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Staff Profile

Dr Jan Dobbernack

Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology

  • Email: jan.dobbernack@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
    Henry Daysh Building 4.127
    Newcastle, NE1 7RU
Background

My research is about knowledge-production and policy-making in the areas of post-immigrant integration, citizenship, 'race' and class. I am also interested in public policy that invokes cohesion, integration and unity.

Before joining Newcastle, I taught political sociology and social policy at the University of Lincoln, held a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute and a research post at the Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol.

I am the Programme Director for Undergraduate Studies in Sociology at Newcastle.




Research

My work offers a critical view on ethno-religious diversity and social-cultural inequality, within the UK and in a wider European context. It explores how ideas, narratives and imaginaries emerge in these areas, become contested and shape policy.

I am currently completing a book, due to be published with Manchester University Press in 2026, that offers a new perspective on ‘culture war’ politics. The title explores recurring claims about crisis in relation to immigration, Muslim lives, the ‘left behind’ and trans subjects and how crisis suggests relationships with social others and creates vantage points for spectatorship. Parts of this work have been published as “The Spectacular Politics of the UK ‘Small Boats Crisis’ (2025) and “Making the ‘Left Behind’ as a Subject of Crisis” (2024).

I take a strong interest in policy-making that aims for unity, togetherness and social cohesion. My first book traced the emergence of social cohesion as a political priority across Europe, working through the formulation of community cohesion, cohésion sociale and Bürgergesellschaft. It explored how policy agendas of cohesion coincided with new expectations of behavioural flexibility and pro-social conduct. 

Since 2016, I have played a central role developing a monitoring tool for the Global Centre for Pluralism to survey global circumstances of ethno-cultural diversity and cultural pluralism. This project has been rolled out globally and adopted by policymakers and NGOs. From 2021-23 I led its implementation in Germany and authored the evaluation report that captured the results of this work. I have written widely on multicultural theory and multicultural politics and led the conceptual work on understandings and practices of ‘toleration’ that emerged from the large EC FP7 Project Accept Pluralism.

I am a member of the Editorial Boards of The Sociological Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Ethnicities. I am also on the board of the Political Sociology network (RN32) of the European Sociological Association. I have been appointed to the College of Experts that the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has newly established in 2025.

I am happy to be contacted by prospective PhD students with interests that connect with my priorities.

Teaching

2025/26: Contribution to SOC8072 Inequalities: Issues and Intersections

Previous teaching at Newcastle: SOC1032 Politics and Society, SOC2058 Theorising Social Worlds, SOC2087 Identity and Difference in Multicultural Britain, SOC8052 Theories of Society, Power and Politics

Member of the Advisory Group for the revision of the QAA Sociology Benchmarks (2025/26)

External Examiner: MSc programmes in Sociology (University of Bristol); MA programmes in Migration, Refugee and Development Studies (University of Sussex)

Publications