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Reports about Practical Projects #9

Veröffentlicht am 7. December 2022

::Non-academic careers::

Reports about Practical Projects #9

„Reports about Practical Projects“ are written by doctoral researchers who have designed and carried out a practical project in cooperation with a non-university organization. The BGHS has been supporting these projects with scholarships since 2020. In the ninth part of the series, Tipu Sultan reports on two workshops, he conducted in cooperation with the District Population Welfare Office in Gujrat (Pakistan).

Gender Role Attitudes and Work-Life-Balance among Dual-Earner-Couples in Pakistan

In the recent decade the trend of dual-earner couples has been increased in Pakistan more than ever before. This new trend of dual-earner families has significantly affected their personal life. In the patriarchal society of Pakistan, where the primary responsibility of females was to look after the family and the domestic affairs, only the male was expected to be the breadwinner. With the increase of female education and employment opportunities, more and more females are entering in the labor market in Pakistan. Therefore, the duties and responsibilities of dual-earner couples, especially women, have increased. Moreover, balancing work and family life is more complex in the patriarchal society of Pakistan because of the social expectations of gender roles. A dichotomous behavioral reflection is being observed in Pakistani society. The one group of people having egalitarian attitude are supporting the new gender roles of female, whereas the other group of people having traditional mindset is still in the favor of patriarchy. Therefore, gender roles are re-evaluated. The District Population Welfare Office is an organization of the Government of Punjab, Pakistan, and provides among other things family counselling services in the district Gujrat to promote balanced families.


Figure 1: article in the Pakistani newspaper Shana Bashana sharing my project on 30.11.2022

For the accomplishment of the practical project I cooperated with the Family Welfare Department of the organization. I contributed my services as a Family Welfare Counselor. The project was divided into two phases. In the first phase, I organized an awareness seminar at the District Population Welfare Office with dual-earner families. There were 40 participants (20 dual-earner families) in the workshop. The concerns of the families and possible strategies to balance work-life based on empirical knowledge were discussed among dual-earner couples. In the second phase, I arranged a training workshop for the Family Welfare Counsellors and Family Welfare Workers that are the employees of the organization. There were 40 participants in the training workshop. I trained the workers how to deal with stereotyping and societal taboos still existing in Pakistani society. Gender role attitude is one of the important reason of work-life imbalance among working couples. That was very important for both participants point of view and also from the organization’s point of view. The certificates were awarded to the participants of the both events. To increase the impact of the project both of the sessions were covered by the local and national media of district Gujrat. Here are the photos of the certificates awarded to participants for both events and the screenshots of the project sharing at differ forums including the newspaper.


Figure 2: certificate of participation awarded to dual-earner families who participated in the seminar dated 29.11.2022

The participants benefited directly from this knowledge to get awareness and new strategies to balance their work-life. Moreover, the empirical information based workshops contributed to the organization’s existing goals. The practical project added a new perspective that is the influence of gender role attitude on work-life balance. Another big advantage of this project for the partner organization was that it provided the training opportunity to the organizations workers to improve their knowledge to further continue the counselling process.


Figure 3: certificate of participation awarded to the family welfare workers and family Welfare Assistants for their participation in the training workshop dated 10.11.2022.

Click here for the district population offices in Punjab/Pakistan where the district of Gujrab is part of.

Further information about the Non-University Careers Project can be found on the BGHS website.

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Practitioners in Talk Part 29

Veröffentlicht am 1. December 2022

 ::Non-university careers::

Practitioners in Talk Part 29

Many ways lead out of the BGHS. But where do postdoctoral paths lead? We talk to historians and sociologists who have taken up their career outside the university. Susanne Kill spoke to us about her work for the Deutsche Bahn AG.

 

 (Figure 1: Susanne Kill, Copyright: Susanne Kill)

Mrs Kill, you did your PhD in History in 1995. If you remember starting your career: How did you find your way into the job?

I joined the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG) shortly after the railroad reform. The railroad reform, i.e. the transformation of the Bundesbahn and Reichsbahn into Deutsche Bahn AG, which is organized under private law, meant that from 1994 onwards the railroad was no longer obliged to hand over files to the Bundesarchiv. Files created before 1994 are offered to the Bundesarchiv. All files from 1994 onwards are stored according to commercial law deadlines. Selected documents are permanently stored in the Historische Sammlung of the DB AG. I have been working there since 1999.

 

(Figure 2: Railway Journal, Copyright: Deutsche Bahn)

How did you come to your current position?

In the mid-1990s, I was in charge of a research project on the railroads in Germany at the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte: on the cultural, economic and political history of the railroads from the 19th century to reunification. In this context, I was asked if I would like to apply for the newly created position as head of the Corporate Archives of DB AG. When I applied, I had an interview at the DB Board of Management in Ruschestraße in Berlin-Lichtenberg. This is where the Stasi had its headquarters until 1990. That is an impression that will stay with me forever: Everything still smelled like the GDR. It was a completely different world than Frankfurt University or the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte. There were many and very different people working there. I think that is also something that has kept me at Deutsche Bahn until now: That Deutsche Bahn is so diverse and always a part of contemporary history.

 

(Figure 3: Annual reports of the Deutsche Bahn, Copyright: Deutsche Bahn)

You work for Deutsche Bahn. Where exactly do you work?

