Projects

Ongoing project: Anti-Semitism in adolescence

From April 2020, together with Nicolle Pfaff, I led the project "Anti-Semitism in Adolescence" at the University of DuisburgEssen, which was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. First, 50 young people nationwide were interviewed the interviews were then qualitatively evaluated. In a second step, material for educational work was developed in cooperation with the memorial  Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz. In a final, third step, multipliers will be trained and the material evaluated at the same time. Nicolle Pfaff has taken over the complete management.

Islamophobia among young people

In this study, we interviewed adolescents and young adults from different regions in North Rhine-Westphalia about their life histories and their opinions on society, religion, and migration in general, and on Islam and Muslim*s in particular. We investigated three different phenomena: the Islam discourse, the narratives of Islamophobia, the positioning of the interviewees, how widespread Islamophobic positions are and how they relate to socio-structural conditions and reallife experiences. In addition, we were particularly interested in the interplay of Islamophobic attitudes with other ideologies of inequality. From our results, we developed prevention approaches. The complete study, as well as the transfer concept and recommendations for action, can be found here:

xtreme Out - Empowerment instead of antiSemitism!

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim environment - among adults as well as young people, individually as well as institutionalized - is not a new phenomenon. This also applies to the Dinslaken area, where the project was located. The socioeconomic situation coupled with educational disadvantages and a conservative milieu of origin can lead to radicalization tendencies and rejection of the host society among young people; they can go hand in hand with anti-Semitic attitudes. In order to strengthen the Muslim youth in a targeted way and to discover and shape their potentials together with them, the project drew on the everyday lives of the participants. The aim was to make it clear that anti-Semitism is not only not an original part of Islam, but that frustration, experiences of one's own (existing and imagined) deficits, and dissatisfaction with one's own situation can be causes for any form of group-based misanthropy.

Liberal-Islamischer Bund e.V.

In spring 2010, the Liberal Islamischer Bund e.V. was founded and registered in the Cologne Register of Associations on May 27. As a representative of Muslim citizens, the LIB sees itself as responsible for representing the liberal positions of the prevailing understanding of Islam in Europe. I was the founding chairman and chairwoman of the LIB e.V. and since 2018 I have taken on an advisory role for the LIB