About

Helma Lutz was Professor of Sociology with a focus on women’s and gender studies at the Goethe University Frankfurt/M. from 2007 to 2021. In teaching and research, she is concerned with the intersection of Gender, (transnational) Migration, Ethnicity, Nationalism, Racism and Citizenship in Europe. In the past two decades, she has focused in particular on Care Migration from Eastern Europe.

Helma Lutz has written 6 monographs, 16 books as (co-)editor, edited 11 special issues for various (international) journals and published over 100 articles in three languages (German, English and Dutch). Some articles have been published in Spanish, Polish, French and Greek translation (see Publications).

list of publications »

Helma Lutz im Profil
Foto by Ann Phoenix

Curriculum Vitae

2005 Habilitation in sociology, University Münster, Germany
1999Habilitation in educational science, University Münster, Germany
1990PhD in sociology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1983MA in sociology, Free University of Berlin, Germany
1976 BA in social work, University of Kassel, Germany
1972 graduated (Abitur) from Gymnasium Hann.Münden, Germany

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2007 – 2021 Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
2006 Guest Professor at the Sorbonne, (École Pratique des Hautes Études, EPHE), Paris, France
2005 – 2006 Maria-Goeppert-Mayer-Guest Professor for International Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Hildesheim, Germany
1999 – 2007 Reader, University of Münster, Germany, Department of Education and Social Sciences
2000 Visiting Professor at the ‘International Women’s University’ Hanover, Germany
1998 – 2000 Member of the Curriculum Committee of the ‘International Women’s University’, Hanover, Germany
1997 – 1999 Acting Professor: Education and Women’s Studies, Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Germany
1996 Scholar in Residence, Amsterdam School of Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1991 – 1996 Assistant Professor at the Department of General Social Sciences and the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER), University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
1985 – 1990 Researcher at the “Centre for Race and Ethnic Studies” University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1983 – 1985 Social planning, International Building Exhibition in Urban Redevelopment, Berlin, Germany
1980 – 1983 Lecturer at the Technical University of Berlin (TU), Germany
1976 – 1980 Social worker in different projects in Germany (Kassel, Bremen, Berlin)

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I have a long-standing interest in migration, ethnic relations and in feminist scholarship. My work is situated at the intersection of gender studies, migration studies and cultural studies combining insights from sociology, and political sciences with a focus on feminist research. These are reflected in my teaching where I teach courses at undergraduate, graduate and post graduate levels in gender studies (intersectionality and masculinities), ethnic relations, migration, anti-racisms and multiculturalism, qualitative methods of social research (interview techniques, biographical analysis, discourse analysis and focus groups), transnational and postcolonial identities. I have published extensively in German, English and Dutch. My articles were translated into French, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, and Polish.

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2015 – 2021 Acting Director Cornelia Goethe Centre of Women’s Studies and Gender Relations
2015 – 2016 Director Study Affairs, Institute of Sociology, Goethe University
2011 – 2012 Co-Director, Academy for Teachers’ Training, Goethe University
2011 – 2021 Associate Executive Director Cornelia Goethe Center of Women’s and Gender Studies, Goethe University
2010 – 2013 Director ‘IPP Transnational’, Programme for the internationalization of the PhD programme, Faculty of Social Sciences, financed by the German Academic Exchange Service
2009 – 2011 Associate Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University
2010 – 2021 Coordinator: Gender studies, MA Sociology
2005 – present Professorial member of the Cornelia Goethe Centre
2007 – 2021 Initiator and board member of numerous Gender and Diversity activities at Goethe University Frankfurt.

