FSP 4: Research projects

Jennifer Ramme

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Individual Fellowship at the University of Graz (Austria) and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (Poland). Start: August 2024. DOI 10.3030/101152829

REBYOUTH deals with Women*, Queers, Black People and People of Colour (W*-Q-BPoC) in dissident youth movements and alternative music cultures from the late 1970s of late state socialism to the early 1990s in Poland, taking into account cross-border connections and transfers.

The focus is on the investigation of intersectional dissident/cultural practices, support infrastructures and collisions with dominant social, cultural and political regimes. The extent to which a concept of intersectional critique can be utilised in the context of state socialism will be examined.

The objectives of REBYOUTH include mapping the history of W*-Q-BPoC dissidence and cultural heritage with a focus on music in the broader context of independent, alternative culture; recording life stories and oral histories of W*-Q-BPoC actors; analysing intersectional dissidence and collisions of sensitive orders and developing a concept of intersectional critique.

The project aims to contribute to the recording and preservation of the cultural heritage of W*-Q-BPoC actors and movements. The research results will be published on the project website and as open access publications in order to make them available to the actors of the movements/cultural scenes, the interested public and the research community. You will soon find the link to the website here.

Zorica Siročić (Ongoing habilitation project)

Siročić's habilitation project examines innovative and atypical aspects of political action as they manifest themselves in the sense of "doing politics" in unnoticed contexts, forms and tactics. In particular, she examines the ways in which activists creatively play with, invent, imitate or disseminate strategies, tactics and frameworks for political action, and how they combine these aspects with an affective charge capable of surprising their opponents and audiences. In this project, Siročić uses a conceptual framework that draws on otherwise disparate fields of social science research, including political sociology, the sociology of creativity and the sociology of gender. Combined with an empirical focus that includes under-researched activist forms of post-socialist gender politics such as third-wave feminism, postfeminism and antigenderism, Siročić's habilitation project promises to offer original analytical concepts for understanding contemporary social and political phenomena (e.g. 'contentious gender politics', 'tactical activist repertoires', see publications). As part of her habilitation project, she is currently editing the special issue "Creative Protest: Creativity, Politics & Social Movements" and is preparing a manuscript in which she analyses why and when anti-gender movements fail.

Sponsor: FWF Elise Richter Fellowship
Project leader: Muriel Blaive (supported by Prof. Libora Oates-Indruchová)
Duration: 2022-2026

Project description: When communism fell in Czechoslovakia, contemporary observers rejoiced in the feeling that the newly liberated country was “returning to Europe.” Capitalism and democracy had triumphed, and the winds of history seemed to be blowing in the direction of progress and collective happiness. On the surface, the Czech case is a stunning success: the country in the socialist camp with the highest rate of communist party members per capita became an exemplary transitional state and a member of the EU within fifteen years. In reality, this façade conceals a divided society when it comes to dealing with the communist past. Therefore, the Czech case is an interesting example of what to do and not to do in matters of punishment and recognition, history and memory, justice and injustice.

This project aims to write the history of this coming to terms with the past from 1989 until today. It is based on the assumption that a deep knowledge of the communist past is necessary in order to fully understand the country's politics of remembrance after 1989. The following aspects are relevant: what to do with the various social actors (lustration, legal restitution measures, laws relating to the past); how to deal with the documents (archive policy, epistemology); how to write the history of communism (historiography); how to remember this period (memory research). All these aspects are discussed in their mutual interaction from an interdisciplinary perspective

Two research questions guide the project: How representative is the seemingly dominant anti-communist narrative of society's attitude towards the communist past? And if justice was the goal of the post-communist project, why was the category of “crime against humanity” not used in the effort to bring justice concerning the crimes of the past dictatorial regime?

The corpus of sources to be analyzed comprises primary sources (political, legal and archival documents, oral interviews, policy papers from non-state actors such as NGOs) and secondary sources (academic literature, newspaper articles, feature and documentary films, novels and testimonies). This literature requires theoretical knowledge in history, sociology, political science, anthropology, gender studies, and transitional justice studies. The aim of this project is to bring these disciplines in interaction in order to create a more comprehensive picture.

Duration: March 2020 - 2022

Project description: In this project, an international research team investigated the effects of the lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis on families with schoolchildren. The measures adopted by European governments to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic brought dramatic changes to daily routines. Families with school-age children or with children who were normally cared for in daycare centres faced new challenges, such as working from home with simultaneous childcare. This project analysed temporal arrangements in couples with school children in 7 European countries.

