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Law – gender – collectivity. Processes of standardization, categorization, and solidarity (FOR 2265/0)
The senate of the German Research Foundation (DFG) has granted the research group "law – gender – collectivity. Processes of standardization, categorization, and solidarity" during its summer meeting within the context of the DFG annual meeting in Halle (Saale) on July 4, 2017. The Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), the Free University of Berlin (FU), the University of Technology of Berlin (TU) as well as the University of Potsdam (UP), and the Europe University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder (EUV) are involved in the research group.
The interdisciplinary research group enquires into the connection between law, gender, and collectivity. Priority is given to the processes of exchange, interactions, contradictions, and ambiguities that arise where everyday, institutional, and legal practices meet. What is enquired into are the constituent and regulating functions that are an important part of the specific modes, practices, and forms of mobilization of the law, and in what kind of way gender norms and gender conditions have an effect within the examined collectives and dimensions of collectivity. In six sub-projects collectives, ideas of collectivity, and processes of collectivity are analyzed in their sociopolitical meaning, during which different dimensions of coevolution of law, gender, and collectivity are scrutinized. While looking at collectives on an average level the research group fathoms out different aggregate states and intensities of collectivity – starting with rather loose social movements, also examining manifest social groups like households and residential collectives, and furthermore scrutinizing associations and (political) organizations, from which important impulses regarding new forms of participation and sociality seem to emerge. Firstly, the research group aims at a theoretical added value for empirical research of the law and for gender studies, and secondly, wants to make an independent contribution to the understanding of the meaning of collectivity in postmodern societies in a transnational context.
Applicants (in alphabetical oder): Prof. Maja Apelt, UP; Prof. Susanne Baer, HU; Prof. Beate Binder, HU (spokeswoman); Prof. Sabine Hark, TU; Prof. Eva Kocher, EUV; Prof. Martin Lücke, FU.
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The project "Bodyrules" is sponsored within the context of the research program "Migration and social change" topic II: "Diversity and institutional change by means of immigration."
The research question of this collaborative project is how organizations in a society that is becoming more diverse by means of immigration react to changing social norms. In a comparative analysis organizations are included which are affected in particular by such a change and for which dealing with the human body is particularly relevant: hospitals, schools, and swimming pools. In these cases the dealing with the human body mirrors central social norms of the dealing among and between sexes. These norms may vary in cultures and religions and beyond that. Organizational rules, e. g. concerning swimwear, medical examination, or co-educational PE reflect social norms regarding the dealing with the body. The project examines how these social norms are mirrored in the formal and informal organizational rules, or how they are influenced by those, respectively. Thus the project deals with the questions in what way these organizational rules take a growing cultural and religious diversity in Germany into account, and which processes of inclusion and exclusion result from that. This includes the further questions which conflicts arise from all that and how these conflicts may be handled. The project is centrally based on qualitative case studies in selected organizations. The Institute of Medical Sociology and Rehabilitation Science is going to carry out case studies in three clinics: urology, childbirth, and dermatology. For practical use the organizational rules just referred to are supposed to be identified, though especially ways of the development of those organizational rules should be identified which have an effect that is most inclusive and simultaneously minimally useful for conflicts.
At the University of Potsdam, faculty of economics and social studies, the sub-project "All-male associations military and fire brigade – political interest groups and legal interventions" is set. This project is run by Professor Maja Apelt, chair of Organizational and Administrative Sociology.
The sub-project's topic is how anti-discrimination policy in all-male organizations (military and fire brigade) is interpreted, applied, or ignored as well, and changed while doing so. Particularly analyzed will be the question which players in which positions are involved in these matters in which way. Thereby the project combines approaches from sociology of law, sociology of organizations, sociology of gender, and also from field theory with each other. Methodically, analyzes of individual cases which combine qualitative organizational research with situation analysis should be carried out. The project underlies the thesis that formal laws are powerful and influence institutional fields, and reversely, the realization of the laws is subject to the institutional logics of the fields.
Apelt, Maja; Senge, Konstanze (ed.) (2015): Organisation und Unsicherheit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
The professor’s chair is partner of the research training group "Wicked Problems, Contested Administrations: Knowledge, Coordination, Strategy" (WIPCAD).