Diversity, Power, and Justice: Transcultural Perspectives

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Franziska Dübgen; Professorin Dr. Ina Kerner
• Subject Area: Political Science ; Practical Philosophy
• Term: from 2015 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 276062266

Constructivist theories of justice are increasingly characterized by a transnational focus, and hence claim validity for human beings irrespective of their sociocultural and geopolitical background. Nevertheless, it is predominantly European and Anglo-American scholarship that dominates the academic debate on justice. The hermeneutical horizon of this discussion therefore remains limited, as it primarily draws on experiences stemming from metropolitan spaces within industrialized, secular modern countries. Against this backdrop, this research project aims at broadening the normative justice debate. It looks at alternative intellectual traditions in order to respond to the global diversity of experiences of injustices. It particularly focuses on theories of justice from postcolonial contexts in the global South that have hardly been taken up in the German-language academic literature so far: the South African justice grammar of Ubuntu, and Arab-Islamic debates on justice in the Maghreb. The research project will operate in close dialogue with academics from collaborating institutions in South Africa, Tunisia, and Morocco. On a methodological level, this transcultural approach aims at contributing to the emerging research fields of Comparative Political Theory and Postcolonial Political Theory.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants