Dr. Priska Daphi

Vita & Research


Curriculum Vitae


Priska Daphi is Head of the research group “Conflict and Social Movements” at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). She currently directs the three-year project Welcome or insulted? A comparative study of reactions to refugees in Germany , funded by the German Research Foundation. She also directs the BMBF-funded project “Protest and Memory: How Contemporary Protests in Germany Relate to the ‘long 1960s’ in West and East-Germany“ – the German project of the international ERA.Net RUS Plus Project “LIVINGMEMORIES“  (7th Framework Programme of the EU).
She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Humboldt-University Berlin, a MSc in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA from the University of Maastricht. Her PhD was funded by a scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).
Priska Daphi is a founding member of the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies in Berlin (IPB). She is spokesperson of the “Working Group on Social Movements” (Arbeitskreis Soziale Bewegungen) at the German Political Science Association and board member of the Research Committee “Social Class and Social Movements” (RC47), International Sociological Association (ISA).

Visiting fellowships

08/2017 Visiting fellow, Gothenburg University, Centre for Civil Society and Social Movement Research (CSM), Sweden
05/2016-07/2016    Visiting fellow, Goldsmiths, University of London, London/UK
03/2015-08/2015 Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, Robert Schuman Centre forAdvanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence/Italy
10/2011-12/2011 Visiting scholar, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw/Poland



Research interests


  • Political Sociology
  • Social Movements & transnational activism
  • Civil Society
  • Political Participation
  • Refugees and asylum politics
  • Sociology of culture (collective identity, Memory, Narration)
  • Sociology of space

Current research projects


Protest and Memory: How Contemporary Protests in Germany Relate to the ‘long 1960s’ in West and East-Germany (ERA.Net RUS Plus(EU-FP7) / BMBF)

Welcome or insulted? A comparative study of reactions to refugees in Germany (funded by German Research Foundation)

No Alternatives? Protest in the Alter-Globalisation Movement between Opposition and Dissidence (funded by German Research Foundation)


Past projects


Explaining disengagement between cycles of protest: the transition from the Global Justice Movement to anti-austerity protests (funded by Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation)

Die Aufnahme von Flüchtlingen in den Bundesländern und Kommunen. Behördliche Praxis und zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement [The accommodation of refugees in German states and municipalities: official practices and civic engagement], (Robert Bosch Stiftung)

Befragung PEGIDA-Demonstration 2015 [Survey of PEGIDA demonstrations in 2015], (WZB, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Otto Brenner Stiftung)

Lernen in Bewegung - soziale Bewegungen als informelle Bildungsorte für Jugendliche und Instanz politischer Sozialisation [Learning in movement: social movements as places of political socialisation], (Deutsches Jugendinstitut)

Constructing Collective Identity in Transnational Social Movements: Narratives of the Global Justice Movement in Italy, Germany, and Poland (PhD, German National Academic Foundation)


Membership and service


Board member, Research Committee “Social Class and Social Movements” (RC47), International Sociological Association (ISA)

Board member “Research Network on Social Movements” (RN25), European Sociological Association (ESA)

Founding member “Institut für Protest und Bewegungsforschung” in Berlin (IPB)

Spokesperson of “Working Group on Social Movements (Arbeitskreis Soziale Bewegungen), German Political Science Association (DVPW)

Member of “Nachwuchsnetzwerk Neue Perspektiven auf soziale Bewegungen und Protest” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)