Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
QUALIFICATIONS
2011 Ph.D., Sociology, Yale University
2009 M.A. & M.Phil. Sociology, Yale University, USA
2005 B.A., Sociology & American Studies, summa cum laude, Wellesley College, USA
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
Cultural Sociology, Sociology of International Migration, Media and Political Culture, Decoloniality, Race, Racialization, Transnational Studies/Globalization
RESEARCH PROFILE
My current research project examines how people who have come to Czechia from abroad engage in symbolic boundary work. The study of migration has largely been a story that privileges the perspectives of the “us” in destination societies. In this project, we “reverse” the perspective, making immigrants our sociological “mainstream.” My prior project explored symbolic boundary work among the Czech public with regard to their attitudes towards migration.
I have published extensively in books, edited volumes, and peer-reviewed journals on the topics of migration and cultural sociology, including a theoretical piece on symbolic boundary work and the issue of migration in the 2018 Czech presidential election. My books include A Critical Cultural Sociological Exploration of Attitudes toward Migration in Czechia: What Lies Beneath the Fear of the Thirteenth Migrant, Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice, and The Boundaries of Belonging: Online Work of Immigration-Related Social Movement Organizations.
I am the director of the Center for the Cultural Sociology of Migration, established in 2017 at Masaryk University. I have been teaching two migration-related courses, along with Introduction to Cultural Sociology and Sociological Writing. I have supervised many PhD and master’s theses on migration and related topics.
Books
2023 A Critical Cultural Sociological Exploration of Attitudes toward Migration in Czechia: What Lies Beneath the Fear of the Thirteenth Migrant. New York: Lexington Books. (co-authors Radka Klvaňová, Ivana Rapoš Božič, Alica Rétiová, Jan Kotynek Krotký)
2021 Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice. Abington & New York: Routledge. (co-author Victoria Shmidt)
2016 The Boundaries of Belonging: Online Work of Immigration-Related Social Movement Organizations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
2014 Obama Power. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. (co-author Jeffrey C. Alexander)
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
2024 Editorial: Epistemologies in Romani Studies: Moving Beyond Othering Otherness. Romani Studies 34(1):1-11. (co-editor Victoria Shmidt)
2023 Introduction to the Special Issue: Moving Beyond the Narrative of the Migration ‘Crisis.’ Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2023, 59(3): 261-267. (co-editor Ivana Rapoš Božič)
2020 The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration. Palgrave Macmillan. (co-editors Carlo Tognato and Jeffrey C. Alexander)
Journal Articles
2023 I always felt I have something I must do in my life’: The habitus of political participation in the context of the refugee ‘crisis’. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. 31(2), 218–237. (co-authors Radka Klvaňová, and Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků)
2023 The legitimacy of EU migration and asylum policy among the Czech public. Czech Sociological Review, 59(3): 269-291. (co-authors Jan Krotký and Petr Kaniok)
2023 Everything’s going according to plan(demic): A cultural sociological approach to conspiracy theorizing. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 11: 26-49.
2023 “What do we see when we look at people on the move”? A visual intervention into civil sphere and symbolic boundary theory. Visual Studies, 38(5), 791–802. (co-authors Alica Rétiová, and Werner Binder)
2022 Foreigner, migrant or refugee? How laypeople label those who cross borders. Migration Studies.11(1), 218-241 (co-authors Rapoš Božič, Ivana, Radka Klvaňová)
2022 The Ukrainian Refugee “Crisis” and the (Re)production of Whiteness in Austrian and Czech Public Politics. Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics. 16(2): 104-130. (co-author Victoria Shmidt)
2021 “A brother is more than a neighbor”: Symbolic boundary work in Czech migration discourse. European Journal of Political and Cultural Sociology. 8:3, 329-354. (co-author Jan Krotký)
2021 Shifting categories, changing attitudes: A boundary work approach in the study of attitudes toward migrants. Sociology Compass. DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12855. (co-authors Alica Rétiová, Ivana Rapoš Božič, Radka Klvaňová)
2020 The Politics of Blaming: The Narrative Battle Between China and the United States over COVID-19. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 26: 295-315. (co-author Runya Qiaoan)
2020 The Politics of Selectivity: Online Newspaper Coverage of Refugees Entering the U.S. and Canada. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 18(4): 467-480.
2019 “It’s (Not) Who We Are”: Representing the Nation in U.S. and Canadian News Articles about Refugees Entering the Country. Nations and Nationalism 27: 513-529.
2018 Refugees as Icons: Culture and Iconic Representation. Sociology Compass 12(3): DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12568.
2015 Mobilising for Immigrants’ Rights Online: Creating Symbols of Belonging to the “American” Nation. Journal of Intercultural Studies 36(5): 579-99.
