life stories and everyday life in a dense urban environment.
Becker, J. (2017). Verortungen in der Jerusalemer Altstadt: Lebensgeschichten und Alltag in einem engen urbanen Raum. Bielefeld: transcript. [Emplacement in Jerusalem's Old City: Life histories and everyday life in a dense urban space]
Balerdi, S./ Becker, J./ Burchardt, M./ Huang, W. (Eds.) (under review). Handbook Global Sociology: Approaches, methods, fields of research.
Becker, J./ Pohn-Lauggas, M./ Rosenthal, G./ Worm, A. (Eds.) (will be published in 2026). Elgar handbook of biographical research in the social sciences. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Becker, J./ Bös, M/ Çakır-Kılınçoğlu, S. (Eds.) (will be published in 2025). The fragility of global migration: Exploring a constitutive aspect of migratory forms. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Becker, J./ Burchardt, M. (Eds.) (2023). Doing Global Sociology: Qualitative methods and biographical becoming after the postcolonial critique. Special Issue of Historical Social Research 48(4).
Becker, J./ Pohn-Lauggas, M./ Santos, H. (Eds.) (2023). Reconstructive biographical research. Current Sociology 71(4).
Becker, J./ Weidenhaus, G./ Witte, N. (Eds.) (2022). Biographie und Raum. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen. [Biography and space]
Bahl, E./ Becker, J. (Eds.) (2020). Global processes of flight and migration: The explanatory power of case studies. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press.
Becker, J./ Belkind, N./ Karkabi, N./ Wood, A. (Eds.) (2013). Special issue: Geographies of identity: (Per)forming space in Palestine and Israel. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6(3).
*Becker, J. (in review). The meaning of small gatherings for the analysis of cities: Comparing urban figurations from an interpretative and process-oriented perspective. Submitted to: Comparative Sociology.
Becker, J./ Burchardt, M. (2023). Doing Global Sociology: Qualitative methods and biographical becoming after the postcolonial critique – an introduction. Historical Social Research 48(4), 7-32.
*Burchardt, M./ Becker, J. (2023). Subjects of God? Rethinking religious agency, biography and masculinity from the Global South. Historical Social Research 48(4), 131-155.
Becker, J./ Pohn-Lauggas, M./ Santos, H. (2023). Introduction: Reconstructive biographical research. Current Sociology 71(4), 552-566.
*Becker, J./ Hinrichsen, H./ Worm, A. (2023). On the emergence and changing positions of old-established groupings in migration contexts: A process perspective on group formation in Jordan. Current Sociology 71(4), 607-626.
*Becker, J. (2021). Wie Kooptationen Familiengeschichten bestimmen: Auf- und Abstieg in der Periode des jordanischen Staatsaufbaus. Leviathan 49(3), 314-336. [How cooptation determines family histories: Rise and fall during the Jordanian state-building period]
*Becker, J. (2021). Refugees, migration and the tightening borders in the Middle East. A perspective from biographical research on the re‐figuration of spaces and cross‐cultural comparison. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research 22(2) Art. 8, dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-22.2.3598.
*Becker, J. (2019). Orte und Verortungen als raumsoziologische Perspektive zur Analyse von Lebensgeschichten. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research 20(1), Art. 12, dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.1.3029. [Places and emplacement as a spatial sociological perspective for analysing life histories]
*Becker, J. (2013). Old men’s truth: The ‘poverty generation’ of neighborhood men talk about life in Jerusalem's Old City. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6(3), 264-285.
Becker, J./ Belkind, N./ Karkabi, N./ Wood, A. (2013). Introduction: Geographies of identity: (Per)forming space in Palestine and Israel. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6(3), 259-263.
Becker, J./ Bös, M./ Çakır Kılınçoğlu, S. (in preparation). The fragility of global migration. In: Becker, J./ Bös, M./ Çakır Kılınçoğlu, S. (Eds.), The fragility of global migration: Exploring a constitutive aspect of migratory forms. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Becker, J./ Witte, N. (in preparation). Stadt- und raumsoziologische Perspektiven in der Biographieforschung. In: Lutz, H./ Schiebel, M./ Tuider, E. (Eds.), Handbuch Biographieforschung. 3. ed. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. [Perspectives of urban sociology and the sociology of space in biographical research]
Becker, J. (in print). Qualitative Interviews in kulturvergleichenden Kontexten. In: Baur, N./ Blasius, J. (Eds.), Handbuch Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung. 4. Auflage. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. [Qualitative interviews in comparative sociology]
*Becker, J./ Worm, A. (in print). Family figurations becoming fragile in forced migration processes. In: Becker, J./ Bös, M./ Çakır Kılınçoğlu, S. (Eds.), The fragility of global migration: Exploring a constitutive aspect of migratory forms. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
*Schäfer, M./ Becker, J. (in print). Sociological biographical research. In: Kusenbach, M./ Pfadenhauer, M. (Eds.), Elgar Handbook of interpretive research methods. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
*Bahl, E./ Becker, J./ Worm, A. (in print). Situating violence in migration processes: The explanatory power of biographical case studies. In: Anamzoya, A. S./ Abubakari, A. (Eds.), Essays in honor of Prof. Steve Tonah. Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers.
