SFB 1482:  Studies in Human Categorization

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences ; Humanities
• Term: since 2021
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442261292

The aim of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) is to study a fundamental cultural and social phenomenon: the perpetual categorical differentiation by and of humans. This occurs, e.g., according to nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, achievement, sexual orientation, etc. Thus, societies accumulate their own ethno-sociologies according to which they can classify their ‘human material’ (Simmel 1908) and provide them with their social affiliations. The CRC lays claim to research organizational, fundamental theoretical, and societal relevancy. First, from a research organization perspective, the CRC aims to consolidate existing specialized studies, which, thus far, are themselves fragmented by the very same human categorizations, bringing them together in a new comprehensive field of ‘Studies in Human Categorization’. Second, the pivotal fundamental theoretical term of 'Humandifferenzierung' serves a twofold purpose: the first is to dissolve the reifying concept of human attributes, replacing it with the investigation of differentiation processes; the second is to bring entangled, competing, and mutually distorting social affiliations to light. Within this work of reconceptualizing human categorization, the CRC will not, however, study only the differentiation of humans from one another, but also the ontological external differentiation of humans from other entities and artefacts, which is strongly tied to internal differentiation. Third, the CRC is societally relevant because its subject matter is readily amenable to global societal issues of our time: Not only is human categorization societally relevant in general, but currently, due to economic, political, and cultural globalization processes in which, e. g., national and religious differentiation is being revitalized worldwide and migration flows are promoting ethnic diversification, human categorization has gained contemporary saliency. Overall, the CRC pursues three aims: the comparative, analytical, and theoretical study of human categorization. It will consider the aspect of comparison via comprehensive empirical studies into the comparative parameters, interrelations, and specifics of human categorization processes. Further, by analyzing the interplay between these processes and other forms of social and societal differentiation, the CRC aims to identify constellations and mechanisms within which human categorization is stopped in its tracks, oftentimes with far-reaching consequences both for societies and their humans. Lastly, the CRC’s goal is to formulate a general theory of human categorization determining its socio-cultural function. This theory will aim to specify why human categorization happens in the first place and what social conditions drive or diminish it.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Current projects

• A01 - Coloristic Human Categorization. Fair Skin in- and outside of Africa (Project Head Krings, Matthias )
• A02 - Disability Performance as Human Categorization: Performances of Deviance and Merit in Historic Perspective (Project Head Wihstutz, Benjamin )
• A03 - Sexual Human Categorization and Disability. The Construction of ‘Disabled Sexuality’ and Sexual (Dis-)Ability (Project Head Boll, Tobias )
• A04 - Successful Aging: Best Agers at the Intersection between Differentiating Age and Achievement (Project Head Banerjee, Mita )
• A05 - Staging Differences. Mis-en-scène and interference of human categorisation in contemporary theatre (Project Head Kreuder, Friedemann )
• A06 - Curated Bodies: Aesthetic Human Categorization and Bodily Differentiation in Magazines (Project Head Scheiding, Oliver )
• B01 - Cognitive Human Categorization. The Situative Ebb and Flow of Relevant Categorization (Project Head Imhoff, Roland )
• B02 - Contouring and Blurring of Linguistic Human Categorization: Rwandan or Burundian? (Project Head Nassenstein, Nico )
• B03 - Cognitive Human Categorization. The Situative Ebb and Flow of Relevant Categorization (Project Head Dizdar, Dilek )
• B04 - Providers and Recipients of Help. Human Categorization between Solidarity and Sorting in Brazil and Portugal (Project Head Drotbohm, Heike )
• B05 - Legal-Bureaucratic Human Categorization in the Postwar Period. From “Displaced Persons to “Refugee” (Project Head Friedrichs, Anne )
• B06 - Migration and Welfare States in the USA: Global and National Dynamics in Bureaucratic Human Differentiation (Project Head Schäfer, Ph.D., Axel )
• C01 - Linguistic Human Categorization: Drawing Boundaries between Humans and Animals in Discourse, Lexicon, and Grammar (Project Head Nübling, Damaris )
• C02 - Zoological Categorization of Humans: Behavioral Sciences in the Context of Decolonization and Disciplinary Establishment (Project Head Paulmann, Johannes )
• C03 - Pandemic Human Categorization. Proxemic Shifts in Virally Exposed Sociality (Project Heads Hirschauer, Stefan ;  Paulmann, Johannes )
• C04 - Urban Control Regimes. Railway Stations as Infrastructure of Human Categorization (Project Head Schabacher, Gabriele )
• C05 - Mechanical Human Categorization. Technical Knowledge and the Ethnosociology of Robotics (Project Head Kalthoff, Herbert )
• C06 - Posthuman Dedifferentiation? The technological enhancement of Human Bodies (Project Head Dickel, Sascha )
• T - Theory of Human Categorization I: Typology and Relevance (Project Head Hirschauer, Stefan )
• Z - Central administration (Project Head Hirschauer, Stefan )
• Ö - Responsive Scientific Communication: Transfer, Dialogue, and Resonance Monitoring (Project Heads Boll, Tobias ;  Dickel, Sascha ;  Krings, Matthias )

• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Participating Institution: Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Stefan Hirschauer