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FOR 1101:  Organised Bodies of Violence

Subject Area Humanities
Social and Behavioural Sciences
Term from 2009 to 2017
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 71062747
 
Subject of the Research Unit is the study of violent groups or social networks, which emerged and stabilised themselves successively within social and political environments. According to the scope of the research project, these groups are defined as “Organised Bodies of Violence”. Thus, the study does not focus on types of coercive force exercised by systems of rule, which could clearly be classified as “stately” or “public”, resp. “governmental”, but types of violence, which are constitutional for the self-conception and social reproduction of said groups.
The focus is set on direct physical violence, exercised or threatened, rather than on abstract forms of authority or force. The Research Unit assumes that such incidences are not, or at least not solely, to be seen as arbitrary outrage of amorphous violence. Instead, the exercise of violence is believed to follow distinct rules and patterns. These patterns do not only apply to the actors, they also tie the groups, which use these types of violence to a specific role within (or outside of) the overall societal structure they are surrounded by.
The Research Unit explores the subject from a historical perspective. Specific examples are to be compared on a regional and diachronical basis. The scope extends from ancient to medieval history and early modern times up to the history of the 19th and 20th century. Core areas are Western, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as South-West and East Africa.
Topics of interest are the structure of groups, which exercise violence or define themselves by means of it and the way they operated within their social environment. Secondly, the function, motivation and legitimisation of violence within these groups are to be studied. Thirdly, the way these groups cultivated their own image is to be examined, as well as how they were perceived by their contemporaries. Furthermore, a view upon the historical and political setting these groups operated within is to be included into the study as well. A closer look will finally be taken at the limits of violence and on the way groups coped with violent behaviour and the consequences of it. Hence, the study’s layout combines micro- and macrohistorical perspectives as well as phenomenological and aetiological approaches.
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