Prof. Dr. Dariuš Zifonun

Dariuš Zifonun is a Professor of Sociology at Philipps University Marburg. He is also the Principal Investigator in the MeDiMi project “Doing Human Rights: How the Categories of ‘Human’ and ‘Migrant’ are made (Ir-)Relevant in Everyday Life”. Previously, he was as a Professor of Sociology at ASH Berlin (2009–2015), a Research Fellow at the KWI Essen (2007–2009), a lecturer at the Technical University of Berlin (2007-2009), and a Research Assistant at the University of Konstanz (2000–2005). Dariuš Zifonun was a board member of the German Sociological Association (DGS) from 2017 to 2019 and held visiting professorships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006) and Hitotsubashi University Tokyo (2005). He studied at the University of Konstanz and York University/Toronto (Diploma in Public Administration, 1998), earned his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Konstanz in 2002 (Dr. rer. soc.), and obtained his habilitation (venia legendi: Sociology) from the Technical University of Berlin in 2015. Professor Zifonun focuses on examining the ways in which memberships in ‘social worlds’ are organized. He is interested in how categorical and relational affiliations (such as ethnicity, ‘race’, or gender) are situationally accomplished, how these affiliations interact, and how they merge with interactive obligations and institutional roles. Currently, his research group at Phillips University is studying the social worlds of courts, sleep labs, amateur soccer, urban neighborhoods, and virtual worlds. Rather than considering these worlds as closed and self-sufficient entities, the team is interested in the processes by which they maintain their unity, acquire clarity, and manage ambivalence.

Contact: darius.zifonun@staff.uni-marburg.de