Welcome to the department!Dr Angela Pohlmann and Dr Helge Schwiertz starting their acting professorshipsTwo new acting professors at the Department of Social Sciences

1 April 2025

Photo: UHH/privat

From 01.04.2025 on, Dr Angela Pohlmann will be the new acting professor for the ‘Professorship of Sociology, Globalisation, Environment and Society’ at the Department of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Hamburg. She is standing in for Prof Dr Anita Engels, who is a fellow in the DFG research unit ‘Futures of Sustainability’ in the summer semester 2025. Dr Helge Schwiertz is also a new acting professor at the Department of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Hamburg. He is standing in for the ‘Professorship of Sociological Theory’ held by Prof Dr Urs Stäheli, who has been released from the duties associated with the professorship until the summer semester of 2026 to work on the opus magnum project ‘Digitalisation of Smell: List, Molecules and AI’ funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Dr Angela Pohlmann worked as a research assistant in the department of Prof Dr Anita Engels - Sociology, Globalisation, Environment and Society - until 2023 and completed her doctorate in sociology with a dissertation entitled ‘Social practices in local renewable energy projects’. Based on ethnographic research in three community energy projects in Germany and Scotland, she investigated how know-how, symbolic meanings and material artefacts as well as conscious intentions and goals are brought together in the projects to form a social order. From 01.01.2024 - 31.12.2024 she was employed as sustainability manager at Volksbank Lüneburger Heide eG and since January 2024 she has been sustainability manager with a focus on communication at Sparkasse Lüneburg. xxx research interests are methods of qualitative social research (especially situation analysis and grounded theory), transformation towards more sustainable societies and civil society.

Dr Helge Schwiertz published his dissertation ‘Migration and Radical Democracy‘ with transcript in 2019. He was previously a member of staff at the Department of Social Sciences (subject area Sociology) and is also a corresponding member of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück. His research interests include social and political theory, theories of radical democracy, citizenship, and solidarity, social movements and urban protests, racism and migration. He leads the international research project ‘Enacting Citizenship and Solidarity in Europe »From Below«: Local Initiatives, Intersectional Strategies, and Transnational Networks‘ [ECSEuro], is co-co-speaker of the DFG network ‘Poststructuralist Protest and Movement Studies‘ (POPMAP) and a co-editor of ‘movements. Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies‘. He is also currently working his habilitation project on ‘Social Theory and Migration Research’.

The department is looking forward to the collaboration and warmly welcomes both Dr Angela Pohlmann and Dr Helge Schwiertz as new acting professors!

Further information can be found on the websites of the Professorship of Sociology, Globalisation, Environment and Society and the Professorship of Sociological Theory respectively.