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(Third party funding)

2017 – 2021 Decent Work? Transnational Home Care Arrangements. D-A CH-Project financed by the German Research Council (DFG) as lead agency, researchers: Dr. Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, Aranka Wandtke, Iga Obrocka.
2013 – 2015 Feminism vs. Multiculturalism? On the discursive construction of powerful dilemma s, funded by The Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Re-search and the Arts, research assistant: Kristina Nottbohm
2011- 2012 Men in the Global Care Chain. A case study on Polish handymen, financed by Ministry of Science, Hessen (Principal investigator)
2010 – 2012 Reconstructing Biographies in Exile: Chechen Refugee Women in Aus-tria, Germany and Poland. Supervision of Post-Doc Researcher Dr. Al-ice Szczepanikova, A.v. Humboldt Foundation.
2008 – 2010 Bi-national German-French Grad-school (Theme: Socialisation, Family and Gender in the Context of Migration) in Cooperation with University of Strasburg/F
2007 – 2010 Landscapes of Care Drain. Care Provision and Care Chains from the Ukraine to Poland and from Poland to Germany, financed by the Ger-man Research Foundation, part of the European Science Foundation’s EUROCORE project: Migration and Networks of Care in Europe. A Comparative Research Project (Principal investigator)
2001- 2005 Gender, Ethnicity and Identity. The ‚New Maids’ in the Age of Globalisa-tion. Research Project financed by the Volkswagen Foundation
2001 – 2004 Member of the Scientific Network ‚Servant Project‘, a thematic network financed by the European Union, 5th Framework Programme, Key Ac-tion: Improving the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base‘. (German Princi-pal investigator)
2001 – 2002 Experience of Space and Place. An Oral-History Project about the living conditions of female domestic workers, township residents in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa; in Co-operation with Prof. Jan Coetzee, Rhodes University, South Africa; supported by the German Scientific Council.
1990 – 1995 The social heritage of migration: Biographies of Surinamese mothers and daughters, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
1985 – 1990 Connecting Worlds. Turkish migrant women as mediating social workers in Germany and the Netherlands, University of Amsterdam, The Nether-lands.

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2011- present Series-Editor: Gender and Society, VS Verlag, Frankfurt
2007 – 2015 International Corresponding Editor: Feminist Review
2004 – 2022 Associate editor: European Journal of Women’s Studies
2003 – 2015 Board of advisors: Feministische Studien
since 1997 Guest editor: Frauen in der Einen Welt, Das Argument, European Jour-nal of Women’s Studies, Social Policy and Society
1992 -1997 co-editor COMENIUS, Journal on Education and Culture, The Nether-lands

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2018 – 2023 President RC05, Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigenei-ty and Ethnicity, International Sociological Association
2010 – 2018 Board member of RC05, International Sociological Association (ISA)
2011 – 2015 President Biographical Research, German Sociological Association (DFG)
2008 – 2010 Co-Organizer of the Centennial Congress of the German Sociological As-sociation, Theme: ‘Transnational Socialisation’, October 2010, Frankfurt
1998 – 2003 Vice President of the German Section of Biographical Research
1998 – 2002 Vice President, RC38, ISA
2000 Advisory Board of IFU (Internat. Women’s University, Hanover)
1994 – 1998 Secretary and Board Member of Research Committee RC 38 (Biography and Society), ISA
1994 – 1998 Scientific advisory board, New Ethnicities Unit. Univ. of East London
1995 – 1998 Member of panel of advisors for several international research projects in Britain (Oxford Brookes University)

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Research Foundations: European Science Foundation; German Research Foundation; German-French Foundation; Swiss National Foundation; Austrian Academy of Sciences; Belgian Science Policy, Netherlands Scientific Research Council; Rijksbanken Foundation, Sweden; British Academy, UK; Canada Council for the Arts; Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation; Fulbright Commision. 

Journals: European Journal of Women’s Studies, Social Science and Medicine, Thamyris, Tijdschrift voor Gender Studies, Migrantenstudies, Gender Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Feminist Studies, feminist review, feministische studien, Journal for Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Sociology and many more.

