Justin Gest's essay: emigration from authoritarian states produces not only a brain drain but a democratic drain. Those who leave are more likely to support democratic institutions & their exit thins out the base for a potential uprising. On Iran & the implications for the receiving democracies

The Democratic Drain Behind Failed Uprisings

Essay · Justin Gest on Why Authoritarian Regimes Outlast Popular Anger — and How Emigration Quietly Shrinks the Constituency for Democracy

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Can you imagine a dystopic – or utopic – future of social difference? Phil Kasinitz (CUNY) explores political exclusion, migration, and cosmopolitanism, arguing that difference is something to embrace, not fear. Watch his full statement here:

Dystopia, Utopia, and Difference

Short · Phil Kasinitz on cosmopolitanism, demographic necessity, and national identity

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Social categories are neither neutral nor fixed. They are constructed, contested, and subject to change. Matt Sheedy (University of Manitoba), reads Mamdani's mayoralty as a live experiment in shifting the symbolic registers through which Muslim public figures become legible.

Zohran Mamdani: Muslim, "Commie," Saviour?

Essay · Matt Sheedy on How New York's First Muslim Mayor Is Rewriting the Stereotypes — and What That Reframing Means for Islam, the Left, and the Politics of Representation

futuresofdifference.substack.com

We asked sociologist Thomas Faist (Bielefeld University): "What is the most important thing to bear in mind when imagining futures of social difference?" His answer draws on his work on climate change, and reframes the whole diversity debate. To watch & visit my substack:

What Is Temporal Colonialism?

Short · Thomas Faist on the debt we owe future generations

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Corporations aren't just bound by anti-discrimination law. They decide which racial categories are visible and which quietly disappear. Legal scholar Atinuke Adediran (Fordham) on the corporation as category-maker. New essay in our Futures of Difference series, worth a read!

Corporations as Category-Makers

Essay · Atinuke O. Adediran on How Corporate Language Defines, Measures, and Now Erases Racial Categories

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Can eliminating difference actually make conflict worse? John Borneman (Emeritus, Princeton) traces Germany's path from Cold War division to migration related resentment: opposition doesn't disappear, it resurfaces onto new targets each time. Read his fifth & final Futures of Difference essay here

Polarization and The Third: How Attempts to Eliminate Difference Can Intensify Conflict

Essay · John Borneman on Why Germany's Reunification Story Reveals the Logic of Polarization — and How an "Intersubjective Third" Can Interrupt It

futuresofdifference.substack.com

I was especially happy to have the eminent Brenda Yeoh, one of the most brilliant scholars I know, contribute to this series. Her bifocal approach, the intimate encounter & the long arc of change, is exactly the kind of thinking this platform was built for. To enjoy the full short click below :

How Does Migration Shape Identity?

Short · Brenda Yeoh on combining microscopic and telescopic lenses to understand migration

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Categories like race, gender & migration status are being multiplied, merged & erased all at once & the direction is still open. That is why I ask where these changes might lead. This essay by Nowicka builds on that, asking which categories we should build policy on & points somewhere unexpected.

Why Categories Matter: Which Ones We Need for a More Just World

Essay · Magdalena Nowicka on Why We Need Neither More Categories Nor No Categories — but Different Ones That Make State-Produced Inequality Visible

futuresofdifference.substack.com

What holds a diverse society together? In his 4th essay for Futures of Difference, John Borneman finds Syrians who couldn't share space at home – Alawite, Druze, Christian, Sunni – now living side by side in exile. Difference doesn't disappear, the boundary that organises it changes.

Unity and Difference

Essay · John Borneman on Why Syria, Lebanon, and Diaspora Communities Reveal That Political Order Is Never About Producing Unity, but About Living With Difference

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Nearly a decade after Brexit, what has actually changed?In a new FoD essay @nandosigona.bsky.social argues that Brexit’s deepest legacy is reshaping belonging. Insecurity has become a feature of governance rather than a by-product via status checks, income thresholds & conditional settlement routes

The Politics of Difference after Brexit

Essay · Nando Sigona on How Brexit Reshaped Britain's Architecture of Belonging — From Open-Ended Security to Conditional, Bureaucratically Managed Precarity

futuresofdifference.substack.com

"Who is imagined as part of the future, & who is being left out as categories mutate?" In our latest FoD short, social psychologist Johanna Lukate pushes back on one of our most comfortable assumptions - that putting "post-" in front of a category means we've moved beyond the power it once carried

How Social Categorization Distributes Power

Short · Johanna Lukate on why social categories mutate rather than disappear

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Building on his first essay in my Futures of Difference series, anthropologist John Borneman asks: does identity reveal an authentic inner self – or does it just fit us into reductive boxes? His answer: difference already lives within the self.

Engaging the Interiority of Difference

Essay · John Borneman on Why Identity Is Not a Stable Inner Essence — and How the Self Holds Difference Within Itself

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Migration researcher Jens Schneider (University of Osnabrück) offers a simple but consequential intervention: not all differences are the same. Watch the latest episode of Futures of Difference here. #FuturesOfDifference #SocialDifference #Sociology

What Are Examples of Social Categories?

