Enabling Difference: Articulations, Forms and Contexts of Cultural Sovereignty in the 20th Century

The research projects on the 20th century investigate the central topic of the treatment of otherness and inequality by analysing discourses and practices of cultural sovereignty. Cultural sovereignty refers to the forms and strategies of self-articulation employed by individuals, religious communities, social and ethnic groups, and also collectives which constitute a nation-state to define their own distinctiveness. The concept of sovereignty is released from its close connection with the state and made accessible for the analysis of modes of thought and behaviour employed for cultural self-definition. These modes of thought and behaviour increasingly traversed, undermined and relativized nation-state boundaries. The projects will investigate the extent to which forms of cultural sovereignty were accompanied by constructions of identity and alterity which contained the recognition and tolerance of difference as well as efforts towards the strategic exclusion, marginalization or even complete eradication of otherness.

Discourses and practices of cultural self-definition did not emerge for the first time in the 20th century. However, in that century they developed a unique dynamic and relevance. On the one hand, the traditional conflicts between state and religious claims to sovereignty within the states of Europe continued into the 20th century. While the Christian churches continued to attempt to claim the right to interpret and regulate social and political life, new fields of conflict emerged between the authority of states and non-Christian religious life-worlds as a result of migration flows into Europe and in the context of colonial rule overseas. On the other hand, in the 20th century the nation-state model prevailed as the dominant form for the organization of polities worldwide. The crisis experiences of two world wars and the dissolution of the European colonial empires, which defined the 20th century, served to accelerate the formation of nation-states, but also left behind a difficult legacy in the form of arbitrarily drawn borders, fragmented societies, and fragile state legitimacy. Parallel to this, processes of supranational integration, the emergence of international organizations and the formation of cross-border structures for communication and governance brought new challenges for concepts and practices of state sovereignty. In the context of these developments, the cultural realm – whether understood in a universalist or particularist, secular or religious, elite or popular way – was particularly suitable for non-state actors seeking to mark and elevate differences, or to transcend them. In the 20th century, culture in all its forms no longer served as an exclusive resource of state sovereignty. In the form of active propaganda and as informal "soft power", it was strategically utilized in new ways. Additionally, self-definition through culture started to be used as a political resource, to be claimed as a human right and also to be of academic interest, particularly in the second half of the 20th century.

The research area is thus based on a broad understanding of contemporary history, which covers the period from the dissolution of the European empires in the aftermath of the First World War to the end of the Cold War. The individual projects investigate the trans-border mechanisms, ideas, institutions, media, networks and practices of cultural self-articulation, as well as the tense relationship between various forms of cultural sovereignty and cosmopolitan attitudes. Of particular interest are process of Europeanization in their secular and religious contexts.

The work of the research area is divided into the following modules: