Çağan Varol

Themes

Institutional racism

Racism in institutions such as police, courts, prisons, urban development and social work; an ORCID keyword and the stated focus of his work since the NSU’s self-exposure in 2011.

019 entries2021–2026All themes

Publications

All publications
2026 Book

Rassifizierte Topographien. Über die Problematisierung von Migration im städtischen Raum

Traces how a migrant shopping street in Cologne has been stigmatised since the recruitment stop of 1973, ethnographically and genealogically, following the official and media readings of “Brennpunkte” and “Parallelgesellschaften” and the counter-narratives of the street’s migrant residents. Using the 2004 attack by a right-wing terrorist group and the investigations that followed, it shows how social work, security agencies and urban development took part in producing a racialised topography. Appears in the Urban Studies series; according to the publisher due on 28 December 2026, about 470 pages.

2026 Book chapter

Der soziale Raum des Rassismus

Brings together labels such as Brennpunkt and Parallelgesellschaft, the social-mix model, the broken-windows thesis and Wacquant’s concept of territorial stigmatisation (building on Bourdieu’s social space), and develops from them a concept of institutional racism as a local power-knowledge apparatus shared by social work, urban development and other actors.

Writing

All writing
15 February 2022 analyse & kritik Article

Konservative Leitkultur

The trial of Hans-Josef Bähner (Cologne-Porz shooting): institutional racism and the latent violence of a conservative middle-class milieu, including shooting clubs.

Talks & media

All talks and media items
12 October 2021 kritisch-lesen.de, no. 61 Interview

„Man hat rein gar nichts gelernt“

Interview by Johanna Bröse in the issue “NSU – Zehn Jahre nach der Selbstenttarnung” on the Keupstraße nail bombing, the police and media treatment of the victims, the NSU tribunals, the Herkesin Meydanı initiative and institutional racism.

26 June 2021 Antifaschistische Linke International (A.L.I.), Waageplatz, Göttingen Panel

Solidarität muss Praxis werden

Guest in an open-air discussion opening the campaign “Die Bürokratie des Bösen – Niemand muss Ausländerbehörde sein!”, on the NSU, neo-Nazis in police and domestic intelligence, Halle, Hanau and responses to racism.