We have a Historische Sammlung here in Berlin, where three of us work. We have been trying to preserve the history of Deutsche Bahn since 1994 in files and publications. At the same time, we offer historical advice and, because we operate a large archive database together with the DB Museum in Nuremberg, we are also able to provide information on the history of the predecessor organizations of Deutsche Bahn AG: i.e. the Bundesbahn, Reichsbahn and Länderbahnen. At the moment, for example, I am working on a traveling exhibition on the railroads under National Socialism.

 

(Figure 4: Negative cabinet in the Deutsche Bahn archive, Copyright: Deutsche Bahn)

You head the Corporate Archives and Historische Sammlung at Deutsche Bahn. What are your most important tasks? 

Firstly, my job is to be able to classify historical topics and provide information, especially on the subject of National Socialism and German division. Secondly, we look after the Historische Sammlung and – in cooperation with the DB Museum in Nuremberg – the archive and museum software. Thirdly, it is my job to bring inquiries in the area of historical public relations to the right place, to answer them myself and to prepare them for the website, for example.

What tips do you have for colleagues from sociology or history who are interested in a career in the occupational field you are in?

My first tip is: cultivate contacts! For example, it is a good idea to attend a conference of the Association of Business Archivists. This is the contact exchange for business historians and archivists. The contact exchange is important for us, because you have to imagine: You are relatively alone as an archivist or historian in a large company. That makes it all the more important to network with other colleagues in other companies. Secondly, I think that a scientific interest does not contradict the work in the company archive. If you don’t know the sources, you can’t do serious corporate history. It is clear to everyone by now that if you talk garbage, you are going to fall flat on your face in public. Corporate historians should also know the critical parts of corporate history. This knowledge can also be important for corporate management. Thirdly, I have noticed that many historians and sociologists work in large companies, for example in corporate communications. For example, in analyzing long-term economic and societal developments in order to prepare strategic decisions for corporate management. Those who are interested in this are faced with the question of whether it is really history or sociology that they want to stay with thematically.

Mrs Kill, thank you for the conversation!

 

The interview was conducted by Ulf Ortmann. You can find the complete (german) interview here.

Further information on the non-university careers project is available here.

The previous interviews in the series are available here

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Reconciling academia and professional practice

Veröffentlicht am 23. November 2022

Reconciling academia and professional practice

Practical Projects at the BGHS

(Figure 1: Poster of the Discussion)

 80 to 90 percent of researchers with a doctorate will not work as employees in academic research in the long term. This fact has been scandalised for years and solutions are primarily demanded from the universities, for example by creating more permanent positions alongside professorships and predictable career paths. As right as these efforts are, they will not change anything significant about the fact that the vast majority of young researchers leave academic science sooner or later. It does little good to suppress this fact; it must be given more attention, both by doctoral researchers and supervisors. And perspectives must be developed that link academic science and the non-academic world. This is the quintessence of the panel discussion on the topic of “Transitions between doing a doctorate and profession”, which took place at the BGHS on 10 November 2022.

Over the past four years, the BGHS has embarked on a new path that has enabled doctoral researchers in the humanities and social sciences to gain practical experience in the non-university professional world while focusing on their own interests and skills. In the pilot project “Non-University Careers”, which is funded from the rectorate's strategy budget from 2019 to 2022, doctoral researchers at the BGHS were able to apply for practical projects in cooperation with a non-university practical partner, which were funded by three-month scholarships. A total of eleven projects were carried out, and the last two are nearing completion. At the event, Marie Kaiser, the current Vice-rector for Personnel Development and Gender Equality, and Martin Egelhaaf, the former Vice-rector for Research, Young Researchers and Gender Equality, discussed with Gladys Vásquez and Yannick Schöpper, doctoral researchers and scholarship holders in the programme, as well as Ulf Ortmann, the programme coordinator, what experience has been gained in the programme and what this means for Bielefeld University's activities in the area of (non-university) careers.

When asked by moderator Ulf Ortmann how the BGHS’s project application was approved in 2018, Martin Egelhaaf reminded the audience of the “Tenure Track Programme”, which was launched by the German federal and state governments in 2016 to create 1,000 additional professorships for young researchers. To apply for these tenure-track professorships, Bielefeld University had to create a personnel development concept for the young researchers and also address the fact that not all of them can stay in academic science. And in this situation, the BGHS application fell on “fertile ground”, according to Martin Egelhaaf.

Yannick Schöpper is one of the scholarship holders who were able to carry out a practical project. He cooperated with the Agentur für Erneuerbare Energien e.V. (AEE).

(Figure 2: Results of the Study)

He gave a lively account of how he had dug deep into the theory of his political science doctoral project before starting the project and was then confronted with the empirical field in the practical project. The big challenge in applying for the project was to find a topic that was connectable to professional practice perspectives and had a relevance that was not only scientific but also social. And his choice fell on the question of how local acceptance of onshore wind turbines is, which he illuminated in a very readable background paper for the AEE. “The direct contact with empiricism has clearly broadened my perspective and this has also changed the dissertation project,” he summed up positively. (Link to the Report)

Historian Gladys Vásquez also described the positive experiences she had during her practical project. When she applied for the project, her (doctoral) thesis had just expired and she was also thinking about her professional future in addition to working on her dissertation. She had already worked in the field of public history in Peru before her doctorate and wanted to return to this professional field. “Doing the academic work, I had forgotten some of my qualifications,” Gladys Vásquez recalled. But she also lacked a corresponding network in Germany. During a scientific symposia, she met her future project partners from “Kuskalla Abya Yala”, an NGO dedicated to the revival of Quechua, a widespread indigenous language family in America.

