RESEARCH INSIGHT ▼

ONE STEP AT A TIME

AN INTERVIEW WITH VERENA BENOIT l by Sarah Siemeister

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SHORT PROFILE

Name: Verena Benoit
Field: Sociology
Country: Germany
Occupation: Doctoral Fellow at the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences
Research Interests: Anti-Immigrant Attitudes, Islamophobia, Social Groups

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▐ Verena Benoit, one of our graduate students, was awarded the Lanahan Best Graduate Student Paper Award. In an interview, she tells us about her research, the difficulties she encountered and her strategy for the future.

// What inspired you to analyse the roles of religion and values for the formation of attitudes toward Muslim immigrants in Europe?

V.B. When we look back at the past view years, we see an increasing number of Muslim immigrants meeting a secular and/or Christian majority population in Europe. Along with this, we see increasing support for right-wing parties that have anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim politics on their agenda. In other words, they use religion as a marker to distinguish groups. Hence, I was asking myself: What role does the religiosity of the majority population play for the formation of attitudes toward Muslim immigrants? Does it matter or is it just convenient to use religion as a tool to highlight the differences between Muslim immigrants and the majority population in Europe, and to justify e.g. discrimination?

// How has the acquisition of the award influenced your research career?

V.B. Right now, I can’t say anything about how it did or did not, will or will not influence my research career. What I noticed is that people outside of academia, who have read about the award on social media, generally asked more about my research.

// What difficulties did you come across?

V.B. Religion is a multidimensional concept (identification, practices, beliefs, etc.), values are abstract concepts, and Muslim immigrants are no homogeneous group (e.g. various origin countries, different level of identification with Islam). These are all aspects that need consideration, but they cannot be considered simultaneously and extensively in just one paper. The hardest thing with was to narrow everything down and focus on one specific aspect, and then implement it empirically.

// What is your strategy for the next year?

V.B. My strategy is “One step at a time”. In the upcoming weeks and months, I will work on the final adjustments to the papers that go into my cumulative dissertation, and hopefully, I can submit it by mid next year.

// Interview: Sarah Siemeister

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