Coercion and Recognition. Socio-Anthropological and Theological-Ethical Challenges in Dealing with Psychiatric Disorder.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Braun
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2017 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 379684348

Recognition is considered to be one of the key concepts for a comprehensive as well as theoretically sophisticated description of human life forms. Answers to questions - who are we, who is respected under which conditions, who is allowed to speak up and whose voice is heard or to whom will be granted which rights under which constraints - are considered to be the result of recognition procedures. Yet, phenomena of psychiatric disorder can be grasped as a paradigmatically example on how fragile and occasionally precarious procedures of recognition are. To some extent as a litmus test for the capacity of a theory of recognition, the study explores the question how the relationship between recognition and the use of coercion to promote the wellbeing of persons in vulnerable circumstances can be conceived. Thereby, the study elaborates how fundamental the vulnerability of corporal self-referencing is imprinted in the negotiation of claims for recognition. Following the concept of concrete ethics, such theoretical considerations are continuously entangled with the urging question how a foundational layer for the development for ethical as well as legal orientation markers in dealing with compulsory treatment in terms of psychiatric disorder could be developed

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants