Former Research Projects
Former research projects at the Department.
(Sub-page under construction, will be updated continuously.)
Dr. Maša Mrovlje (Project leader)
Disappointment: Reclaiming the Unfulfilled Promise of Resistance – RESIST
Mentor: Oliver Marchart (University of Vienna)
Duration: June 2021 – December 2022
Third-party funded by: REinforcing Women In REsearch (REWIRE) COFUND Programme, a Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions COFUND project funded by the European Commission
This project addresses the pressing question within critical theory of how we can reanimate resistance in the current climate of profound disappointment over the emancipatory potentials of contemporary democracies. The increasing influence of right-wing parties and factions, deep global socio-economic inequalities, the climate emergency and the continued disenfranchisement of already marginalised groups leave little space for hope. Theorists’ and activists’ efforts to revive the imaginaries of resistance retain a deep-seated distrust of the twentieth-century narratives of universal human emancipation. Visions of a better future, on these accounts, must remain grounded in past losses and failures that cannot be harmoniously integrated into tropes of progress and redemption. The project contributes to these efforts by inquiring into the politically transformative potential of disappointment as a constitutive part of the resistance experience. In particular, it focuses on disappointment’s ability to incite the resisters to creatively respond to the difficulties and failures of resistance. Resistance is taken to denote collective struggles against structural oppression that involve a commitment to greater justice and equality. I explore the political potential of disappointment by studying three political thinkers, whose revolutionary aspirations were significantly shaped by their experiences of disappointment – Rosa Luxemburg, Frantz Fanon and Albert Camus. I bring their insights to bear on the recent example of a popular uprising against an oppressive regime, where the initial promise of resistance ended in deep disappointment over the lack of social and political change – the Arab Spring in Egypt. The purpose is to outline how these theoretical and practical engagements with experiences of disappointment can help us confront the challenges involved in resisting oppression in the present era of political disillusionment.
The project has three interrelated sets of research objectives. Conceptually, it elucidates how the three thinkers’ disappointments help us delineate an account of resistance attentive to: a) the difficulties of sustaining political commitment in the face of failure, b) the quandaries of founding free and equal communities in the wake of liberation from oppressive rule, and c) the dilemmas of building solidarity across the divides entrenched by structural injustice. Normatively, the project explores how disappointments about past struggles can inspire our political imagination in the present and encourage us to avoid the twofold danger of utopian hope and cynical despair. Empirically, the project demonstrates the political value of disappointment on the example of the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, disclosing the resisters’ promises and failures in dealing with the challenges of resisting oppression.
The project is eminently interdisciplinary, relying on literatures from critical theory, history of political thought, history, sociology, anthropology, international relations and empirical case study. It has critical, institutional and public impact. Critically, it reveals the complexities of resisting oppression, problematises received ideas of revolutionary action, and analyses how the paralysing spectre of disillusionment can be politically tackled. Institutionally, it discloses forms of political engagement capable of establishing greater justice and equality, without replicating the existing conditions of systemic violence. In terms of public outreach, it aims to identify sustainable strategies for tackling the disenchanted disengagement from the public sphere.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Oliver Marchart (Project leader)
Agonistic Cultural Policy (AGONART) – Case Studies on the Conflictual Transformation of Cultural Quarters
Post Doc Researcher: Anke Schad-Spindler
Prae Doc Researcher: Stefanie Fridrik
Scientific Consultant: Friederike Landau (University of Nijmegen)
Duration: December 2020 – August 2022
Third-party funded by: Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank (Österreichische Nationalbank OeNB)
Dr. Meropi Tzanetakis (Project leader)
Dealing with uncertainty on anonymous online drug markets
Duration: November 2017 – October 2020
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – Erwin Schrödinger grant
This project aims to develop an economic sociological approach to understanding the social contours of anonymous drug markets. In recent years, new technological developments on the Internet allow users to proceed with illicit drug transactions with almost completely anonymous identities and locations. At the same time, supply and demand serve to self-regulate and develop a significant and growing drug market that systematically bypasses drug policy. The transformation of drug markets raises questions of governance and individual freedom of communication. It also has a significant effect on drug prevalence, harm reduction and human health. A conceptual framework for understanding this under-researched but increasingly significant phenomenon has yet to be developed. The proposed research project will address this gap by examining how social interactions of cryptomarket users resolve conditions of uncertainty in terms of valuation, competition and cooperation and thereby generate a theoretically informed and empirically grounded understanding of the social dimension of cryptomarkets. Uncertainty arises in market exchange in general, but also under conditions of illegality, and is even more present in an anonymous environment like that found on cryptomarkets.