(Figure 3: Most spoken indigenous languages, Copyright: Gladys Vasquez)

This contact with the researchers of “Kuskalla Abya Yala”, who are also activists, made her aware of the social relevance of their work. And so she organised a joint workshop on the experiences and practices of efforts to disseminate Quechua languages. The biggest challenge was to communicate with the activists in the field, who did not always have access to the internet or even the telephone. Almost unimaginable in our supposedly digitalised world. Gladys Vásquez said she had become more realistic as a result of the project. “I want a job that fulfils me.” And she is more likely to find that outside the university, of course after completing her dissertation. (Link to the Report)

Marie Kaiser was impressed by the stories of the two doctoral researchers about their experiences in the practical projects. The university should not be a ‘bubble’, but what the scholars do must have relevance for the professional fields, she emphasised the aspect of knowledge transfer through the practical projects. In the discussion with the audience, it became clear that there are already many offers at Bielefeld University, for example from the Career Service and the personnel development for researchers. But, according to Marie Kaiser, counselling is something different from practical experience. “We have to think about that.”

The fact that the practical projects not only enable experience in professional fields, but also bring something to the content of the doctoral theses, as Yannick Schöpper told us, was a surprise for Martin Egelhaaf. It was questionable, however, whether this applied equally to all dissertation topics, for example, also to very theoretical work. On the other hand, there was no question for him that the concept of practical projects is transferable to other fields, for example to the natural sciences. Thus, it could be beneficial for applications for collaborative projects, which always have to address the promotion of non-university careers. The question of whether and how such a programme could be set up university-wide remained open.

The event “Transitions between doing a doctorate and profession” showed in how many areas Bielefeld University already offers a wide variety of support formats for young researchers in their academic and non-academic careers. But it also showed that the special format of scholarship-funded practical projects, which was developed and tested in the pilot project “Non-University Careers” at the BGHS, very successfully fills an existing gap. The development and implementation of a project lasting several months in cooperation with a non-university partner, which is based on the skills and interests of the young researchers, enables practical professional experience that is closely related to their own academic training. At the same time, it allows them to examine the social relevance of their own doctoral project and to develop their academic work accordingly. In this way, the practical projects also contribute to a considerable degree to the mutual transfer of knowledge between academic science and professional practice. They show: Science and non-university professional practice are not contradictory, they are reconcilable.

Sabine Schäfer

Here you can find more Reports about the Practical Projects.

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Reports about Practical Projects #8

Veröffentlicht am 21. November 2022

::Non-academic careers::

Reports about Practical Projects #8

„Reports about Practical Projects“ are written by doctoral researchers who have designed and carried out a practical project in cooperation with a non-university organization. The BGHS has been supporting these projects with scholarships since 2020. In the eighth part of the series, Md. Moynul Haque reports on his core activity in the framework of a discussion session titled “Nonviolent Civil Resistance: Insights from Bangladesh and Beyond” that he carried out in a non-university organization called Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst e.V. (forumZFD).

Over the past few decades or so, unarmed people’s contentious mobilization on the streets has become a frequent incidence in many parts of the world. There has been a remarkable rise in the civilian’s uses of nonviolent strategies including sit-ins, slogans, demonstrations, singing, graffiti, art, and media-mediated activism. The dawn of the twenty-first century has witnessed unarmed insurrections, including the Arab Spring phenomena in 2010 in North Africa and the Middle East region and the Occupy movement in the US in 2011. Meanwhile, in the subsequent years, the People Power Movements surged across Europe and Central Asia, notably among the Indignados movement in Spain in 2011, the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013, and the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine which started in 2013. The Shahbag movement of 2013 in Bangladesh represents one of the biggest protests of this kind in South Asia.

Scholars have shown greater interest in studying political violence in South Asia. Moreover, Bangladesh is often portrayed as a country characterized by inter-party violence, rivalry, and political confrontation. The over-reliance on a violent perspective essentially provides a one-sided explanation of Bangladesh’s state-society interaction. It undermines the power of nonviolence which has been regarded as one of the major forces to bring about social and political change across the world.

Drawing from my ongoing doctoral research on civil resistance, I ventured to explore different perspectives, mainly coming from non-academic tradition, on civil resistance cases in order to make sense of how or to what extent theoretical understanding of civil resistance intersects with practical views. To reach this goal, I held a discussion session in the framework of the core task of my practical project with a non-university organization called Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst e.V. (forumZFD) located in Cologne, Germany. It was founded in 1996 by voluntary peace and human rights groups with a vision of promoting peace worldwide. The Academy for Conflict Transformation is a learning space of forumZFD that offers training, lectures, and workshops on peace and conflict-related topics.

My project was integrated into the regular program called “X-changes“: a discussion event for the alumni members of the forumZfD. The participants of this session came with practical insights into the areas of nonviolence for social justice, rights, and freedom.

 

Figure 1: The emblem of forumZfD and its series "X-change"

From the practical point of view, the project was intended to make sense of how the notion of civil resistance is articulated in the thoughts and practices of the non-academic community. The broader objective was to facilitate a dialogue between a PhD researcher and peace practitioners in answering some of the critical questions of civil resistance at this current juncture.

The discussion of this X-change started with sharing the researcher’s current topic, briefly navigating the known and unknown facts of civil resistance in a relatively under-researched country – Bangladesh. After this, the X-change invited other participants to shed light on their country-specific experience of civil resistance. As such the X-change event turned out to be a resource point for knowing both known and unknown cases of civil resistance, capturing the viewpoint of both the researcher and practitioners.

 

Click here for ForumZfD.

Further information about the Non-University Careers Project can be found on the BGHS website.

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Bielefeld University services for doctoral researchers

Veröffentlicht am 17. November 2022

 Bielefeld University services for doctoral researchers


How do I write a dissertation? What options do I have if I want to go abroad? And can I take a German course?

On Wednesday, 26 October 2022, the BGHS offered an information session with people from the International Office, Writing Centre and PunktUm to clarify these initial questions and to present the resources of Bielefeld University to support the doctoral researchers in their work.

Below you can find the presentations with the main information about the available services:

    Writing Support at Bielefeld University

    PunktUm: German Language learning

    Spending time abroad

    Spending time abroad (flyer)

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Practitioners in Talk Part 28

Veröffentlicht am 8. November 2022
::Non-university careers::

Practitioners in Talk Part 28

 

Many ways lead out of the BGHS. But where do postdoctoral paths lead? We talk to historians and sociologists who have taken up their career outside the university. Stephanie Geissler spoke to us about her work for „Arbeit und Leben VHS/DGB im Kreis Herford e.V.“.

 

Figure 1: Stephanie Geissler

Stephanie, you did your PhD in History in 2016. If you remember starting your career: How did you find your way into the job?

Stephanie Geissler: I had a scholarship at the beginning of my PhD. But as it is with a scholarship: the scholarship is over after three years, but the PhD is not yet finished. Parallel to doing my PhD, I started to develop exhibition concepts and fundraising strategies for museums on a freelance basis. At that time I also came into contact with “Arbeit und Leben”: By chance, an administrative position became available there at that time, and I applied for it. For me, it was a good opportunity to be secured with a half-time job and to be able to continue with my freelance work. No one expected me to finish my PhD. Neither did I. (laughs)

How did you get your current position?

Stephanie Geissler: I started working as an administrative assistant at “Arbeit und Leben” in 2007. One year later, I changed to a position as an education officer and mainly planned and conducted educational leaves, but also took care of finances and event planning. I have been managing director here since 2021.

You work for „Arbeit und Leben VHS/DGB im Kreis Herford e.V.“. Where do you work, exactly? 

Stephanie Geissler: “Arbeit und Leben” was founded by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) and the Adult Education Centres (VHS) immediately after the end of the Second World War to educate workers in democracy. Today, “Arbeit und Leben” exists in all federal states and – in varying densities – as local working groups. We in Herford are a registered association and offer training for work councils and an educational leave programme. We also run two projects: the “Mobile Beratung gegen Rechtsextremismus” for the Detmold administrative district and the “Fachstelle NRWeltoffen”, which does anti-racism work in the Herford district. We also organise political education events, for example on the war in Ukraine.

 

Figure 2: Stephanie Geissler during an educational leave in Prora

You head „Arbeit und Leben“. What are your most important tasks? 

Stephanie Geissler: The last two years were very much marked by the topic of “finances”. We are supported by the DGB and the VHS, but we earn most of our salaries through the income from the seminars. Under Corona conditions, however, our seminars, where exchange and networking among the participants are very central, could hardly be offered in presence. And so we got into a financial bottleneck. So, to put it briefly: in the last two years, my main task was to take care of the financial drama. Apart from finances, personnel management is an essential aspect of my work: there are now eleven people employed here in the association. And finally, I have responsibilities in our educational leave programme. However, my tasks in the area of educational leave are not part of my duties as managing director, but are part of the operational business.

What tips do you have for colleagues from sociology or history who are interested in a career in the occupational field you are in?

Stephanie Geissler: I would say: Try it out! So, if someone were to call us now and say, for example, “I've been working on a regional historical, socio-political or trade union topic. Can we do something together?” Then I would think about it and sound out: What can we do together?

Stephanie, thank you for the conversation!


The interview was conducted by Ulf Ortmann. You can find the complete interview here.

Further information on the non-university careers project is available here.

The previous interviews in the series are available here

 

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Book prize for BGHS alumna Mahshid Mayar

Veröffentlicht am 8. November 2022

Book prize for BGHS alumna Mahshid Mayar


BGHS alumna Mahshid Mayar will be awarded the “Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for International Scholarship in Transnational American Studies” on 11 November for her book Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire. The prize is awarded annually by the American Studies Association for original research in the field of transnational American studies.

Congratulations for this success!

 

Mashid Mayar)

Mahshid completed her PhD in History in 2016 with the dissertation "Citizens and Rulers of the World: American Children and World Geography at the Turn of the Twentieth Century".

