News from Sociology of Migration and Education - New Article by Dr. Fatih Kaya

In his contribution, Dr. Fatih Kaya develops fragility as an ambiguous relational concept and, drawing on praxeological principles, reconstructs the habitus of fragility within the context of the sociology of transmigration. Based on an etymological and sociotheoretical redefinition, fragility is understood not exclusively as an expression of vulnerability, but as a relational structure that encompasses both destructive and productive potentials. Building on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Rahel Jaeggi’s theory of alienation, the study demonstrates how experiences of racist and other forms of social violence give rise to fragile processes of subjectivation, yet can simultaneously create the conditions for their reflexive transformation. The empirical basis is a qualitative-reconstructive study of transmigrant educational and migration biographies, analyzed using the documentary method. The analysis reconstructs how destructive fragility initially manifests itself in identity crises, conflicts of belonging, and transnational flight movements, before being transformed into a resource for productive self-relationships in the course of biographical processes of reflection. With the concept of the “habitus of fragility,” this article proposes a theoretical perspective that conceives of fragility as a dynamic relationship of ambiguity between vulnerability, agency, and subjectivation. Link to the publication