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Research

The focus of the research area lies on the one hand on the theoretical examination and discursive reconstruction of social conflicts and processes of violence, and on the other hand – focused on individuals – on research on experiences of violence and trauma, their respective consequences and ways of overcoming these. This contributes to uncovering the significance and effect of conflict, violence and trauma on identity formation and subjectivisation processes.

Conflict areas and processes of violence are thus always viewed from at least two perspectives:

1. from the perspective of the historical reconstruction of the cultivation of violence, of the continuance of structural violence and of the maintenance of “symbolic forms” of conflict as labelling processes into self and other in images of the enemy and – more generally stated – in the construction of the “other”;
2. from the perspective of an individual-focused examination, theories of trauma and trauma experience come to the fore, as does the individual living through and the (shared) experience of the shaking of relations to self and the world – under consideration of the significance of the narrative, memory, adaptation and transmission of the trauma (e.g. trans-generational transmission, secondary consequences of trauma).