Research Project “Experiences of (In-)Security in the University Context” (UNEASE)
The armed conflict and violence in Gaza and Israel has been impacting universities worldwide, including in Germany. There are tensions and conflicts, protests and, in some cases, violent altercations. A frequently cited problem in this context is a sense of insecurity on campus and among university members. This is alarming. So far, however, it remains rather fuzzy, which experiences and situations specifically are referred to when people say that they no longer feel save. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult, on an organisational level, to respond to this problem adequately.
The aim of this research project is to investigate subjective experiences of (in)security in the university context in an explorative empirical study: What exactly do university members mean when the say to no longer feel safe in everyday university life? Who is currently experiencing changes in this regard? To what extent are experiences of insecurity intertwined with experiences of discrimination (or not)? An important overall aim is to make visible what media discourses currently tend to obscure.
UNEASE runs until spring 2025 and is funded by the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg. The research team consists of Teresa Koloma Beck and Leslie Carmel Gauditz.
Research Project ”Solidarity through Security?”
Discourses, Interactions and Practices of European Solidarity in the Field of Security” (ZUSE)
Since the beginning of 2021, the sociology team is working on the three year research project “Solidarity through Security? Discourses, Interactions and Practices of European Solidarity in the Field of Security” (ZUSE for short) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. ZUSE is a joint research project of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), the University of Tübingen, and HSU.
The objective of this interdisciplinary research project is a more nuanced and differentiated understanding of security as a guiding concept of European solidarity and cohesion. ZUSE thus also contributes to the search for more diversity-centred conceptions of security that avoid exclusionary effects and the promotion of discourses of fear. [More information on the project page]
Research Project “Emergent Norms in Corona Protests”
The measures taken by state and local authorities to contain Covid-19 infections in German-speaking countries resulted in ongoing public protests. This research project asks how shared imaginative worlds are formed in the pandemic-critical scene- how are they reproduced, transformed, or even (re)dissolved in the events themselves. In order to approach these events and the pandemic-critical scene, the project is designed as a digital political ethnography. Social media formats are examined, as well as the relevance and functionality of virtual communication media for the movement events.
The research is a cooperative project between Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (HSU) and the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS) and its archive of Social Movements. It is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (funding line Corona Crisis and Beyond). [Project output and more information on the project page]
Letzte Änderung: 2. July 2024