Public Representations of Immigrants in Museums

Yannik Porsché is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sociology department of the Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany. His research combines discourse analysis and ethnography, and focuses on social interactions in institutional work contexts. He recently published a book on police work in crime prevention - a study that was conducted at the Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Humboldt University of Berlin.

“The book presents a detailed study of exhibits … . Porsché takes a look at the front-, back- and offstage of knowledge production. … The book’s ethnographic approach to communication is particularly valuable because it includes the analysis of video-recordings of interaction sequences. Field notes and expert knowledge from insiders shed further light … .” (Ralf Kruber, Slovo a slovesnost, Vol. 83 (1), 2022)“A great strength of the book is its interdisciplinary use of methodological tools from (multimodal) conversation analysis, ethnography and sociology … . gives the readers a full picture of how museum exhibitions are staged and perceived. … Public Representations of Immigrants in Museums is an original book that brings museum studies and how knowledge is constructed in them, to the heart of discourse and interaction studies, paving the way for more epistemological and methodological synergies of the kind.” (Argyro Kantara, Discourse & Society, Vol. 30 (5), September, 2019)

• 1: Introduction: Staging public representations in the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, the Deutsches Historisches Museum, and the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum.-  2: Museums, the public, and immigration.- 3: Microsociological Contextualisation Analysis.- 4: Epistemic production behind the museum scenes in France and Germany.- 5: Public interactions on the museum stages.- 6: Conclusion: Exhibiting immigrants-exposing the public.