The “We” is a commitment. Attributions and appropriations of belonging play a central role in the creation of community – they serve as markers of (self-)assurance, facilitating internal identification but also external demarcation. This community building effect has an inherent explosiveness: it is capable of emphasizing what ‘we’ have in common (Scheer 2022), but this demonstrative attitude also harbours populist potential. Initially broad and vague in conceptual terms, we therefore pay particular attention to communities, when they are called upon: war and crises, but also the need to find orientation after migration and to plan for the future to negotiate belonging(s). As a result, new formations of collective images and mechanisms are constantly emerging, challenging existing concepts.

For instance, with regard to Eastern Europe, the term ‘We’ took on a charged meaning in contrast to ‘They’: Not only is the multi-ethnic region imagined as inferior (Todorova 1997), but its citizens also experience racialised degradations throughout history and due to their (labour) mobility, which highlights inequalities between East and West (Lewicki 2023) and clearly calls into question a European ‘We’-consciousness.
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“We” as a political project
How have political programs and movements shaped the politicization of (ethnic) communities and their identities? To what extent have they negotiated the issue of loyalty, especially with regard to potentially conflicting, overlapping loyalties? How are these contexts reflected today; how are they remembered, but also discussed in the present?

The Mediatized “We”
How have media products – from historical newspaper prints and posters to today’s digital platforms – addressed public consciousness and opinion? To what extent have they contributed to connection and exchange and addressed (new) opportunities for community building?

The Transnational “We”
Particularly, but not exclusively, in the context of flight, expulsion and exile: Which strategies did/do people employ to settle in a new place, in a new social environment? How did/do they in turn (re)establish connections to their region of origin? To what extent does this interaction create potential for intermediate, hybrid positions?

Commodifying and Renewing the “We”
How do collective actors – such as tourism, associations, town twinning, etc. – participate in the marketing of a certain “we”? Which aspects of detraditionalisation, but also which attempts to revive or even remake folk culture and involve new groups of stakeholders can be traced in their activities?

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Thus, historical and archival perspectives will be considered alongside contemporary research from a cultural studies perspective and other related fields. These approaches include case studies from the context of Germans in Eastern Europe, but the format is also open to comparative perspectives that go beyond this scope or relates it to other minorities, as well as perspectives from broader minority and diaspora research. Please send your proposal for a 20-minute presentation, consisting of an abstract (~2,000 characters) with a working title and brief biographical information about yourself, to Jana Stöxen (jana.stoexen@ikde.bwl.de) by 1st March 2026.

Travel expenses can be covered within the scope of the funds provided.

For further information and the full Call for papers, please refer to our website: https://www.ikdebw.de/news/mobilisation-and-community-formation-in-minority-and-diaspora-contexts-the-we-in-central-and-eastern-europe