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2023 May, Guestprofessorship, University of Milano, Social Sciences
2022 February, Guestprofessorship, University of Milano, Social Sciences
2012/13 Fellowship Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC
2012 Alexander v. Humboldt Award for ‘outstanding German scholars’ from Riks-bankens Jubileumsfond Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden
2008 Award for the Translation of the book ‘Vom Weltmarkt in den Privathaushalt’ by the joint price initiative: Thyssen Foundation, German Federal Foreign Office and German Publishers and Booksellers Association
2004/05 Fellowship The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, The Hague/The Netherlands

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Finished:

  • Dr. Juliane Karakayali
    Transnationale care workers in Haushalten Pflegebedürftiger
  • Dr. Tina Spies
    Migration und Männlichkeit. Biographien junger Straffälliger im Diskurs
  • Dr. Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck
    Gelebter Alltag und historische Imagination: Transnationale Arbeitsmigranten aus Oberschle-sien
  • Dr. Elise Pape
    Innerfamiliäre Transmissionsprozesse am Beispiel marokkanischer Einwandererfamilien in Deutschland und Frankreich – Eine Drei-Generationen-Studie (Cotutelle mit der Universität Straßburg)
  • Dr. Celine Camus
    The Glass ceiling at the university: from under-representation to gender contestations
  • Dr. Katrin Huxel
    Positionierungen männlicher Jugendlicher mit Migrationshintergrund im Geflecht von Ge-schlecht und ethnisch-kulturellen Zugehörigkeiten
  • Dr. Petra Rostock
    Jenseits von >Identität< Zu den Un/Möglichkeiten nicht-identitärer Strategien politischen Handelns
  • Dr. Linda Supik
    Statistik und Rassismus. Die statistische Erfassung von ‚Rasse‘/Ethnizität und die Messung von Diskriminierung am Beispiel des britischen Zensus.
  • Dr. Veronika Ott
    Ambivalentes Regieren zu Sexarbeit und Menschenhandel: Praktiken und Wissen im Feld der Fachberatungsstellen.
  • Dr. Catharina Peeck-Ho
    “Winning Hearts and Minds“? Maßnahmen zum Empowerment muslimischer Frauen und die Aushandlung von Citizenship am Beispiel der britischen ‚Prevent‘ Strategie
  • Dr. Anna Safuta
    Between familialism and formalization: Domestic services provided informally by migrant workers in two diverging policy contexts.
  • Dr.Flamina Bartolini
    Reproductive health in the ‘illegality’. Undocumented migrants in Germany.
  • Dr. Marija Grujic
    Serbian Nationalism and Internally Displaced Persons from Kosovo – the intersection of reli-gious, national and gender identities.
  • Dr. Yevgenia Wirz
    Transnationale Care-Netzwerke ukrainischer Arbeitsmigrantinnen.
  • Dr. Eliane Kurz
    Zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Konzeptualisierung von Differenz: Intersektionalität in feminis-tischer politischer Praxis.
  • Dr. Katrin Springsgut
    Zur Bedeutung sozialer Ungleichheitskategorien für Studierende mit Migrationshintergrund.
  • Dr. Rafaela Werny
    Gepflegte Männlichkeit. Eine biographische Perspektive auf Männlichkeitskonstruktionen hochaltriger Männer im Rahmen institutioneller Pflege.
  • Dr. Matthias Schneider
    Männer, Flucht und Identität. Über die Identitätskonstruktionen von aus Eritrea geflüchteten Männern entlang ihrer Lebensgeschichten

Under supervision:

  • Ina Schaum
    Jüdischsein, Deutschsein, Verliebtsein. Eine Untersuchung von Liebesbeziehungen junger jüdischer Erwachsener in Deutschland
  • Benita Kawalla: Zwischen Familienliebe und Formalitäten
    Über die intrafamiliären Aushandlungen von Staatsbürgerschaftskonstruktionen, Zugehörig-keiten und acts of citizenship von mixed-status Familien im Libanon.
  • Aranka Benazha
    Bringing the Market Home. Zur Rolle transnational agierender Vermittlungsagenturen in der 24-Stunden-Betreuung