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Department of Social Sciences
Departmentof Social Sciences

Photo: UHH/Hentschel

Criminological Social Research

Short description

Criminology at the University of Hamburg studies society from its “dark sides”, by looking at infringements, threats, and the manifold processes by which these are constructed and governed. The “extremes”, as we call acts of terror, hate crime, or refugee crises, and the political responses that follow them, render visible what constitutes the social and how it is (re)produced. This reveals genuine social processes of demarcation and differentiation, inclusion and exclusion, normalization and stabilization, and the establishment of law and order. Criminology thus focuses on questions of present and future sociality under conditions of radical uncertainty.

  • Doctorate in Cultural and Global Criminology (DCGC)
    Local Coordinator: Dr. Bettina Paul, email: bettina.paul@uni-hamburg.de

Research in Criminology

Our research in criminology revolves around emerging forms of subjectivation and collectivity in an everyday politics of insecurity and uncertainty. Building on perspectives from governmentality studies, critical security studies, affect theory, postcolonial studies, and critical border and migration studies we explore questions such as:

How do democracy and the law reinvent themselves in negotiating what counts as dangerous, problematic, or worth protecting, as well as who belongs and who does not? What regimes of truth are emerging in this age of rising authoritarianism on a global scale and how do societies bring about their own radicalization? What is the work of knowledge practices in identifying deviant and suspicious forms of behavior, threats and dangers, and ultimately in modulating social and political life? 

Research Projects

  • AI and Human Sense-making in the Law
    • Project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann
    • Project duration: 4/2022 - 3/2026
    • subproject of the research network „Meaningful Human Control. Autonomous Weaponsystems between Regulation und Reflection“, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
  • Evaluation study on the work of Legato, a counseling center in Hamburg offering exit support and counseling for people affected by religious radicalization
  • Reconfiguring Anonymity — Contemporary Forms of Reciprocity, Identifiability and Accountability in Transformation
    • sub-project: Police, Anonymity and Power
    • sub-project management and development: Dr. habil. Nils Zurawski
    • project time frame: Jul 2015 – Dec 2018
    • sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation
  • Societal and Economic Effects of New Security Measures within Ferry Traffic — Final report of the sub-project within the scope of the joint-project “Improving the Security of Passengers on Ferries” (VESPERplus)
  • Geodata, Policing, and Urban Development (pilot study)
    • project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann, PD Dr. Jan Wehrheim
    • development: Dr. Lars Frers
    • project time frame: Apr 2011 – Nov 2011
    • sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation
  • Biometrics as “Soft Surveillance”: The Acceptance of Fingerprinting in Daily Life
    • project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann, Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. em. Fritz Sack
    • development: PD Dr. Jan Wehrheim, Dipl. Soz. Sylvia Kühne
    • project time frame: Jun 2010 – Nov 2012
    • sponsored by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft)

Research cooperation

  • Reading Violent Politics: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Political Extremism in Germany Since 1968
    • principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Sarah Colvin (Cambridge),
    • co-investigator: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann (Hamburg), Dr. Katharina Karcher (Cambridge)
    • duration: Jan 2015 – Dec 2016
    • sponsored by the DAAD and the British Academy
  • Practices within Precarity                                                                                                
    • project management: Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland, Dr. Christine Hentschel (HU Berlin), Prof. Dr. AbdouMaliq Simone (MPI Göttingen)
    • duration: 2013 – 2015
    • cooperation project with the University of Hyderabad, University Houphouet Boigny, Abidjan, University of Sao Paulo, Rujak Center for Urban Studies, Jakarta 
    • sponsored by the University of South Australia

International support for doctoral and early career researchers

Out of the Dark

Out of the Dark is a new international, interdisciplinary series of lectures and workshops in the Department of Social Sciences at Universität Hamburg. It focuses on society from its “dark” sides—violence, insecurity, vulnerability, precariousness, conflict, disorder, or fear. Inspired by postcolonial studies, we reconceive criminology as a discipline that reflects upon the conditions of our times, in which uncertainty and radicalization are increasingly penetrating our lives and politics.