*Becker, J./ Bromber, K./ Chavoshian, S. / Moradi, A./ Ferrand, A./ Ismailbekova, A./ Mahazi, J./ Scharrer, T./ Schielke, S. (2023). Silence, secrecy, ignorance, and the making of class and status across generations. ZMO Programmatic Text 15. Berlin: Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient. doi.org/10.58144/20231214-000.
Becker, J./ Hinrichsen, H./ Worm, A. (2023). Flight and displacement from Syria: Why regional history and family figurations matter. In: Pohn-Lauggas, M./ Tonah, S./ Worm, A. (Hrsg.), Exile – flight – persecution: Sociological perspectives on processes of violence. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 145-160.
*Hinrichsen, H./ Becker, J. (2022). Changes in a transnational migrant society: Social figurations and everyday life in Jordan. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Transnational biographies: Changing we-images, collective belongings and power chances of migrants and refugees. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 239-281.
Becker, J. (2022). Räumliche Orientierungen in Familien- und Lebensgeschichten: Wie sie Verortungen in der Stadt mitbestimmen. In: Becker, J./ Weidenhaus, G./ Witte, N. (Eds.), Biographie und Raum. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 33-55, doi.org/10.17875/gup20211868. [Spatial orientations in family and life histories: How they co-constitute emplacement in the city]
*Becker, J./ Weidenhaus, G./ Witte, N. (2022). Biographie und Raum: Erkundungen eines komplexen Verhältnisses. In: Becker, J./ Weidenhaus, G./ Witte, N. (Eds.), Biographie und Raum. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 3-16, doi.org/10.17875/gup20211863. [Biography and space: Explorations of a complex relationship]
Becker, J./ Rosenthal, G. (2022). Ethnographie und Biographieforschung. In: Poferl, A./ Schröer, N. (Eds.), Handbuch soziologische Ethnographie. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 367-382. [Ethnography and biographical research]
Albaba, A./ Becker, J. (2021). Interviews with refugees in the Middle East. In: Bahl, E./ Rosenthal, G. (Eds.). Navigating through increasing social inequalities in times of Covid-19:
A research report on interviews with migrants in the Middle East and Europe and migrants and indigenous people in South America. Global Migration Studies 4/2021, 13-31.
Becker, J./ Hinrichsen, H./ Worm, A. (2021). Fluchtmigration von Syrien nach Jordanien im familiengeschichtlichen und regionalhistorischen Kontext: Zum Nutzen einer biographietheoretischen und figurationssoziologischen Forschungsperspektive. In: Köttig, M./ Witte, N. (Eds.), Biographie und Kollektivgeschichte. Weinheim: Beltz/Juventa, 276-291. [Refugee migration from Syria to Jordan in a family-historical and regional-historical context: On the benefits of a biography-theoretical and figuration-sociological research perspective]
Becker, J./ Hinrichsen, H. (2020): Transformatorische Fluchtverläufe: Migration aus lokalisierten Milieus und Etablierung in einem neuen Kontext am Beispiel irakischer Geflüchteter in Jordanien. In: Bahl, E./ Becker, J. (Eds.), Global processes of flight and migration: The explanatory power of case studies. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 163-181. [Transformational flight trajectories: Migration from localized milieus and establishment in a new context: The example of Iraqi refugees in Jordan]
Bahl, E./ Becker, J. (2020): Global processes of flight and migration: How case studies help to understand their complex and heterogeneous character. In: Bahl, E./ Becker, J. (Eds.), Global processes of flight and migration: The explanatory power of case studies. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 9-21.
*Becker, J. (2020). Past Neighbourhoods: Palestinians and Jerusalem’s ‘enlarged Jewish Quarter’. In: Maksudyan, N./ Alkan, H. (Eds.), Urban neighbourhood formations: Boundaries, narrations and intimacies. London: Routledge, 99-118.
Rosenthal, G./ Albaba, A./ Becker, J./ Bahl, E./ Cé Sangalli, L./ Worm, A./ Weiss, T./ Çakır-Kılınçoğlu, S./ Cusmano, M. (2020). Research report: Migrants, especially refugees, in Brazil, the Middle East, Africa and Western Europe in times of Covid-19.
Becker, J. (2019). Die analytische Herausforderung mobiler Familien- und Lebensgeschichten von Flüchtlingen in Amman (Jordanien). In: Burzan, N. (Ed.), Komplexe Dynamiken globaler und lokaler Entwicklungen. Verhandlungen des 39. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Göttingen 2018. [The analytical challenge of mobile family and life histories of refugees in Amman (Jordan)]
*Becker, J. (2017). A mixed family of long-time residents and internal migrants in East Jerusalem: The established-outsider figuration of ‘Hebronites’ and ‘Jerusalemite families’ in the context of the Israeli occupation In: Bogner, A./ Rosenthal, G. (Eds.), Biographies in the Global South: Embedded in figurations and discourses. Frankfurt: Campus, 209-235.
Hinrichsen, H./ Becker, J./ Rosenthal, G. (2016). On the brittleness of the homogenizing we-discourse: Christians in Bethlehem and Ramallah. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Established and outsiders at the same time: Self-images and we-images of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 31-44.
Becker, J. (2016). Commitment to the Old City and ambivalent emplacement. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Established and outsiders at the same time: Self-images and we-images of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 125-146.
Becker, J./ Worm, A. (2016). Palestinians in East Jerusalem. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Established and outsiders at the same time: Self-images and we-images of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 111-123.
*Becker, J. (2015). Bekenntnisse zur Altstadt und widerstrebendes Erleben. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Etablierte und Außenseiter zugleich: Selbst- und Fremdbilder in den palästinensischen Communities im Westjordanland und in Israel. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 167-194. [Commitment to the Old City and ambivalent emplacement]
Becker, J./ Worm, A. (2015). PalästinenserInnen in Ostjerusalem. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Etablierte und Außenseiter zugleich: Selbst- und Fremdbilder in den palästinensischen Communities im Westjordanland und in Israel. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 149-165. [Palestinians in East Jerusalem]
Hinrichsen, H./ Becker, J./ Rosenthal, G. (2015). Zum Brüchig-Werden des homogenisierenden Wir-Diskurses: Christen in Bethlehem und Ramallah. In: Rosenthal, G. (Ed.), Etablierte und Außenseiter zugleich: Selbst- und Fremdbilder in den palästinensischen Communities im Westjordanland und in Israel. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 43-61. [On the brittleness of the homogenizing we-discourse: Christians in Bethlehem and Ramallah]
Rosenthal, G./ Hinrichsen, H./ Becker, J. (2015). Zur interaktiven und kollektiven (Selbst-) Vergewisserung eines brüchig werdenden Wir-Bildes. In: Griffith, S.H./ Grebenstein, S. (Eds.), Christsein in der islamischen Welt. Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 567-586.
Positions in professional associations
President of the RC 38 “Biography and Society”, International Sociological Association (ISA) (2023-2027)
Secretary and Treasurer of the RC 38 “Biography and Society”, International Sociological Association (ISA) (2018-2023)
Board Member, RC 38 “Biography and Society”, International Sociological Association (ISA) (2018-2027)
Member of the Presidency, Section for Migration and Ethnic Minorities, German Sociological Association (DGS) (2021-2023)
Memberships
International Sociological Association (ISA)
International Sociological Association (ISA) – RC 21 Sociology of Urban and Regional Development
International Sociological Association (ISA) – RC 56 Historical Sociology
German Sociological Association (DGS)
German Sociological Association (DGS) – Section for Biographical Research
German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO)
Quatext e.V.
Recent Conferences and Guest Lectures
The varying importance of migration in city life: A comparative view on biographies and family (hi)stories in two cities in the Middle East. XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, Melbourne, 25 June-1 July 2023.
Class, Social Mobility and Displacement in the Middle East Region – Complex Interrelations from a Biographical and Multi-Generational Perspective (with A. Worm). XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, Melbourne, 25 June-1 July 2023.
Kulturvergleichende Forschung (with M. Burchardt). DFG-Graduiertenkolleg: „Das Sentimentale in Literatur, Kultur und Politik“. University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, 23 Jan 2023. [Comparative cultural research]
The West and the Rest? Soziologie und Polarisierung als Verräumlichung (with M. Burchardt). Plenarvortrag auf dem 40. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Bielefeld, 26-30 Sept 2022. [The West and the rest? Sociology and polarisation as spatialization]
Die Biographieforschung als historische Methode in der Soziologie (with M. Pohn-Lauggas). Auftakttagung des AK Historische Soziologie in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Bielefeld, 21-22 Apr 2022. [Biographical research as a historical method in sociology]
Keynote: How to make qualitative research “more global”? Tübingen Spring Methods School 2022, Tübingen, 7-8 April 2022.
