Dr Maren Rohe

• PhD in Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham (2019)
• MA in Euroculture, University of Göttingen and Jagiellonian University Krakow (2012)
• BA in European Studies, Maastricht University (2009)

After completing my BA in European Studies, I spent a year working for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Minsk, Belarus. I then returned to Germany to study for an MA in Euroculture, which also took me to Krakow and Berlin. After graduating in 2012, I worked for a few years in organising international academic cooperation, at the University of Bonn and the German Academic Exchange Service headquarters in Bonn. I joined University of Birmingham as a PhD student in 2015, and after graduation worked as a Teaching Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, before returning to Birmingham as a Research Fellow.

I have taught modules on European integration, Russian and Central and East European politics and society, aspects of international relations, as well as intercultural communication.

In my research, I am interested in how identities form and transform in transnational contexts, such as migration and intercultural contacts, particularly in how perceptions of Others and experiences of being Othered shape our identities. I draw on a variety of approaches across disciplines, including memory studies, cultural studies, sociology, political science and international relations. My regional focus is on Central and Eastern Europe; I have conducted research on Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia.

My PhD analysed Polish and Russian perceptions of Germany via narrative interviews and media analysis. I explored how individuals make sense of, take up or resist media narratives, and how this is influenced by different media environments and cultures of debate, highlighting how different forms of Othering interact and create complex identity constructs.

My current research on the AHRC-funded project 'Post-Socialist Britain: Memory, Representation and Political Identity amongst German and Polish Immigrants in the UK’ explores what happens to the connection between collective memory and political identity in the process of migration, and examines the growth in support for anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic parties across Europe. It questions how the popular notion that political extremism in post-socialist countries is underpinned by collective memory of authoritarianism fares when individuals move to a new national context.