Research Aims

Research under the heading of “Society” examines European history from the perspective of human coexistence. It enquires into changes, continuities and ruptures in social ideas, practices and orders over a period of more than five hundred years, from the early modern period to the present. Historical variants of coexistence in different parts of Europe are analysed both comparatively and in terms of transfer between them. Particular attention is paid to European relations with other regions of the world, which have always had an impact on European conditions. The cultural-historical approach encompasses all dimensions of the coexistence of people and groups (social, political, legal, ecological-economic, cultural, etc.) and thus also ties in with the focus on “Religion”. 

Societies are dynamic and interconnected: rather than being closed, homogeneous structures, they are subject to change over time. On the one hand, change stems from differentiation. This concerns the demarcation of large groups from one another and the affiliation of people to estates, denominations and religions, professions, genders, classes, nations or digital filter bubbles. However, this also includes everyday practices that people use to differentiate themselves and others. These include, for example, practices of the body as well as clothing, language and communication, deference and stigmatisation, forms of work and family relationships, all of which are historically determined. On the other hand, almost all societies are characterised by different forms of mobility. Social, cultural and spatial movements give rise to social change, and social change in turn triggers mobility, for example in the form of labour migration, flight and displacement, tourism, gain or loss of social status, the exchange of roles between official and private persons or the change of party affiliations.

These dynamic processes of mobility and differentiation presented societies with challenges by reinforcing social, cultural and political boundaries and conflicts, and by questioning patterns of order. However, they also facilitated new connections across internal and external social boundaries. Analytically, the various forms of social togetherness, antagonism and coexistence can be summarised as conviviality and examined historically. Following on from the research on mobility and differentiation carried out in the previous programme, the question of conviviality, which will be made the focus of research interest in the coming years, represents both a conceptual expansion and a shift in perspective. The question is not so much why certain societies functioned or failed because or in spite of differentiations and mobilities, but rather how European societies of the modern era managed these fundamental and inherent processes of transformation at different times and in different historical contexts. Historical research thus assumes an actor-centred perspective and seeks to understand the changeability, the conditions of possibility and the diversity of forms and practices of social coexistence – also with a view to the history of contemporary Europe.
 

Key Research Topics for 2024/2025

A number of projects investigate the relationship between conviviality and minorities. The groups to be focused on include Anabaptists and Jews in the early modern period, members of foreign “nations” in the major trading centres of early modern Europe, migrants and diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, revolutionary refugees in the nineteenth century and the so-called Ruhr Poles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The status, scope for action and social participation of such minorities, which emerged from processes of differentiation and mobility, are particularly fertile in allowing conclusions about the specific historical manifestations of conviviality to be drawn.

A second key topic is the question of conviviality in post-war societies. As an extreme case of human coexistence, wars have always presented societies with particular challenges. Religious and civil wars as well as wars of conquest waged with expansive intent raised questions about the future relationship between victors and vanquished, victims and perpetrators, reparation, forgetting and remembrance. Post-war societies had to create new foundations for conviviality. These connections will be analysed in a long-term perspective, ranging from the Iberian and Ottoman expansions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the early modern religious wars to the Second World War and its aftermath (displaced persons, reparations).
A third key topic addresses Europe’s relationship to other regions of the world and revolves around the question of global conviviality and asymmetries of power. Among other things, it will examine how colonialism and imperialism, but also the activities of international organisations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, influenced ideas and practices of conviviality in different regions of the world.

A fourth key topic deals with the effects of technology and engineering on human coexistence and will address attempts to create a “new man” in the industrial age qs well as optimism and criticism of technology in the 1970s and 1980s. This key topic links up closely with the projected focus on “Environment”.

Finally, beginning in 2024, the application to continue the Collaborative Research Centre 1482 “Human Differentiation” (first phase running until December 2025) will be prepared together with Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, with a stronger historical perspective for the second phase. This endeavour will be supported by the planned compendium This endeavour will be supported by the planned compendium "Menschen unterscheiden. Historische Zugänge zur Humandifferenzierung" (Distinguishing People. Historical Approaches to Human Differentiation).