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EXC 2036:  Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS)

Subject Area Social and Cultural Anthropology, Non-European Cultures, Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
Ancient Cultures
History
Literary Studies
Theology
Term since 2019
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390683433
 
Why do debt bondage, forced labor, domestic servitude and sexual exploitation still exist in the modern world? Despite many attempts to abolish such forms of strong asymmetrical depend-encies (SAD), they persist to this day. Should we conclude that the Enlightenment has failed? These are the central questions informing our research. In 150 case studies on different times and regions we have studied the emergence, the prevalence and the consolidation of SAD. Drawing upon historically documented, empirical data we were able to show that (1) institutions that legitimize different types of SAD existed worldwide, in all communities we studied. This has allowed us to conclude that (2) these institutions appear to be an integral component of social orders. We need to acknowledge the fundamental importance of SAD for social coexistence to understand how societies are structured. In the first funding period, we introduced SAD as an innovative analytical tool and put it to the test in numerous case studies. Now we seek to establish “Dependency Studies” as an interdisciplinary field of research in the humanities and social sciences. Ultimately, we explore why and how forms of SAD emerged in the past, why and how they have changed over the course of time and why they have not disappeared. These issues are of vital importance for past and present societies alike. Against the backdrop of the core question what fair coexistence in the future could look like, one focus of our research is on current debates about how to deal with the burden of the past. To this end, we will study economic, political and cultural colonial legacies, but we will also collaborate with various social actors to deliberate ways in which SAD could be controlled more effectively and contained in future social configurations. The Cluster has implemented unique infrastructures with a global reach. With more than 200 researchers, approximately 100 fellows, over 250 events and around 350 publications in the last five years, we have become a globally visible and influential beacon. Intensive coop-eration with relevant institutions – not only in Europe and the Anglo-American world, but also in Africa, Latin America and Asia – has allowed us to establish an international network com-prising 24 cooperating universities and research institutions. Over the next seven years, we will continue to make consistent progress along the path we have chosen, and we will train a new generation of researchers in the field of “Dependency Studies”. We will achieve this in particular through our innovative BA and MA programs, our PhD program and our program for postdoctoral early-career researchers. The scope of our methodological and theoretical approaches, the historical depth and the geographical range of our research as well as its global perspective make us uniquely qualified to reach our goals.
DFG Programme Clusters of Excellence (ExStra)
 
 

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