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Welcome Day Winter Semester 2022/23

Veröffentlicht am 20. October 2022

Welcome Day Winter Semester 2022/23

::20 new doctoral researchers at the BGHS::

On Tuesday, 11 October, the BGHS Welcome Day for the winter semester 2022/23 took place, this time again in person at the BGHS. The BGHS directors Klaus Weinhauer and Ruth Ayaß welcomed the new doctoral researchers, who had the opportunity to introduce themselves and get to know the doctoral representatives and the BGHS office staff. Sabine Schäfer then introduced the BGHS training and study programme. We wish all new members a wonderful start to their doctorate at the BGHS.

New BGHS doctoral researchers and their projects:

Jasper Bendler (Sociology): Die Entwicklung von Normakzeptanz. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsverläufe, Einflussfaktoren und Wechselwirkungen der Akzeptanz von Rechtsnormen bei Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen.

Felix Bitterer (Sociology): The importance of political attitudes for occupational choices and careers in public service

Melina Bonerz (Sociology): Why are we not flooding the streets? A case study of the diffusion of and coalition-building around anti-femi(ni)cide activism in Germany

Felix Gumbert (Sociology): How to Build an Echo Chamber. Virtuelle Ethnographie zur Genese von Kommunikationsräumen in sozialen Medien

Svenja Holste (Sociology): ‘The Arctic We Know?!’ Arctic knowledge, natural scientists’ worldviews and the framing of research agendas

Ricardo Kelm (Sociology): Constructing Identity, Challenging Representations: Hegemonic Struggles in Discourses on ‘European Security Identity’

Stefan Knauff (Sociology): Regionalization of Stereotyping in Online Spaces using Text Based Computational Sociology Methods

Jonas Kramer (Sociology): Das alltägliche Planungsgespräch. Die Herstellung von Zukunft in projektiven Gattungen

Jakob Krusche (History): Gruppen bewaffneter Zivilisten in Mexiko. Historische Einordnung eines Phänomens unter Bezugnahme auf aktuelle Entwicklungen

Talha Minhas (History): Practices of Comparing in late colonial and Modern Nationalist Historiography in Pakistan (1850-1980). Calling for a Global History in Pakistan through a Practice-theoretical Approach to Anti-Nationalist Historiography

Cristóbal Moya (Sociology): The force of injustice and the legitimation of social inequalities

Amelie Nickel (Sociology): Marketization, institutional anomie, and societal consequences

Hoang Long Nguyen (Sociology): Big Spatial Data: Potentials and Limitations for Empirical Social Research

Ingo Pätzold (History): „Wann fangen wie endlich an, nicht nur nachts homosexuell zu sein?“ Die diskursive Verortung der Theatergruppe „Brühwarm“ in der politischen Schwulenbewegung der 1970er Jahre in der BRD. Ein digitales Close Reading ihrer Auftritte

Stefan Rohrhirsch (Sociology): Environmentality. On the Critique of Environmental Reason

Ilgım Şimşek (Sociology): Queer Narratives Throughout Generations in Turkey

Stephan Skolarski (Sociology): Institutional racism in Germany. Intergroup contacts and ethnic prejudices among employees in public institutions

Can David Tobias (Sociology): Nationalstaatenindikatoren in the making – Die Herstellung quantitativer Leistungsvergleiche im Kontext globaler Politik am Beispiel des Financial Secrecy Index

Ragna Verhoeven (Sociology): On Unifying, Communal and Consensual Aspects of Democracy — An Analysis of Potential of the Radical Theory of Democracy

Mikko von Bremen (Sociology): Funding Priorities in Arctic Research – Institutional Structures and Consultation Processes at the Science-Policy Interface

You can find the Welcome Day presentation here:

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Awards for BGHS alumnus Edvaldo Moita

Veröffentlicht am 12. October 2022
Awards for BGHS alumnus Edvaldo Moita

Edvaldo Moita was awarded two prizes this year for his dissertation successfully defended in 2021. First, the Brazilian Association for Philosophy of Law and Sociology of Law (ABRAFI) – a national section of the Internationale Vereinigung für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (IVR) – awarded him the prize for the best dissertation in 2021. In September, he also received the “European Award for Legal Theory”, a prize awarded by the European Academy of Legal Theory (EALT). The award ceremony will take place on 24 November at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Last Year, Edvaldo Moita also prevailed against the competition and received a professorship for legal theory and philosophy of law at Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil's largest university.

Congratulations on these successes!


 (©Edvaldo Moita)

Edvaldo Moita completed his PhD in sociology in 2021 with his dissertation "On the Nature and Impacts of Noncompliance: With a Study of Informality and Street Vending in Brazil".

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Book Prize for BGHS alumnus Zoltán Simon

Veröffentlicht am 21. September 2022

Book Prize for BGHS alumnus Zoltán Simon

BGHS alumnus Zoltán Simon has ex-aequo received the 2022 Book Award from the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography (ICHTH) and the International Network for Theory of History (INTH) for his book “History in Times of Unprecedented Change: A Theory for the 21st Century” (published by Bloomsbury in 2019). The book prize was awarded for the best book on any aspect of the history and theory of historiography, published between 2016 and 2020. Congratulations for this success!

 

(left to right: Edoardo Tortarolo, Zoltán Simon, Ewa Domanska, Photo taken by Marek Tamm)

Zoltán completed his PhD in History at the beginning of 2018 and is currently researching the project "The End of History and the End of the World", funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

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Panel Discussion: Society in Permanent Crisis?

