The 10 most recently published documents
Organic agriculture in Java, Indonesia, has been historically intertwined with social movements that struggled for more economically, ecologically, culturally, and socially sustainable agriculture. While these grassroots movements emerged under an authoritarian government that showed little interest in organic agriculture, the turn of the 21st century saw the rapid involvement of the Indonesian government in supporting, regulating and, arguably, commodifying organic agriculture. Institutionalization triggered diverse responses from competing organic actors, reflecting their different standpoints and knowledges. In this context, a transdisciplinary approach is deemed suitable to provide context-specific insights into organic agriculture.
This dissertation draws on anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore the politics of knowledge of organic agriculture in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, as a contribution to a critique of transdisciplinarity. My interest on the hierarchization of different knowledges is inspired by the work of anthropologists of knowledge that asks how the communities they study construct knowledge and how they themselves construct knowledge about these communities. Since transdisciplinary knowledge is co-produced by science and society and reflects their embedded power relations, transdisciplinary research needs to be open to different interpretations, and reflexive towards the unequal distribution of resources, accountability, and responsibility. By linking these two lines of thought, I examine the making of knowledges through reflexive transdisciplinary work. I reflect on how “epistemic living space” (Felt 2009) and “co-presence” (Chua 2015) affect research and shape the politics of knowledge of organic agriculture in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I argue that the hierarchization of different knowledges of organic agriculture was intertwined with my shifting positionalities, as a field researcher in Indonesia and PhD student at Passau University, as I moved between these two different “field sites”.
This cumulative dissertation is divided into two parts. In Part I, “Knowledge in the making”, I present my contributions towards transdisciplinary knowledge production and politics of knowledge of organic agriculture. Part II, “Publications”, comprises the three stand-alone papers. The first contribution is my formulation of the notion of knowledge in the making. The second is my exploration of the ways that reflexive transdisciplinary work, and living and intersubjective experience shape knowledge in the making. The third is my demonstration of how an understanding of knowledge in the making sheds lights on the politics of knowledge of organic agriculture. This approach serves to examine the politics involved in synthesizing the conceptualizations of organic agriculture employed by different actors into one overarching narrative, such as sustainable agriculture or alternative agriculture. My final contribution is the notion of transdisciplinary moments, a conceptualization of transdisciplinary research practice that accounts for the politics of knowledge in which both scientific and extra-scientific actors are embedded. As a conclusion, I share the lessons learned from pursuing a PhD as a cumulative dissertation in an unstructured setting within a German–Indonesian research project on Indonesian organic agriculture. Finally, I identify bodies of literature and strands of thinking for future engagement within transdisciplinary research and discuss their potential to contribute to radical change in the institutional and value structures of contemporary academia.
In the ongoing 21st century, low- and middle-income countries will face two health challenges that are thoroughly different from what these countries have been dealing with in preceding centuries. First, they are confronted with surging rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and second, climate change will take its toll and is predicted to cause catastrophic health impairments and exacerbate chronic health conditions further. Both will pose a disproportionate health and economic burden on low- and middle-income countries, which are also the countries least able to cope with them. By threatening individual health and socioeconomic improvements, and by putting an immense burden on already constrained health care systems, they impede the progress in poverty reduction and widen health inequities between the rich and the poor.
Against this background, this thesis investigates the potential of NCD prevention and treatment measures in the context of Southeast Asia, with case studies in Indonesia. Specifically, it seeks to understand what kind of health interventions have the potential to be (cost-)effective considering the cultural background, lifestyle, health literacy and health system capacities in the region. Further, this thesis analyzes the interplay between NCDs and climate change and assesses the financial burden that both might pose in the decades to come. Hence, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of how the two health challenges of the 21st century, NCDs and climate change, can be addressed in the context of Southeast Asia and offers insights into what type of health policies and interventions can play a supportive role.
Diese Monographie schildert die Lebensgeschichte des Malers Friedrich Dürck (1809 Leipzig – 1884 München) von seiner familiären Herkunft über seine künstlerische Ausbildung, sein familiäres und soziales Leben bis zu seinem Tod. Ein weiteres Kapitel trägt die zeitgenössische Rezeption seiner Werke zusammen und setzt sie in Bezug zur Porträtmalerei des 19. Jahrhunderts. Seine Malweise und seine Sujets werden kritisch analysiert. Ein Werkverzeichnis wurde anhand von Originalen, Nachbildern und literarischen Quellen unter den Rubriken Porträt, Genre und Landschaft erstellt. Seine Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Wandgemälde, Studien, Ölskizzen und Drucke wurden auch auf dieser Weise erfasst. Ebenso wurden die von ihm erstellten Kopien und die nach seinen Originalen angefertigten Nachbilder kritisch verzeichnet.