Teilnehmende Beobachtungen und Biographieforschung. Einschränkungen und Erweiterungen im Forschungsprozess. Ethnography and biography: A complementary approach to narrative research? Zürich, 4-5 Nov 2021. [Participant observation and biographical research: Limitations and extensions in the research process]
Fragilities of refugee migration from a biographical and figurational perspective (with H. Hinrichsen and A. Worm). Frühjahrstagung der Sektion Migration und ethnische Minderheiten in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Online, 20-21 May 2021.
Migration in the Middle East between national closure processes and regional orientation. Frühjahrstagung der Sektion Entwicklungssoziologie und Sozialanthropologie in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Online, 6-7 May 2021.
Reconstructing processes of settlement and urbanization in Jordan: Advantages of multigenerational Research. Fourth ISA Forum of Sociology, Online, 23-28 Feb 2021.
Soci(ologic)al distance? Challenges of biographical research in times of the pandemic (with A. Worm). Fourth ISA Forum of Sociology, Online, 23-28 Feb 2021.
Zur Wechselwirkung von Altansässigkeit und Migration im Kontext postkolonialer Staatsbildung. 40. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Online, 14-25 Sept 2020. [On the interdependency of being old established and migration in the context of postcolonial state-building]
Places and emplacement in the reconstruction of arrival contexts: Socio-historical processes and the analysis of everyday practices and life histories. 40. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Berlin, 14-25 Sept 2020.
Abendvorlesung: Perspektiven der Biographieforschung. Brandenburg University of Technology, 12 Dec 2019. [Evening lecture: Perspectives of biographical research]
Making it to Amman: Exile and forced migration in the Levant (with H. Hinrichsen). Exile-Flight-Migration. Jahrestagung der Sektion Biographieforschung in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Göttingen, 28-30 Nov 2019.
Arabische Dialekte, Panarabismus und Geflüchteten-Altansässigen-Figurationen in Jordanien (with H. Hinrichsen). Exile-Flight-Migration. Jahrestagung der Sektion Biographieforschung in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Göttingen, 28-30 Nov 2019. [Arabic dialects, pan-Arabism and figurations of refugees and old-established in Jordan]
Fluchtforschung: Die analytische Herausforderung mobiler Familien- und Lebensgeschichten von Geflüchteten in Amman (Jordanien). 39. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Göttingen, 24-28 Sept 2018. [Flight research: The analytical challenge of mobile family and life histories of refugees in Amman (Jordan)]
Die Allgegenwart von Flucht und Migration in der Stadtgeschichte Ammans. Zur Figuration von Altansässigen, Rückkehrern und Zugezogenen (with H. Hinrichsen). 39. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Göttingen, 24-28 Sept 2018. [The ubiquity of flight and migration in Amman’s urban history. On the figuration of old-established residents, returnees and immigrants]
Perspektive der Biographieforschung auf die Re-Figuration von Räumen. „Die Re-Figuration von Räumen und der Kulturvergleich“. Eröffnungskonferenz des SFB „The re-figuration of spaces”, Berlin, 14-15 June 2018. [Perspective of biographical research on the re-figuration of spaces]
Understanding dynamics of belonging through complex migration processes and intertwined experiences of violence. XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, Toronto, 15-21 July 2018.
Palestinians in Jerusalem’s ‘enlarged’ Jewish Quarter and the question of neighbourhood belonging. Workshop: Neighbourhoods at times of change and crisis, Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, 17-18 May 2018.
Intertwined experiences of violence and migration and their relevance for everyday lives (with D. Abdul Karim). Biography and violence. Violent dynamics and agency in collective processes and individual life histories. Center of Methods in Social Sciences, Göttingen, 9-10 Feb 2018.
Workshops
Summer term 2023: Workshop: Biographische Fallrekonstruktionen, 18. Berliner Methodentreffen, Berlin [Workshop: Biographical case reconstructions]
Summer term 2022: Workshop: “Local” and “global” challenges in empirical fieldwork, University of Tübingen
Summer term 2020: Workshop: Die Erforschung von Migration im städtischen Kontext: Interpretative Erhebungs- und Auswertungsverfahren, University of Duisburg-Essen [Workshop: Researching migration in urban contexts: Interpretative procedures of data gathering and analysis]
Winter term 2019/20: Workshop: Interpretative Auswertungsverfahren, Brandenburg University of Technology [Workshop: Interpretative analysis]
Summer term 2018: Workshop: Die Erforschung von Migration im städtischen Kontext: Interpretative Erhebungs- und Auswertungsverfahren, University of Duisburg-Essen [Workshop: Researching migration in urban contexts: interpretative procedures of data gathering and analysis]
Februar 2014: Workshop: Introduction to ethnography; University of Sousse, Tunisia