Sponsor: Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HORIZON 2020)
Project leader: Ana Kladnik (supported by Prof. Libora Oates-Indruchová)
Duration: March 2023 - February 2025 / Since March 2025: University of Maribor

Project description: This project deals with the history of East-Central Europe (ECE), focussing on non-state actors and voluntary associations in particular. It challenges the common view that Western Europe (WE) and the Atlantic world are the authentic cradle of associations and a proper and healthy civil society (such as the US, often labelled as the 'nation of associationists') and interprets voluntary associations in the CEE as a variation rather than a deviation from a unique but universal WE and Atlantic model. Recent studies on associational life in ECEs suggest that established theoretical dichotomies such as state/non-state, state/civil, public/private need to be overcome, arguing that voluntary associations always actively interacted with and contributed to shaping the political context (Giomi/Petrungaro 2019). This study attempts to revise these theses by focussing on one particular voluntary association, the Voluntary Fire Brigades (VFD), which have existed in the ECE almost continuously since the mid-19th century under democratic, authoritarian and dictatorial regimes alike. Focusing on a social history from below and transnational connections, this research will explore the ways in which political ruptures from the end of the First World War to the end of the Cold War in ECE changed the membership structure and gender politics of VFDs and how VFDs interacted with political ruptures and responded to social inclusion and exclusion along gender lines. The project covers the territory of present-day Austria, Hungary and Slovenia, more precisely three regions: Burgenland, Vas and Prekmurje, where the concentration of VFD is the highest in the world. By attempting to counteract the marginalisation of volunteering in the social history of ECE and ECE in the global history of voluntary associations, the project contributes to the current debates on gender equality and equal participation in the European Union. 

Elisabeth List Fellowship (University of Graz)

Project duration: January 2022 - September 2024

Collaborators:

Prof Libora Oates-Indruchová, Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Local Senior Fellow

Dr Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová, Department of History, Charles University, Czech Republic, Incoming Senior Fellow

Assoc. Prof. Věra Sokolová, Department of History, Charles University, Czech Republic, Incoming Senior Fellow

Elisabeth Pedersen, BA MA, Incoming Junior Fellow

Aleksandra Fila, MA, Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Local Junior Fellow

Public Lecture Series (Info)

Project description: This project examined current approaches to everyday creativity and its gender aspects with a special focus on the post-socialist Central, Eastern and Southeastern European region. Two senior and two junior fellows worked on their individual projects within this framework. The two senior projects explored the connection between space and (spatial) creativity as a narrative medium of social criticism and political action in post-socialist countries, and creativity in producing textiles as narrative.

Funding: Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development (APPEAR) 

Project duration: 2017 - 2020

Project description: Following an invitation from the Islamic University Gaza (IUG), the Institute of Sociology at the University of Graz entered into an academic partnership with the IUG with the overarching aim of promoting women's empowerment and gender equality in Gaza. The Academic Partnership grant from the APPEAR programme allowed the IUG - Uni Graz team to develop the preconditions for establishing a structured programme in women’s and gender studies at the IUG: university infrastructure (Women’s Studies Center embedded in the university’ structure), human resources (a core group of staff and postgraduate students educated in gender studies), material resources (a reference library, teaching materials) and awareness of gender issues within and outside of the university (a network of university staff, NGOs and employees of governmental organizations who attend events organized by the Women’s Studies Centre).

Funding: netidee (Internet Privatstiftung Austria)
Project duration: December 2017 - December 2018
Team: Univ.-Prof. Dr Libora Oates-Indruchová (head), Jana Mikats, MA
TU Graz: Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr techn Wolfgang Slany (project management)

Project description: The research team Sociology of Gender at the Department of Sociology partnered the project lead from the Graz University of Technology. The project aimed to support girls in stimulating their interest in game coding by providing individual online mentoring. The University of Graz conducted a gender evaluation of the mentoring process.

The project was awarded the special prize “Closing the Gender Gap” by netidee.

LINK

Funding body: FWF
Project duration: 01.04.2012 - 30.9.2014
Project manager: Angelika Wetterer
Employees: Gerlinde Malli, Susanne Sackl, Elisabeth Zehetner

Completed research report: After Bologna: Gender Studies in the entrepreneurial university

Project description: The project focuses on the new gender studies degree programmes that have been established in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1997. The aim is to reconstruct the processes of implementing gender studies and to analyse the interplay of institutional and intellectual dimensions.

Using qualitative methods, the project aims to gain insight into (1) which knowledge, which theories, methods and areas of application of gender studies find their way into the new degree programmes and are thus identified as relevant academic gender knowledge, (2) which negotiation processes precede and accompany the implementation of gender studies on site, (3) which actors are involved, and (4) how the reform imperatives of the entrepreneurial university and the 'Bologna' reform are reflected in the current teaching form of gender studies.

The project is part of the trinational research network "Entrepreneurial Universities and Gender Change" and is being carried out in cooperation with the ZIFG (TU Berlin) under the direction of Prof Sabine Hark.

Funding body: Trinational D-A-CH research funding programme of the DFG, FWF and SNF
Project duration: 01.04.2012 - 30.02.2015
Spokespersons: Sabine Hark, Johanna Hofbauer

Participants: Ilse Costas (University of Göttingen), Sabine Hark (TU Berlin), Johanna Hofbauer (WU Vienna), Heike Kahlert (LMU Munich), Julia Nentwich (University of St. Gallen), Birgit Sauer (University of Vienna), Angelika Wetterer (KFU Graz)

Project description: The European academic landscape is undergoing a far-reaching reorganisation in which universities must reposition themselves under competitive conditions. The restructuring processes have far-reaching consequences for the organisation of universities, the working conditions of academic and non-academic employees and the production of academic knowledge. The employment situation of women and men, the production of knowledge on gender and the institutionalisation of gender research, but also gender policies at universities are affected. The international research network "Entrepreneurial Universities and Gender Change" analyses this development from an international comparative perspective (Germany - Austria - Switzerland).

In the fields of work, organisation and knowledge, the projects in the network focus on these restructurings and ask, on the one hand, to what extent these fields are being shaped in a way that is related to gender and, on the other hand, how the shaping of work, organisation and knowledge affects gender.

Funding body: Rectorate of the University of Graz
Project duration: 1 November 2012 - 31 December 2013
Project management: Tanja Paulitz
Staff members: Melanie Goisauf (since April 2013), Susanne Kink (until April 2013), Sarah Zapusek

Project description: The qualitative sub-project focusses on the embedding of work-life balance on a structural and symbolic level (guiding principles and values in science), as well as on the level of social and epistemic practice in science. What guiding principles, availability expectations, mobility strategies or planning uncertainties do academics have in mind, and how are these reconciled with other areas of life? What hurdles have to be overcome? What (good) solutions are found? The project investigates how different ideas of science and different types of scientific work practice also have different effects on the WLB of scientists.

The qualitative sub-project is integrated into the priority programme "WLB-KFU" under the direction of Dr. Barbara Hey, Coordination Office for Gender Studies, Women's Studies and the Advancement of Women. In the WLB-KFU priority programme, a university-specific concept of work-life balance is being developed with the involvement of those affected and managers.

March 16th, 2023, 10-13
Emma Rees (University of Chester)
Autoethnography as Feminist Activist Methodology

March 23rd, 2023, 10-11:30
Louise Platt (Manchester Metropolitan University)
A Manifesto for Walking Mums: Walking and Worlding

April 20th, 2023, 10-11:30
Sarah Wilson (University of Stirling)
The importance of creativity in methods and representation in qualitative research

April 27th, 2023, 10-11:30
Noora Pyyry (University of Helsinki)
The role of methods and data in nonrepresentational research

May 25th, 2023, 10-11:30
Vera Sokolová (Charles University, Prague | Elisabeth List Fellow at Graz)
Spatial Creativity as a Method: Intersectional Feminist Approaches to Collective Memories of Trauma

June 1st, 2023, 10-11:30
Barbara Grabher (University of Brighton)
Events, Audiences and Experiences: An Ethnographic, Feminist Proposal

April 28th, 2022, 10:00:
Louise Platt: Researching Creativity, Creatively Researching: Women, Walking and Placemaking(PDF)

May 12th, 2022, 17:00:
David Gauntlett: Unlocking Creativity (PDF)

May 19th, 2022, 10:00:
Dianne Koenker: A Socialist Way of Selling: Gender and Consumer Culture in the Soviet 1960s(PDF)