Vergeschlechtlichte Ungleichheiten in der Wissenschaft sind seit langem bekannt und bestehen trotz aller Gegenmaßnahmen fort. Gender Gaps zeigen sich nicht nur in der universitären Personalstruktur, sondern auch in der Wissenschaftspraxis: Akademische Leistungen von Frauen erhalten oft weniger Anerkennung. Hierfür hat sich die Bezeichnung Matilda-Effekt etabliert. Dieser Beitrag nimmt die für die Reputationsverteilung zentrale Praxis des Zitierens netzwerkanalytisch in den Blick und fragt, ob es in der deutschsprachigen Humangeographie einen Gender Citation Gap gibt.
Teaching Journalism Literacy in Schools: The Role of Media Companies as
Media Educators in Germany
(2023)
German journalism is facing major challenges including declining circulation, funding, trust, and political allegations of spreading disinformation. Increased media literacy in the population is one way to counter these issues and their implications. This especially applies to the sub‐concept of journalism literacy, focusing on the ability to consume news critically and reflectively, thus enabling democratic participation. For media companies, promoting journalism literacy seems logical for economic and altruistic reasons. However, research on German initiatives is scarce. This article presents an explorative qualitative survey of experts from seven media companies offering journalistic media education projects in German schools, focusing on the initiatives’ content, structure, and motivation. Results show that initiatives primarily aim at students and teachers, offering mostly education on journalism (e.g., teaching material) and via journalism (e.g., journalistic co‐production with students). While these projects mainly provide information on the respective medium and journalistic practices, dealing with disinformation is also a central goal. Most initiatives are motivated both extrinsically (e.g., reaching new audiences) and intrinsically (e.g., democratic responsibility). Despite sometimes insufficient resources and reluctant teachers, media companies see many opportunities in their initiatives: Gaining trust and creating resilience against disinformation are just two examples within the larger goal of enabling young people to be informed and opinionated members of a democratic society.
Die vorliegende Forschungsdokumentation stellt die in einer Studie ermittelten Bildtypen auf Covern des Compact-Magazins detailliert mittels der ikonographisch-ikonologischen Analyse vor. Vor dem theoretischen Hintergrund des populism by the media kann aufgezeigt werden, dass sich in der visuellen Darstellung von PolitikerInnen auf den Compact-Titelbildern sowohl Variationen in der visuellen Inszenierung der populistischen Dichotomie zwischen ‚Volk‘ und ‚Elite‘ finden als auch die rechtspopulistische Konstruktion eines ethnokulturell homogenen Volkes.
Religion can unite and divide, it can lead to a strengthening or a weakening of identity and legitimacy. Religion can stoke conflicts but it can also pacify them – within societies and in international politics. Religion endures and it can exist independently of states, it can constitute them, and it can provide new forms of states, societies, and empires. Arguably, religion shapes or even constitutes the international society of states, an aspect so far neglected in the field of International Relations. The dissertation provides a new definition of religion for International Relations and the English School in particular. Based upon this understanding of religion, the five publications presented in the dissertation provide new analytical and theoretical concepts and approaches to fill the research gap. Religion is integrated into the theoretical framework of the English School in the form of a “prime institution” and with the help of the “quilt model”. While the former expands the theoretical framework, the latter adds an analytical layer. Based upon this definition religion is also introduced as a concept (“hybrid actorness”) in Foreign Policy Analysis, opening it up to become less state-centrist and more transnational-oriented, thereby boosting its relevance considering the evolving international (global) society. In another step, the Securitization framework of analysis is expanded to include (freedom) of religion. By revisiting the publications, the dissertation is able to identify next steps in terms of avenues of research. Finally, the dissertation reveals areas of study which contribute to increasing the pertinence of IR, particularly of the English School.
Sterblichkeit und Erinnerung
(2022)
Wer von Erinnerung spricht, darf vom Tod nicht schweigen. Das Bewahren von Wissen, von Ereignissen, aber auch von Empfindungen usw. gewinnt gerade durch die prinzipielle Vergänglichkeit des menschlichen Handelns seine Bedeutung. Die Erinnerung an die Lebenswelt Verstorbener ist deshalb keine authentische Dokumentation, sondern durch gesellschaftlich tradierte Konzepte des Erinnerns (oder auch Nicht-Erinnerns) vorgeprägt. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzen sich die Beiträge dieses Bandes mit dem Verhältnis von Erinnerung und Vergangenheitsbezug im Spannungsfeld von Sterblichkeit, Tod und Gesellschaft auseinander. Mit Beiträgen von Thorsten Benkel, Ekkehard Coenen, Oliver Dimbath, Jan Ferdinand, Carsten Heinze, Matthias Meitzler, Christoph Nienhaus, Melanie Pierburg, Sarah Peuten, Leonie Schmickler, Laura Völkle, Lara Weiss und Nico Wettmann.
Gemeinsam
(2022)
Kann die Gesellschaft die hermeneutische Ungerechtigkeit gegenüber Menschen mit Lernbehinderungen abmildern? Wie stellen sich die europäischen Theater dieser Herausforderung? Wie können Künstler mit Lernbehinderungen "eine Stimme haben"? Der vorliegende Band sucht in theoretischen Ansätzen und in Interviews mit Regisseuren nach Antworten auf diese Fragen.