Michael Boiger is an assistant professor of cultural psychology at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands). Michael obtained his PhD from the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2013. He conducted his doctoral research on the cultural construction of anger and shame in the United States, Japan, Belgium, and Turkey. In his current research, he takes a cultural psychological approach to study emotional dynamics in close relationships. In particular, he is interested in how intercultural couples navigate potential cultural differences in emotion. Besides his academic activities, Michael works as an emotion-focused and systemic therapist in private practice.

Roundtable “Cultural Diversity?”

 29th May 01.00 – 02.30 pm | Monique Scheer, Boris Nieswand, Michael Boiger, Thomas Stodulka, Moderation: Birgitt Röttger Rössler

 In contemporary academic writings the term culture, which is not only central to anthropology but also to the social and cultural sciences in general, increasingly appears only in word compositions such as “cultural plurality/multiplicity/variety”, “cultural diversity”, “cultural heterogeneity”, or “multiplicity of cultural orientations”, “diversity of social and cultural backgrounds” etc.

The roundtable provides a platform to discuss what these adjectival collocations denote precisely? Provocatively, it asks whether culture as adjectival becoming has transfigured into a leftover-category that lumps together the conceptually uncanny and empirically enigmatic? Invited scholars from sociology, social and cultural anthropology, cultural psychology and cultural studies will critically debate the analytical value of the terms “culture” and “diversity” and their entanglements from different disciplinary perspectives. Furthermore, they will pay attention to the affective dimensions of living in “culturally diverse settings”.