Veröffentlicht am 14. September 2022

::Society in Permanent Crisis?::

On the occasion of the 41st Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), which will take place in Bielefeld, the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS), in cooperation with the Volkshochschule Bielefeld, is organising a panel discussion on 27 September 2022, 6 to 8 p.m., in the Historischer Saal of the Volkshochschule Bielefeld.

 

When crises or disasters occur, they must be responded to and managed. We expect politics, science and other responsible actors (including ourselves) to take countermeasures. Here, disputes can already take place: What is considered a crisis? What is the appropriate countermeasure? What means should or must be used? Can lessons be learned from dealing with previous crises?

At present, a variety of crisis experiences and crisis discourses overlap. Climate crisis, Corona pandemic and war in Ukraine keep shifting the attention of politics, the media and academia. The various crisis scenarios and crisis perceptions compete with each other, they overlap and they are played off against each other. But what does this mean for dealing with crises? Are measures or reforms prevented or made more difficult by this opposition? What does it mean for our own attention and perception of crises when the crisis mode becomes a permanent state?

In an Interdisciplinary Dialogue between sociologists and historians, the mechanisms of social perceptions of crises, crisis management and their transformations will be discussed.

With:

Oliver Dimbath (Professor of Sociology, University of Koblenz-Landau)

Eleonora Rohland (Professor of Environmental History, Bielefeld University,

Markus Schroer (Professor of Sociology, University of Marburg) and

Silke Schwandt (Professor of Digital History, Bielefeld University).

Introduction and moderation: Sabine Schäfer (BGHS) and Dr. Klaus Weinhauer (BGHS).

The Discussion will be in German.

Admission is free.

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Reports about Practical Projects #7

Veröffentlicht am 5. September 2022

:: Non-academic careers::

Reports about Practical Projects #7

 

“Reports about Practical Projects” are written by doctoral researchers who have designed and carried out a practical project in cooperation with a non-university organization. The BGHS has been supporting these projects with scholarships since 2020. In the seventh part of the series, Gladys Vasquez Zevallos reports on her practical project with the Kuskalla Abya Yala.

As stated by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, although indigenous people represent less than 6% of the world’s population, they speak more than 4,000 of the world’s approximately 6,700 languages. This statistic shows that most indigenous languages are under the threat of Language Loss. One of the main reasons for this is that throughout state formation, states implemented integration policies, especially in education, which ended up being assimilation policies. This policy meant the imposition of Western values, one of the most notable cases being the imposition of a unitary language that reinforced discrimination against indigenous nations, their culture, and languages. However, in recent years there has been a growing movement for recovering the indigenous language based on revitalization practices. These are practices to foster new speakers when the intergenerational transmission of the language has been interrupted. For this reason, I organized, in collaboration with Kuskalla Abya Yala, a workshop dedicated to the practices of the revitalization of native languages, focusing on the case of the Quechua language. Kuskalla Abya Yala is a non-governmental organization primarily devoted to the revitalization of the native languages of Quechua. Indeed, Quechua is the most widely spoken Indigenous language family in America; 7 to 9 million speakers.

 

Image 1: Most spoken indigenous languages © Gladys Vasquez

 

Kuskalla has implemented free educational programs through technological opportunities while building international solidarity networks. Thus, the workshop’s purpose was to share the experience of different actors with diverse intellectual backgrounds in diffusing the Quechua language in two main aspects:  Reflection on post-colonial structures in the production of indigenous knowledge and alternative experiences of visualization and dissemination of the Quechua language. The workshop was divided into two days, and the results were directly related to strategies for disseminating indigenous knowledge outside the educational spaces that have historically promoted linguistic discrimination.

One of the primary reflections was on the stereotypes surrounding indigenous languages and how to see them as something of the past. Indigenous communities are perceived as timeless when adaptation and migration have been their constant feature. Another reflection was that Indigenous languages are not only used for communication but also as a system of knowledge, history, memory, and identity. Much of the discussion was on how the Quechua people are revitalizing their language while recovering their identity.

All this is thanks to different practices in rural and urban areas using their educational pedagogies, music, artistic representations, and media. While many of these initiatives began, especially in the Andes, many indigenous immigrants in the United States are now promoting the Quechua language in academia and community groups. In the United States, it is the most widely taught indigenous language in universities, with approximately fifteen programs. The basis of these programs is partnerships with indigenous organizations. In this sense, the workshop promoted the creation and strengthening of networks among the actors that disseminate knowledge of the indigenous world.

Click here for Kuskalla Abya Yala.

Further information about the Non-University Careers Project can be found on the BGHS website.

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Reports about Practical Projects #6

Veröffentlicht am 31. August 2022

:: Non-academic careers::

Reports about Practical Projects #6

“Reports about Practical Projects” are written by doctoral researchers who have designed and carried out a practical project in cooperation with a non-university organization. The BGHS has been supporting these projects with scholarships since 2020. In the sixth part of the series, Sinmi Akin-Aina reports on her practical project with the Mathare Social Justice Centre.