Cooperating partners: Sveinung Sandberg (University of Oslo) & Nigel South (University of Essex)
Contact: meropi.tzanetakis@univie.ac.at
Senior Lecturer Dr. Karin Liebhart (Project leader)
Responsibility - Freedom of Expression: The World of NGOs - Information und Koordination für Stiftungen, Nicht-Regierungs- und Non-Profit-Organisationen in Österreich (FreeEX)
Duration: August 2018 – July 2019
Third-party funded by: European Union - Horizon 2020 - EACEA - Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, program: Europe for Citizens
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sieglinde Rosenberger (Project leader)
Politics of Belonging in Spaces of Conviviality. Qualitative Analysis of Biographic Narratives and Accounts of Local Space of Autochthon Muslims in Zurich and Vienna
Project fellows: Christoph Novak
Other supervisor: Matteo Gianni (Département de science politique et relations internationales, University of Geneve)
Duration: May 2016 – June 2019
Third-party funded by: ÖAW – Austrian Academy of Sciences (Docteam-grant)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSIDE the Deportation Gap - Social Membership for Non-Deported Persons
Project fellow: Noah Schermann
Former project fellows: Ilker Ataç, Theresa Schütze, Sabine Koppes
Duration: January 2015 – September 2019
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brand (Project leader)
Social-Ecological Transformation: Industrial Conversion and the Role of Labour (CON-LABOUR)
Project team members: Heinz Högelsberger, Danyal Maneka, Markus Wissen & Enrico Schicketanz
Duration: June 2018 – September 2020
Third-party funded by: Klima- und Energiefonds (KLIEN)
Establisment of the research Group Latin America
Project team member: Ingrid Fankhauser
Duration: December 2017 – June 2020
Third-party funded by: Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economy
Dr. Tamara Ehs (Project leader)
Das politische Gericht. Richterbestellung und Rechtsprechung im Vergleich
Duration: February 2018 – February 2020
Third-party funded by: OeNB – Anniversary Fund
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Oliver Marchart (Project leader)
Making Democracy. Aushandlungen von Freiheit, Gleichheit und Solidarität unter Jugendlichen
Project fellows: Nora Landkammer, Elke Rajal, Carina Maier
Former project fellow: Ines Garnitschnig
Duration: September 2017 – October 2019
Third-party funded by: Sparkling Science - a programme of Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy. Programme organisation: Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD-GmbH) - OeAD
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Saskia Stachowitsch (Project leader)
Integrating Feminist International Relations and Feminist State Theory – The Case of Gender and Military Privatization
Project fellow: Astrid Bergmann
Former project fellow: Josefa Maria Stiegler
Duration: May 2013 – June 2019
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – Elise Richter grant
Senior Lecturer Dr. Karin Liebhart (Projekt leader)
The Austrian Presidential Elections 2016: A Case study in Visual Political Storytelling
Project fellows: Petra Bernhart
Duration: February 2017 – April 2019
Third-party funded by: OeNB – Anniversary Fund
Further information: http://visualstorytelling.univie.ac.at/
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Birgit Sauer (Project leader)
MEET (Media Education for Equity and Tolerance)
Project fellows: Fanny Müller-Uri, Benjamin Opratko
Duration: December 2016 – February 2019
Third-party funded by: EU – European Union (Erasmus+ Programme)
Further information: http://meetolerance.eu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MEETolerance/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MEETolerance_EU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Affective Labor of Employment Agents Transformation of Public Services in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
Project fellows: (until May 2016): Myriam Gaitsch, Franziska Meyer, Otto Penz
Duration: April 2013 – January 2017
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
National cooperation partner: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johanna Hofbauer (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
Dr. Elmar Flatschart (Projektleitung)
Digital Participation - Kampagnensoftware
Duration: March 2018 – September 2018
Third-party funded by: FFG Innovationscheck - PLUS
Dr. Isabella Radhuber (Project leader)
Intercultural Democracies: Power and Resource Flows
Duration: September 2017 – September 2018
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship
This project unpacks the power relations that accompany (and enable) intensifying resource extraction in the intercultural democracies of the Andes. These power relations interact with biophysical (i.e. material and energy) flows, analyzed through two mining related conflicts in Cuenca Poopó (Bolivia) and Intag (Ecuador). How do these multi-scale power relations around resource appropriation in form of ecological and metabolic drivers enable or limit different groups’ democratic participation? Which competing socio-political forces and resource flows define these multi-scale power relations and vice versa? How do these power relations enable or affect intercultural democracies through indigenous groups’ democratic participation? A conceptual framework for postcolonial settings has been developed, incorporating categories of space, difference and power relations and shall contribute to specifying postcolonial political dimensions in political ecology. The categories of difference and democratic pluralism enable a better understanding of societies in postcolonial settings, particularly of intercultural democracies.
Host institutions:
• Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (Professor Sarah Radcliffe)
• Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Professor Giorgos Kallis and Professor Joan Martinez Alier)
Further information about the Erwin Schrödinger-Fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Univ.-Ass. Dr. Gundula Ludwig (Project leader)
The body of Demos
Duration: July 2015 – June 2018
Third-party funded by: ÖAW – Austrian Academy of Sciences (APART – Austrian Programme for Advanced Research and Technology – grant)
Dr. Alice Vadrot (Project leader)
Improving Biodiversity Knowledge - Conflicts & Controverses
Duration: May 2015 – June 2018
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – Erwin Schrödinger grant
This project aims at investigating the epistemic and political dimensions of emerging institutional arrangements at the interface between conservation science and biodiversity politics and policies. Specific emphasis is placed on institutional arrangements related to: 1) the integration of in-situ observation and remote-sensing, 2) the development of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs), and 3) the establishment of a global observation network for biodiversity. The project combines participant observation with semi-structured interviews and document analysis to explore the practices of legitimizing and authorizing new concepts (e.g. ecosystem services, essential biodiversity variables, biocultural diversity) emerging within international negotiation settings related to the conservation of global biological diversity.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sieglinde Rosenberger (Project leader)
Taking Sides: Protest Against the Deportation of Asylum Seekers
Project fellow: Leila Hadj-Abdou, Nina Merhaut, Sandra Müller & Verena Stern
Duration: October 2013 – October 2017
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
In cooperation with: Université de Neuchâtel, University Osnabrück
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brand (Project leader)
Practicing Values
Project fellows: Barbara Stefan
Duration: September 2014 – September 2017
Third-party funded by: ÖAW – Austrian Academy of Sciences
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wissenschaftliche Grundlagenaufbereitung zur Weiterleitung der Koordination von Mehrfachnutzungen in Wien
Project fellows: Sabine Gruber
Duration: September 2016 – January 2017
Third-party funded by: MA 18 – Department for Urban Development and Planning, City of Vienna
Univ.-Ass. Dr. Brigitte Bargetz (Project leader)
Critical Science Literacy
Project fellows: Rosa Costa, Iris Mendel
Duration: October 2015 – July 2017
Third-party funded by: Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economics – "Sparkling Science" program
emer. o. Prof. Dr. Eva Kreisky (Project leader)
Antisemitism as a political strategy and the development of democracy: the case of the Austrian Parliament 1945-2008
Project fellows: Nicolas Bechter, Karin Bischof, Marion Löffler
Duration: February 2014 – July 2017
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Dr. Katharina T. Paul (Project leader)
Making sense of vaccination policy in Austria: letting students take a shot
Project fellows: Thomas Palfinger, Lena Schoissengeyer
Duration: September 2016 – February 2017
Third-party funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – Top Citizen Science Program
Further information: http://citizenscience.univie.ac.at