Past Scholars

Aaron Ponce

Email:

ponceaar@msu.edu

Professor Aaron Ponce was a CRRES Visiting Scholar during the 2018-2019 year. Aaron is Assistant Professor of sociology at Michigan State University. His research draws on the sociology of immigration and global migration, political sociology, and race and ethnicity. Aaron's work investigates how overlapping symbolic boundaries (race, gender, religion) constitute citizenship and national ways of belonging in immigrant-receiving societies. Much of his recent work has focused on immigration to Europe, and on the reception and perception of Muslim immigrant populations. His current work compares the Muslim experience in Europe and the U.S., and examines Muslim Americans' and other immigrant-background groups' status in a historically racialized landscape. Among the questions that his research has answered are: Do more accommodating modes of belonging increase migration? How do racial hierarchies define which groups are perceived as assimilable or desirable? How do seemingly discrete social categories (religion, gender) become racialized in processes of group boundary making? Findings from his research speak to the contradictions inherent in immigration regimes, immigrant reception processes, and the norms that define and reinforce liberal democracies.

Kevin Wang

Email:

kwang@butler.edu

Professor Kevin Wang was a CRRES Visiting Scholar during the 2017-2018 year. He is an Associate Professor at Butler University’s College of Communication, where he teaches courses in advertising and public relations in the Strategic Communication Department. He received his Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a minor in political psychology. He has a professional master’s degree in digital media from the University of Washington, where he obtained undergraduate degrees in political science and communications. His research program focuses on the social and political implications of information communication technologies (ICTs) for individuals, organizations, and processes. His research takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the impact of ICTs on three thematic areas: 1) governance and policy making; 2) political communication and campaign practices; and 3) political processes and participation. Through these contexts he investigates different communication questions (e.g., messages, strategies, and effects) grounded in the social scientific tradition. Professor Wang conducted a study in 2016 that explored how Asian and Asian American individuals use the internet to become politically active in the United States and in their countries of ethnic or cultural origins. That study examined the relationships between Asian American individuals’ level of acculturation, enculturation, online media consumption patterns, and various ways of online political participation. Interdisciplinary in nature, this project builds on Professor Wang's broader research program on the political implication of ICTs. While at IU, Professor Wang will continue pursuing this line of research. He will also spend his time working on data analysis and completing multiple manuscripts based on the Asian American online political participation research described above.

Carolin Fischer

Email:

carolin.fischer.bolay@unine.ch

Carolin was a Visiting Scholar with CRRES in the fall of 2014. While at IU, Carolin completed a DPhil (Ph.D.) in Development Studies at the Oxford Department of International Development. Her doctoral research explores how Afghans based in Germany and Britain relate to social change, conflict, and development in Afghanistan. Carolin’s areas of interest are processes of diaspora formation and diaspora–home country relations. She approaches these topics from a sociological perspective focusing on relationality, intra- and inter-group boundaries, and relations between structure and agency. Past research has investigated the peace-promoting efforts of diaspora communities in homeland conflict, focusing on activities of Afghan communities in Germany. During her time at Oxford, Carolin worked as a research and teaching assistant at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), the International Migration Institute (IMI), and the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC). Prior to her doctoral studies, she was a project manager for the Network for Democracy and Courage, a German NGO working in civic education. Following her Visiting Scholar position with CRRES, Carolin began a post-doc at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where she currently works with a team of researchers on a project titled "Gender as Boundary Marker in the Realm of Migration and Mobility: Case studies from Switzerland." This study takes a qualitative approach to understanding the mechanisms through which gender affects migrant exclusion and inclusion in Switzerland.