Ulrike Hanna Meinhof

Ulrike Hanna Meinhof is a professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Southampton and the director of the Centre for Transnational Studies . She is a specialist in discourse analysis and linguistic ethnography, with a special focus on migrant and cross-border networks across Europe and Africa

In these areas she is coordinator of two research projects, funded by the AHRC and the EU, and a third one where she is partner in an EU funded Network of Excellence (for details see below) .

Previous projects included migration and cultural policy research in European capital cities http://www.citynexus.com, identity research in border communities http://www.borderidentities.com, and a comparative media project about the 20th century on television

Current Research projects:

Diaspora as social and cultural practice: a study of transnational networks across Europe and Africa
(principal applicant, co-applicant Dr Nadia Kiwan, University of Aberdeen, research fellow Dr Marie-Pierre Gibert)

Awarded by: AHRC programme 'Diaspora, Migration and Identity'
Duration: 1st November 2006-2009
Summary: This project focuses on the ways in which (post-)migrant cultural practitioners, performers, and musicians originating from North-Africa and Madagascar are able to use multiple translocal and transnational networks across African, European and wider global spaces. It suggests that artists who create or enter such networks make use of, but go far beyond the traditional 'bi-focal', ethnically and spatially defined communities that link originating and sending countries, as studied in much Diaspora research.
Our research marks a key development in the empirical study of networks, by investigating links between migrant cultural practitioners which develop outside of established cultural/historical ties.
Website (under construction): http://www.tnmundi.com

SeFoNe: Searching for Neighbours: dynamics of mental and physical borders in Europe
(coordinator and research director, co-director Dr Heidi Armbruster, Southampton, with a consortium consisting of 6 European Universities)

Awarded by: EU VIth Framework
Duration: 1st March 2007-February 2010
Summary: In the process of EU enlargement, the need for building good neighbourhoods across and within EU nation states is periodically challenged by "nationalised" socio-political conflicts which at the same time encourage parties on the extreme right. Our project aims to explore and compare models of 'translocal' neighbourhood, focusing on emerging discourses and good practices in three spheres of life in the new Europe:

• Physical "borderlands" of the new EU (Hungary and Cypros)

• Mental border experiences in multicultural EU regions (Sicily, Upper Franc onia and Saxony)

• Mental and physical border experiences in transnational networks (African migrants across Europe)

It rests on the assumption that it is impossible to understand the processes which create obstacles to and opportunities for good neighbourhood across state borders, if one does not understand and challenge obstacles created by mental/symbolic divisions wherever they occur.

We will explore the dynamics of socio-cultural and physical borders in the newly enlarged European Union, as experienced by people of culturally diverse backgrounds, with a view to strengthen peoples' competence for cultural understanding and exchange.
Website (under construction): http://www.sefone.net

Participation in the LINEE network (Languages in a Network of European Excellence), directing a project entitled 'Multilingualism amongst minority populations: a case of transcultural capital or social exclusion?'

Awarded by: EU Network of Excellence
Duration: from 1st November 2005
Summary: A cross-cultural study of the different patterns that emerge when comparing different groups of bi-/ multilingual citizens of European countries. Particular emphasis will lie on first and second generation migrants of Francophone Africa who settled in France and Germany, and on Vietnames populations in the Czech Republic.

Web address    http://www.lang.soton.ac.uk/profiles/meinhof.htm
School of Modern Languages
University of Southampton
email: u.h.meinhof@soton.ac.uk
 
Relevant publications: 

Meinhof, Ulrike H. & Anna Triandafyllidou (eds.) ( 2006) Transcultural Europe. Cultural Policy n a changing Europe. Palgrave

Meinhof, Ulrike H & Dariusz Galasinski (2005). The Language of Belonging. Palgrave.

Meinhof, Ulrike H. & Zafimahaleo Rasolofondraosolo (2005). 'Malagasy song-writer musicians in transnational settings'. Moving Worlds 144-158

Meinhof, Ulrike H. (2005). 'Initiating a public: Malagasy music and live audiences in differentiated cultural contexts'. In S.Livingstone ed. (2005) Audiences and Publics When cultural engagement matters for the public sphere. Intellect press 115-138

Rasolofondraosolo, Z. & Ulrike H. Meinhof (2003). 'Popular Malagasy music and the construction of cultural identities'. In S. Makoni & Ulrike H. Meinhof (eds.) Africa and Applied Linguistics. Aila Review 16:127-148

Intertextuality and the Media. From Genre to Everyday Life. (with Jonathan Smith, eds), Manchester University Press (includes 3 co-authored chapters)

(1999), Worlds in Common? Satellite discourses in a changing Europe (with Kay Richardson), Routledge: London & New York. 187pp.

(1998) Language Learning in the Age of Satellite Television. Oxford University Press. 165pp.

(1997) Masculinity and Language, (with Sally Johnson, eds.) Blackwell, Oxford, January 1997 (includes single-authored chapter and co-authored introduction)

(1994), Text, Discourse and Context. Representation of Poverty in Britain. (with Kay Richardson), (eds.), Longman: London & New York. (256pp). Joint winner of the 1995 BAAL book prize. (includes single-authored chapter and co-authored introduction)

(autumn 2000) Photography, memory, and the construction of identities on the former East-West German border (with Dariusz Galasinski) Discourse Studies. Vol. 2:3 Sage.

(autumn 2000) "The new Germany on the screen: conflicting discourses on German TV." In Patrick Stevenson and John Theobald (eds.) Relocating Germanness. Discursive disunity in unified Germany. Macmillan.

(1998) 'Home and Away: television discourse in transition' (with Kay Richardson) Current Issues in Language and Society, Vol. 5:4 Multilingual Matters (published in 1999, also in book format)

(1997) The most important event of my life! A comparison of male and female autobiographical narratives, in Sally Johnson and Ulrike H. Meinhof (eds.)¦, pp. 208-28, Blackwell, Oxford

(1996), "Dialect as metaphor: the use of language in Edgar Reitz' Heimat-films". In Hywel Coleman & Lynne Cameron (eds.) Change and Language. British Studies in Applied Linguistics. Vol. 10. Multilingual Matters, pp. 168-78.