SFB 1482:  Studies in Human Differentiation

• 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 SFB 1482 HUMANDIFFERENZIERUNG 2 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

• D01 - Cognitive Human Categorization II: The influence of individual beliefs on the ebb and flow of cognitive differentiations (Project Head Imhoff, Roland )
• D02 - Reflexive Human Categorization. Self-Problematisations of Sexual and Gendered Belonging (Project Head Boll, Tobias )
• D03 - The Self-formation of Categorial Entrepreneurs in Zine Media (Project Head Scheiding, Oliver )
• D04 - Acting as a Profession. Historical Conjunctures of Human Differentiation in Actor Training, Artist Marketing, and Theatres in the 20th Century (Project Heads Kreuder, Friedemann ;  Voss, Hanna )
• D05 - Differentiating Consumers: Categories of Human Differentiation in Food and Migration Discourses in Twentieth-Century U.S. Consumer Capitalism (Project Head Schäfer, Ph.D., Axel )
• D06 - Theater in competition. Diversity as a criterion for cultural funding (Project Head Husel, Stefanie )
• E01 - Successful Aging: Best Agers/Best Places. Successful Aging and Spatial Human Differentiation (Project Heads Banerjee, Mita ;  Gehrmann, Ruth )
• E02 - Human differentiations of the audience. Inclusion and exclusion through practices of addressing and segregation in contemporary theater (Project Head Wihstutz, Benjamin )
• E03 - Translation and inclusion. Practices of administrative audience differentiation (Project Head Dizdar, Dilek )
• E04 - Mobility types. Infrastructural Human Differentiation in Urban Traffic (Project Head Schabacher, Gabriele )
• E05 - European refugees between South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Self- and external categorisations in contested spaces of the twentieth century (Project Head Friedrichs, Anne )
• E06 - Status and Mobility in Welfare: Human Differentiation in Brazilian Social Programs for Poverty Alleviation (Project Head Drotbohm, Heike )
• E07 - Religion and Ethnicity. Transatlantic Mobility and Human Differentiation in Colonial Spanish America (Project Head Weller, Thomas )
• F01 - Becoming Human, Being Human: Human Differentiation and Conviviality – From the Present into Prehistory (Project Heads Paulmann, Johannes ;  Wilckens, Malin Sonja )
• F02 - Entangled Differentiations. European-African Constructions of the Category ‘Pygmy’ (Project Heads Krings, Matthias ;  Nassenstein, Nico )
• F03 - Linguistic Status Differentiation in Polynesian Societies (Project Head Völkel, Svenja )
• F04 - Reclassification and negation of difference through language policy in post-genocidal Rwanda (Project Head Nassenstein, Nico )
• F05 - Of Nonpersons and Human Defective Specimens: On the Linguistic Construction of Childhood and Disability (Project Head Nübling, Damaris )
• F06 - Machine De/Differentiation. Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education and the Digital Gaming Industry (Project Heads Dickel, Sascha ;  Kalthoff, Herbert )
• T - Theory of Human Categorization II (Project Head Hirschauer, Stefan )
• WIKOehemÖ - Responsive Science Communication II. Resonant Spaces: Encounters and Exchanges between Knowledge Forms and Diverse Publics (Project Heads Boll, Tobias ;  Dickel, Sascha ;  Krings, Matthias ;  Wihstutz, Benjamin )
• Z - Central administration (Project Head Hirschauer, Stefan )

Completed projects

• A01 - Coloristic Human Categorization. Fair Skin in- and outside of Africa (Project Head Krings, Matthias )
• A05 - Staging Differences. Mis-en-scène and interference of human categorisation in contemporary theatre (Project Head Kreuder, Friedemann )
• C03 - Pandemic Human Categorization. Proxemic Shifts in Virally Exposed Sociality (Project Heads Hirschauer, Stefan ;  Paulmann, Johannes )
• C05 - Mechanical Human Categorization. Technical Knowledge and the Ethnosociology of Robotics (Project Head Kalthoff, Herbert )

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