Prof. Dr. Stefan C. Aykut

Photo: Jonas Albrecht
Professor of Sociology, Mercator Endowed Chair on the social dynamics of ecological transformation
Address
Office
Office hours
Tuesday 14-15h, Von-Melle-Park 5, Room 2144 or by appointment. For office hours in August 2024, please contact us by e-mail. Please try to book an appointment here first. If no suitable appointment can be booked or if there are any problems, please contact us by email (transformationdynamics@uni-hamburg.de).
Contact
Curriculum Vitae of Prof. Dr. Stefan Aykut for download here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My time at the University of Hamburg began in May 2017 with an assistant professorship in sociology focusing on ecological crises and conflicts, before I was appointed to the Mercator Chair of Sociology in 2023. Previously, I studied social sciences, political science and history of science at the FU Berlin, Sabanci University Istanbul and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Paris (EHESS). I did my PhD at EHESS in 2012 on the topic "How to govern a new global risk? The construction of climate change as a public problem in Germany and France, at the European and global level". This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Lisis, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée and stays as a visiting researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the TU-Berlin and at the Centre Marc Bloch of the HU Berlin. In 2019, I have been awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize for early career researchers of the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The central theme of my research and teaching is to understand how modern societies engage with global ecological problems - especially climate change. On the one hand, I am interested in how ecological crises are interpreted scientifically, dealt with politically and how they trigger dynamics of social change. On the other hand, I am investigating how ecological transformations lead to new social conflicts, but also new forms of social coordination, which link different societal actors, governance levels and arenas, and dimensions of authority (political, private, epistemic).
Empirically, my research focuses on global climate governance, ecological transformation processes, and the institutionalization of global ecological boundaries in different social spheres, such as financial markets and national legal systems. Conceptually and methodologically, it is characterized by a combination of political sociology, environmental sociology, science and technology studies and ethnography.