2013 Immigrants, Aliens and Americans: Mapping out the Boundaries of Belonging in a New Immigrant Gateway. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 1(2): 221-253.
2013 Religious Dimensions of Contexts of Reception: Comparing Two New England Cities. International Migration 51(3): 84-98. (co-authors Wendy Cadge, Peggy Levitt, Casey Clevenger)
2012 New Perspectives on Immigrant Contexts of Reception: The Cultural Armature of Cities. Nordic Journal of Migration Research 2(1):78-88. (co-authors Peggy Levitt, Wendy Cadge, Jessica Hejtmanek, and Sara R. Curran)
2011 Terrorists at the Gates: Unauthorized Migrants and Discourses of Danger. Migration Letters 8(1): 43-54.
2007 Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 33, 129-56. (co-author Peggy Levitt)
Book Chapters
2025 (forthcoming). Incorporating urban residents’ perspectives into multilevel governance theories of migration: A case study of Brno. In Migration Governance in Central and Eastern European Cities Post-2015. Edited by Karolina Łukasiewicz, Marta Pachocka, and Michał Nowosielski. IMISCOE Book Series, Springer Publishing. (co-authors Radka Klvaňová and Ivana Rapoš Božič)
2024 Connecting with “connected” migrants: Exploring the field of digital migration studies. In: Research Handbook on the Sociology of Migration, edited by Martina Cvajner. Peter Kivisto, and Giuseppe Sciortino (pp. 243-257). Edward Elgar.
2022 Explaining attitudes towards immigrants and immigration through the lenses of national identity and political culture. In: Behind the Illiberal Turn: Values in Central Europe, edited by Sanja Hajdinjak, Beatrice Chromková Manea, and Roman Chytilek (pp. 92-123). Brill Publishers. (co-author Beatrice Chromková Manea)
2021 “The ‘Thirteenth Immigrant”? Migration and Populism in the 2018 Czech Presidential Election, In Alexander JC, Kivisto P and Sciortino (eds.) The Civil Sphere and Populism. Cambridge and Medford, MA: Polity Press, pp. 152-177.
2020 “We always have been and always will be a sanctuary city”: Cities as Righteous Actors in the U.S. Civil Sphere. In The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ongoing Projects and Grants
2025-2028 Migration and Us: Mobilities, Refugees and Borders from the Perspective of the Human Sciences (MyGRACE). Operační Program Jan Amos Komensky (OPJAK). Senior Researcher.
Editorial Work
2021–ongoing Cultural Sociology, Editor
2023-ongoing American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Associate Editor
2019-2021 Sociology Compass, Culture Section Editor
External Reviewing
Project Revision: National Science Foundation (USA); COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology (EU)
Project Evaluation: Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GAČR) (Member of the Project Evaluation Committee (P404)); NordForsk (Norway) (Member of Project Evaluation Committee (Migration))
Book Proposal and Manuscript Evaluation: Amsterdam University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Palgrave Macmillan, Manchester University Press; Routledge
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: American Journal of Cultural Sociology, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Global Networks, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, Media Studies, Organization Studies, Social Problems, Sociální studia, Sociological Forum, Sociologický časopis-Czech Sociological Review
Teaching Experience
2023-present Full Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia.
2017 – 2023 Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia.
2010 – 2017 Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia.
Invited Talks, Public Lectures or Roundtables
2025 April, 8. “People like us?’ Responses to Racialization and Othering in a New Immigration Context. Invited talk at the University of Graz, Austria.
2023 September, 15-17. “Decolonizing, decentering, and deracializing: A critical cultural sociology of migration,” paper presented at Cultural Sociology East & West, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
2023 April, 5. Panel Speaker, “Everything’s Going According to Plan(demic): An Alternative Narrative within the Social Drama of Covid-19,” 2023 CUGH Conference, Research Committee Satellite Session, Mistrust of Public Health, Political, and Social Institutions: A Series of Nuanced Discussions (online).
2022 April, 24. Plenary Speaker, “It’s all about the boundaries: Navigating migrant and refugee issues through symbolic boundary work,” Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University Annual Conference, New Haven, CT, USA.
2021 June, 24. Keynote Speaker, “Bias, Biography, and Boundaries: Thoughts on “Doing Migration” from a Second-Generation Migrant. Czech Sociological Association Annual Conference (online).
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024 May, 19. Challenges of qualitative migration research methodologies. Research Workshop. Masaryk University.
2018 October 17 & 18. Civil Repair through Narrative Intervention: The Righteous in International Migration, Workshop for Edited Volume Authors. Masaryk University.
