Habits revisited
Max Weber and Alfred Schütz conceptualize actions and intentionality as conscious and reflective processes. Behaviors such as less-than-conscious habits are excluded from the concept of action. By referring to Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, Schütz's interpretative paradigm is expanded and new forms of intentionality are made fruitful for phenomenology. On this basis, a video interaction analysis was developed that takes into account the special content of visual-bodily behavioral expressions. It makes it possible to go beyond the classic interaction model of two human actors and the restriction to the content of their consciousness. This approach is therefore increasingly suitable for the analysis of bodily functional relationships between humans, objects and animals.
Human-machine and Human-animal-relationships
At present, animals and technology are increasingly equated with humans and their ability to act is regarded as equal. The historian Barbara Duden has prominently demonstrated that humanization always goes hand in hand with the coding of male and female. This also applies to animals and technology when they are anthropomorphized. Numerous aspects of human-animal and human-machine-relationships are analyzed in the field.
In teaching
In teaching, the department provides an overview of current methodologies and methods of qualitative social research. Tailored to the specific requirements in social work, selected methods are applied and discussed together. The idea of inquiry-based learning is pursued by supporting students in developing and implementing their own project ideas.