Mathare is one of the oldest and largest informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, with a population of 500,000 people. Mathare is replete with history and has been the staging ground for multiple struggles for democracy, social justice, and human rights. The Mathare Social Justice Centre was an initiative begun by young community members in Mathare in 2014 to promote social justice and to combat the extrajudicial police killings of young men in the community. Mathare is a site where daily forms of physical and structural violence have historically been allowed to occur with impunity, and with little hope for redress and justice for those in the community. Some of these forms of violence include forced evictions, land grabbling, police abuse of power and extrajudicial killings, political violence, and other forms of economic, social and psychological marginalization.  In light of these abuses, a group of young activists from the community set out to create a centre focussed on the promotion of various forms of participatory justice. This led to the creation of their foundational campaign  Extrajudicial Killings and Police Abuse of Power, which documents extrajudicial killings and state-sponsored violence. The 2017 Participatory Action Report: Who is Next? A Participatory Action Report Against the Normalization of Extrajudicial Killings in Mathare was released three years after the creation of the centre, and is one of the first of its kind, detailing the human rights violations by the state in the informal settlement of Nairobi, participatory action research compiled, lead and written by community-based researchers.

 

Image 1: The emblem of the Mathare Social Justice Centre

 

As such, in the framework of the practical project for doctoral studies at the BGHS, the aim of this initiative was to leverage skills in research, policy, or monitoring or evaluation for social change, particularly in collaboration with grassroots and community-based organizations in the Global South. Thus, I proposed a project to conduct a Program Evaluation on the Mathare Social Justice Centre’s foundational campaign on Extrajudicial Killings and Police Abuse of Power.

Much of the international development literature speaks to an existing capacity gap, between the work that is done by grassroots organizations, and the work and time commitment required for the reporting and donor accountability in said programs. Grassroots and community organizations may have fewer material resources, less opportunities/time for training, and have little time to engage in projects that are not the primary mission of the organization—as with much of the work required in monitoring and evaluation. Thus, my  project aimed to bridge this gap, when possible, for grassroots organizations engaged in critical social change and transformation.

Information for the evaluation was collected primarily through interviews, a focus group and document analysis. This included three interviews with: community members (1), program staff (1) and a board member/founder of the organization (1). The focus groups included six participants including: community human rights monitors, community mobilizers as well as program staff.  Interviews and the focus group lasted from thirty to 90 minutes.

The key strengths of the Extra Judicial Executions campaign lie in its savvy capacity for dynamic movement building and mobilizing, as well as it’s keen use of adaptable and interconnected programming responsive to the needs of the community. Despite this, certain challenges of a structural nature remain, however these are implicit to the Kenyan justice and policing system, and a culture that allows for the killing of poor, mostly male youth with impunity.

 

Click here for the Mathare Social Justice Centre.

Further information about the Non-University Careers Project can be found on the BGHS website.

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Practitioners in Talk Part 27

Veröffentlicht am 26. July 2022

::Non-university careers::

Practitioners in Talk - Part 27

 

Many ways lead out of the BGHS. But where do postdoctoral paths lead? We talk to historians and sociologists who have taken up their career outside the university. Andrea Schneider-Braunberger spoke to us about her work for the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. and the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte mbH.

 

[Figure 1: Andrea Schneider-Braunberger]

 

Mrs Schneider-Braunberger, you did your PhD in History in 1996. If you remember starting your career: How did you find your way into the job?

Andrea Schneider-Braunberger: My entry was, I think, unusual. The day after the disputation of my doctoral thesis, I received an amusing phone call from my doctoral supervisor. He told me about a vacancy at the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte (GUG) for the position of managing director and asked me if I was able to formulate business letters in English. I was actually very good at that because I had worked in a typing pool during my studies. Then I applied here the same day, was invited for an interview the second day after my disputation, and got the job. At the time, I had also applied for a volunteer position at the German Historical Museum and for a position as an advisor to the German Bundestag. So it could have turned out very differently. – But that is how I ended up, without having the goal, in the position I still work in today.

 

To be managing director just a few days after the disputation: How did you experience it?

Andrea Schneider-Braunberger: I found it appealing to find a job where I could apply the knowledge I had acquired in my history studies. At the same time, I have to say: I studied modern history and did my PhD there, but I knew nothing about corporate history. I will give you an example: It was one of my first tasks in my first year here at GUG to organize a symposium. That was in 1996, when I looked through the list of topics of the GUG symposia since their foundation in 1976. And that is when I noticed: National Socialism was not on that list. That would be an exciting topic! The symposium on National Socialism actually took place here in early 1997. At the same time, pressure was being exerted in the USA on Deutsche Bank and Allianz AG to come to terms with their own Nazi history. And it was only after the symposium that it became clear in Germany as well: you have to come to terms with corporate history in the Nazi era. So, looking back, I would say: This symposium on National Socialism also took place because I was a bit naive.

 

You work for the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte. Where do you work, exactly? 

Andrea Schneider-Braunberger: When the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. was founded in 1976, it had the task of strengthening the subject of corporate history as a non-university institution: on the one hand, by organizing scientific conferences, symposia and working groups, and on the other hand, by publishing the “Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte”. These are the tasks we still have today as the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte. In addition, as a non-profit association, we also carry out, for example, a project in which we develop material on corporate history for school lessons. In addition to these non-profit activities, we are economically active: Since the 1980s, GUG has been commissioned by companies either to set up a corporate archive or to carry out a study; be it on a specific question or on the entire history of the company. Due to the fact that we have received more and more orders from companies, a good ten years ago we came to a limit that we are not allowed to exceed as a non-profit organization: to generate more than half of our revenues in the economic field. That is why we founded the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte mbH in 2012.

