300098 Methodological collectivism and its alternatives (S) (SoSe 2016)

Since Rogers Brubaker voiced his important and convincing critique on ‘groupism’ that is omnipresent in social science research, a number of scholars have proposed conceptual approaches seeking to bypass collectivizing, reifying and homogenizing notions of human societies that take fixed collective boundary-lines for granted. This seminar will discuss the recent positions trying to grasp the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of collective constellations, the shifting nature of social boundary-lines as well as the modalities of individual positioning (e.g. politics of the self) vis-à-vis manifold identifications and spaces of belonging.
In the first part of the seminar, the durable nature of collectivities and their reinforcement through modes of governmentality, on one hand, and modalities of thought, on the other, will be discussed. In the second part of the seminar, recent approaches will be discussed that propose dynamic and intersecting concepts geared at the bearing of collective orders upon persons, the modalities of differentiation (and de-differentiation) as well as intersectionality of collective constellations. The third part of this seminar will focus on ego-perspectives, drawing especially upon the recent works on the ‘subject’ and on the ‘politics of the self’.

Bibliography

Brubaker, R., 2002: Ethnicity without groups. European Journal of Sociology 43: S. 163-189.
Comaroff, J. L. and J. Comaroff. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Glick-Schiller, N. / Çağlar, A., 2011. Locating migration. Rescaling cities and migrants. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
Lamont, M. and V. Molnar. 2002. The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 28, pp. 167-195.
Wimmer, A. 2008. Elementary strategies of ethnic boundary making. Ethnic and Racial Studies 31: S. 1025-1055.