Sebastian Muy
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Dr Sebastian Muy has been a teaching and research fellow on the project ‘Living Together Locally – Spaces for Diversity and Cohesion (MvO)’ since 15 October 2026 (project duration: 1 June 2026–31 May 2029) run by the ‘Sociology for Social Work’ chair at Faculty 4 of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. His main areas of focus within the project include the academic supervision and evaluation of the other sub-projects within the network project, qualitative accompanying research, and the practice-oriented communication of research findings.
After studying Social Work (Diploma) at Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences on the Rhine, he successfully completed the Master’s programme “Social Work as a Human Rights Profession” at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin, the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Berlin and the Catholic University of Applied Sciences for Social Work Berlin. In 2025, he was awarded a PhD from the University of Education, Freiburg, with the overall grade ‘summa cum laude’. The doctoralthesis examines the extent to which the professional practice of social workers in reception centres contributes to addressing the everyday challenges faced by refugees, and identifies the conditions within the asylum system that either promote or restrict certain professional practices. To this end, qualitative interviews with refugees and social workers living or working in reception centres in Berlin and Bavaria, as well as further data, were analysed using the grounded theory methodology. The findings were synthesised within the theoretical concept of ‘conflictual mandate structures’ in Social Work with refugees, which provides a framework for a nuanced analysis of the context-specific, dynamic and contested relationships between actors and mandates within the field of practice under investigation.
His research lies at the intersection of social work research and migration (regime) research. In addition to his academic work, he has many years’ professional experience as a social worker counselling refugees, with a focus on family reunification, and as an advisor on migration social work for a leading umbrella organisation of independent welfare services.