Sociological Theory

Profile of the Research Unit

The Research Unit of Sociological Theory is dedicated to the critical discussion, dissemination and further development of the discipline's broad inventory of Social Theory and the Theory of Society. It follows the conviction that a Social Theory discourse that is limited to the interplay of different schools and paradigms falls short. Rather, this discourse is embedded in current social challenges of society, as well as to the study of social processes in their collective and individual processing and is empirically rooted through participation in interdisciplinary research contexts at university. In line with the University of Kassel's strong focus on innovation and transfer, the further development of sociological concepts and theories as tools for thinking is to be combined with the reflection of design opportunities and the development of new approaches to solving social problems at different levels of social action. Among the social challenges to which the Research Unit Sociological Theory pays particular attention are questions of post-digital life politics, sustainability, global justice, digitalisation and democracy.

Head of the Unit

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Website of the Project "datenoekonomien.net"

The BMBF project „Datenökonomien: Verbraucherverhältnisse und Geschäftsmodelle“ ("Data Economies: Consumer Relationships and Business Models") uses two examples of data-economy platforms to examine how they differ in terms of their market form, value exchange relationships, organisational structure, sociality, promise of co-determination, and personalisation technology, and which consequences this may have for self-determination on these platforms.

Website of the Project "datenoekonomien.net": More (German)

Post-Digital Life-Politics

With the thematic focus "Post-Digital Life-Politics", the Research Unit Sociological Theory combines questions at the interface of digitality, sociality and sustainability. Post-digitality refers to a state in which digitality and sociality have become so intertwined that they are difficult to separate as distinct spheres. New questions thus arise for politics of living and the possibilities of alternative practices and their structuring (with reference to A. Giddens' concept of life politics). The program is based on anthropological and neo-pragmatic theories of contemporary French philosophy (including L. Boltanski and L. Thévenot: On Justification, B. Latour: Modes of Existence, P. Descola: Beyond Nature and Culture). From a (political) ontological and practice-theoretical perspective, it explores the question of alternative ways of living and cosmologies. These alternatives can or should lie beyond a productivist naturalism (keyword: modern industrial society) and an emerging digital analogism (keyword: cybernetic control society).

Post-Digital Life-Politics: Read More

Agenda Future-Oriented Consumer Research

Initiated by the spokesperson of the coordination committee of the Bundesnetzwerk Verbraucherforschung (Federal Network for Consumer Research), the Research Unit of Sociological Theory at University of Kassel is organizing an agenda process for future-oriented consumer research. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection and based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.

Agenda Future-Oriented Consumer Research: Read More

Social Theory Lab/Reading Group on the Theory of Society

This mixed event is a permanent institution of the Research Unit Sociological Theory. The workshop is open especially to students in their final semesters (BA and MA) as well as to PhD students who wish to discuss the theoretical framework, the research design or to work together on empirical material of their theses, dissertations or projects. Master's students writing their master's thesis in the field of Sociological Theory can treat this event as a master's colloquium.

50% of the sessions are designed as a joint reading circle. In these sessions, recent works are discussed from which Sociology may hope for impulses for the further development of Social Theory. In the summer semester 2024 we will read the following book (the purchase of which is strongly recommended):

Whitehead, Alfred North (1979): Prozeß und Realität. Entwurf einer Kosmologie. Berlin: Suhrkamp

The event is held in German.

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