Dr., Professor of Sociology at Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Since 2009 visiting professor at  NTNU/Universitetet in Trondheim, Norway. Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim has done outstanding work within a broad range of sociological topics such as migration and ethnicity, love, medicine and health, the sociology of family and the world of work. A recurring theme in her research is the individuals struggle with identifying and accepting his or her place in reflexive modernity. Professor Beck-Gernsheim has published several articles in international journals and is the author of more than 20 books. Many of them has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian and Danish.

Her list of publications, at a glance, include titles such as:

• Das ganz normale Chaos der Liebe (med Ulrich Beck), 1990.
• Die Kinderfrage. Frauen zwischen Kinderwunsch und Abhängigkeit, 1997.
• Reinventing the Family: In Search of New Lifestyles (med Patrick Camillier), 2002.
• Individualization: Instituitionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences (med UlrichBeck), 2002.
• Die Kinderfrage heute. Über Frauenleben, Kinderwunsch und Geburtenrückgang, 2007.
• Was kommt nach der Familie? Alte Leitbilder und neue Lebensformen, 2010.
• Fernliebe. Lebensformen im globalen Zeitalter. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2011 (zusammen mit Ulrich Beck)

In my paper, I shall focus on two forms of ethnically troubled identities, one concerning minority groups, the other concerning the majority population.  At first I shall look at men and women of ethnically mixed family backgrounds (e.g. black/white, or Jewish/non-Jewish). From social science to literature to everyday life, these people often were, and sometimes still are,  considered to be freaks: neurotic, disturbed, unstable and restless (see for instance Robert Park’s  classic book “The Marginal Man”). Second, I shall turn to the majority population. Today, in the age of migration and globalization we find a remarkable shift, the emergence of a new kind of ethnically troubled identity. Now in many Western countries it is the majority population who often feels threatened: overrun by foreigners, their native culture losing ground because of the invasion of “others”, at home no more in their own country(see for instance Samuel Huntingtons work on the “Clash of Civilizations”).