 

You head the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte. What are your most important tasks? 

Andrea Schneider-Braunberger: First, I design our scientific projects: in terms of their content and their budget. Secondly, I have the role of a mediator between different actors: On the one hand, it is my task to explain to the companies why it is important to work on corporate history scientifically and what scientific work means in this context. On the other hand, it is my job to ensure that our authors, who are employed on a fee basis, have the confidence that we do not engage in any whitewashing and that the authors’ scientific freedom is guaranteed. Sometimes the press also comes in as a stakeholder. So it is a translation job that I have between different social worlds. Thirdly, as managing director, I have commercial tasks, contractual matters to take care of, and also strategic planning to drive forward.

 

What tips do you have for colleagues from sociology or history who are interested in a career in the occupational field you are in?

Andrea Schneider-Braunberger: Gain practical experience to find out where your own passions, strengths and weaknesses lie! On the one hand, the working environments in which historians or sociologists work are very different. On the other hand, we also learn about ourselves in these working worlds: For some people, it is great to deal with many people or to work in a group. And others manage well as lone warriors, for example in the basement of an archive.

 

Mrs Schneider-Braunberger, thank you for the conversation!

The interview was conducted by Ulf Ortmann.

You can find the complete (german) interview here: pdf.

Further information on the non-university careers project is available here.

The previous interviews in the series are available here

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Good News

Veröffentlicht am 19. July 2022

Just in time for the summer break, there is good news to report from the BGHS.

Firstly, we have succeeded in extending the position of our coordinator for internationalisation, Clara Buitrago, by one year. Clara will therefore remain with us until the end of June 2024. We are very happy about that!

Secondly, we were able to recruit three new doctoral researchers for the BGHS positions advertised in the spring. Exciting doctoral projects await us in the Faculty of Sociology, which offer excellent opportunities to connect with historical studies.

And thirdly, we were successful with our application to the DAAD Graduate School Scholarship Programme, which is not affected by the austerity measures currently being discussed. At the end of August, we will be able to announce two DAAD doctoral scholarships for international candidates, especially from developing and emerging countries (scholarships will begin in October 2023).

And then we are particularly happy with our BGHS members who were able to complete their doctorates this year:

Lasse Bjoern Lassen (History): The “Castro Doctrine”: Cuban Diplomacy in Global Solidarity Organizations 1959-1967. Propagating Democracy of the Marginalized and Defending National Sovereignty in a Hostile World (10.01.2022)

Georg Kessler (Sociology): Kriminalität im jungen Erwachsenenalter - Bedeutung für kriminologische Theoriebildung und Methodologie (09.02.2022)

Laura Lükemann (Sociology): Gender inequalities in German work organizations: differences in claims-making for career progress and working time adjustment (14.02.2022)

Torben Möbius (History): Das Management ständigen Wandels: konkurrenzförmige Vergleichspraktiken der deutschen und der US-amerikanischen Eisen- und Stahlindustrie (1870–1940) (16.02.2022)

Jan-Holm Sussieck (Sociology): Populismus. Die Zuschreibung illegitimer Volksorientierung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (03.03.2022)

Isabell Diekmann (Sociology): Good Muslims, bad Islam? Zur differenzierten Betrachtung feindlicher Einstellungen gegenüber Menschen und Religion (14.03.2022)

Eileen Peters (Sociology): Relational inequalities at work: How are social inequalities between cate-gorically different groups (re-) produces in local workplace contexts? (15.03.2022)

Ayomide Kolawole (Sociology): The Ideas and Politics of Universal Social Pensions in the Global South: A Comparative Analysis (07.04.2022)

Katrin Weible (Sociology): Social citizenship for “the poor”? Large N data construction, conceptualization, and comparative analysis of social cash transfers across the global South (04.05.2022)

Karsten Pieper (Sociology): Publikumsbeobachtung im digitalen Wandel. Massen und Verdatung am Beispiel publizistischer Printmedien (11.05.2022)

Paul-Matthias Tyrell (History): „Only a stream between…“ Lokale Strategien im Umgang mit der „Filterfunktion“ der Grenze am Detroit River in den 1920er Jahren (01.06.2022)

Bastian Bredenkötter (Sociology): Mobile Manager als Boundary Spanner. Eine Untersuchung der Grenzstellenarbeit in multinationalen Unternehmen (21.06.2022)

Marcus B. Carrier (History): Der Wert von Methoden - Methodenwahl in der forensischen Toxikologie des 19. Jahrhunderts im deutsch-französischen Vergleich (21.07.2022)

Lili Zhu (History): Deutsch-chinesischer Waffenhandel (1922-1941). Eine Verflechtungsgeschichte (06.07.2022)

Jan Handelmann (Sociology): (Zwischen) Wissen und Nichtwissen: Vorstellungen von Fachleitungen zur Professionalität sozialwissenschaftlicher Lehrkräfte (07.07.2022)

Johannes Nagel (History): U.S. Military Reform and the Observation of the World, 1865–1905 (18.07.2022)

We congratulate them and wish them every success in the future!

Last but not least, a note on our own behalf: From 8 to 28 August, the BGHS office will be on summer break. We will not be available then. Urgent matters should therefore be dealt with immediately!

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