Short · Jens Schneider on which differences to keep and which to overcome

futuresofdifference.substack.com

New on FoD: in a timely piece for our Initiative, James Hampshire (Sussex) reads Mamdani's NY victory as a path beyond the neoliberal compromise on migration: a material politics of difference that brings people of different races, ethnicities & faiths together around shared economic interests.

Liberal Democracy and the Future of Openness

Essay · James Hampshire on Why the Neoliberal Order Is Collapsing — and What a Material Politics of Difference Could Look Like After It

futuresofdifference.substack.com

At our Futures of Difference Workshop, Ann Phoenix offered a synthesis I keep returning to: we may share a hopeful narrative about diversity, but we rarely stage our perspectives against each other. This connects directly to my launch essay on shifting categories of difference. Both are linked below

Futures of Difference | Substack

Futures of Difference explores how social categories — race, gender, migration — are transforming. Essays & conversations with 30+ leading scholars. A scholarly platform from the Max Planck Institute,...

futuresofdifference.substack.com

What turns a category into a community? In a new essay for our Futures of Difference series, @barrosvitor.bsky.social Barros takes up a question many of us face: how to make sense of the strong identities driving public life today. He offers a conceptual move worth thinking through.

Community and Category: Two Ways of Communicating Social Difference

Essay · Vitor Barros on Why Some Categories Become Communities — and What That Means for Identity, Belonging, and Constructivist Sociology

futuresofdifference.substack.com

We are happy to share this milestone for evidence-based migration research. Congratulations to the IPM team - and especially to our Managing Director Steven Vertovec, President of the IPM, on the official launch at the Second International Migration Review Forum at the @unitednations1945.bsky.social

@migrationpanel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Thank you to everyone who attended last week's launch of the International Panel on Migration. We look forward to expanding our work and connecting with scientists, academics, and the public going forward. Learn more about the IPM at migrationpanel.org. #migrationscience #ipmlaunch #imrf2026

"Friedman im Gespräch": in der vorletzten Ausgabe dieser Spielzeit spricht Michel Friedman am 18.5. mit @steffenmau.bsky.social und Karin Prien über Deutschland: was bleibt von einer Demokratie, wenn Wähler:innen sich nicht mehr für sie interessieren? es gibt noch Karten im Vorverkauf!

Are we already living in a dystopia? The sociologist Miri Song (Kent / LSE) thinks – in some sense – yes. Watch her answer in our short video series, which is part of my Futures of Difference Initiative.

When Social Categories Become Silos

Short · Miri Song on siloed categories, campus speech, and the need for productive disruption

futuresofdifference.substack.com

How we talk about migration is never just about migration. In a new FoD essay, long-time collaborator @pwascholten.bsky.social unpacks the “migration obsession”– how broader anxieties get funneled into one category. Reads well alongside my launch piece on shifting categories of difference. Find here

Futures of Difference | Substack

Futures of Difference explores how social categories — race, gender, migration — are transforming. Essays & conversations with 30+ leading scholars. A scholarly platform from the Max Planck Institute,...

futuresofdifference.substack.com

We’re hiring. @Dr. Hania Sobhy’s group “Teachers, Inequality and Collective Action” (TICA) is recruiting a Researcher, Postdoc & Doctoral Researcher. Focus: teachers, inequality & collective action, anchored in MENA. Part of EduTrack. Deadlines 31 May / 6 June. @populationeu.bsky.social

The demographic future of diversity isn't where you think it is. Junjia Ye (NTU Singapore) on the most important thing to keep in mind when imagining futures of social difference. She points to demographic trajectories most of the field isn't looking at & the blind spots explaining why – in 90 sec.

Diversification in African and Asian Cities

Short · Junjia Ye on why diversification must look beyond Western cities

futuresofdifference.substack.com

"You have to expect the unexpected." Daniel Hiebert (Emeritus, UBC) on what's hardest about imagining futures of diversity: we keep flipping between our greatest hopes & our greatest fears – and both distort the analysis. A 3-minute clip from our Schloss Ringberg Symposium. Link in the comments.

Schloss Ringberg. A high-level symposium. 40 world-leading scholars imagining the future of social difference. We asked @mlamont.bsky.social @harvard.edu :„How does imagining futures help us understand diversity and social difference today?“.

Moral Boundaries and the Future of Solidarity

Michèle Lamont — how imagined futures create real inequality. From Futures of Difference at Schloss Ringberg.

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Just in time for the weekend, I'd like to recommend a podcast! For decades I've argued that social categories are not fixed or natural. They are constructed, contested, & constantly shifting. In this episode, Ann Phoenix & I explore what happens when complexity is denied - & why it matters right now

Beyond Essentialism: Social Complexity and Intersectionality

Podcast · featuring Ann Phoenix on Psychosocial Identity, Intersectionality, and Social Complexity

futuresofdifference.substack.com

Nancy Foner on when “White” didn’t include Jews and Italians in the USA open.substack.com/pub/futureso... (from @fod-soc.bsky.social, to which you should subscribe)

I've always shied away from social media – but current times have changed this. The categories shaping our lives are being challenged rapidly & profoundly. That's why I've launched FoD: to explore where these trends are leading.The future of difference isn't predetermined - join the conversation

Futures of Difference | Substack

Futures of Difference explores how social categories — race, gender, migration — are transforming. Essays & conversations with 30+ leading scholars. A scholarly platform from the Max Planck Institute,...

futuresofdifference.substack.com