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[caption id="attachment_1516" align="alignright" width="250"] Erol Ülker (photo: private)[/caption]Erol Ülker (EUME – Fellow 2015/2016) is a historian who works on the issues of nationalism, population movements, demographic change, social and labor struggles in Ottoman and Turkish history. His current research deals with Istanbul, the Ottoman Empire’s cosmopolitan capital city, which remained under the British, French and Italian occupation for almost five years after the end of the First World War. Ülker examines how the refugee flows to and from Istanbul transformed the city’s demographic structure during the occupation period, arguing that this process was accompanied by the sharp increase of xenophobia towards the foreign nationals and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects that formed a significant proportion of Istanbul’s population.At the WeberWorldCafé, Ülker will address the topic “Flight, Xenophobia, and Diversity”. Based on the findings of his research, he aims to discuss which circumstances give rise to xenophobia in multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. What conditions lead to the expulsion and/or exodus of minorities in such societies? How does the socio-economic, cultural, and demographic makeup of cities change in the process of flight movements?