300670 Knowledge and Belonging in the Contemporary World (LEH) (WiSe 2021/2022)

Dear Students, this is the second phase of this research class. The first phase we completed last semester. If you haven't participated in the first phase, you cannot sign up for this class this semester!

While ‘knowledge’ and ‘belonging’ were prominent objects of social research, over the last decade, surprisingly little attention was consecrated to the relationship between both. This research class starts off from the observation that knowledge and belonging are closely intertwined. Belonging – whether in nations, families, organisations, religious, ethnic or common-interest-groups – always requires extensive reservoirs of knowledge shared among the members. This mostly entails tacit knowledge, i.e. sharing of what ‘goes without saying’. But those belonging together can also explicitly refer to forms of either epistemic or practical knowledge that enable the navigation within the social spaces of belonging, forms of knowledge needed in representational practices as well as forms of knowledge that are denied to others, especially within secret societies.
At the same time, knowledge can create and maintain belonging. Exchanging knowledge and jointly engaging in knowledge production and circulation can help forging the sense of sharing, mutuality and commonality. This often holds for members of professional groups or for those involving in ‘epistemic communities’, whether academic or otherwise. This research class will enable the participants to explore the complex relationship between knowing and belonging. Conceptualising of knowledge from the venture point of belonging should enable us to grasp the range of diverse forms of knowledge that are vital in durable social encounters and practices of relating. Which constellations of belonging to look at will be left to the participants who will be supported in developing their research question and throughout their research-process.

This is the second phase of the research class that is dedicated to organising and analysing the collected data. The final results will be then presented in a research report. Students can work by themselves or in small groups during this phase while all along they will receive personalised supervision and support.