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.

MA International Criminology
Program director: Prof. Dr. Christine Hentschel

Professional MA in Criminology
Program director: Prof. Dr. Christine Hentschel

Doctorate in Cultural and Global Criminology (DCGC)
Local Coordinator: Dr. Nils Schuhmacher, email: nils.schuhmacher@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)

Caring for the Future: Architectural Heritage, Vulnerability and Collectivities
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann
- Project duration: 3/2022 - 8/2024
- Funded by the German research foundation (DFG)

Socio-technical systems of anticipatory truth verification in the field of airport security
- Project management: Dr. Bettina Paul and Prof. Dr. Torsten H. Voigt
- In cooperation with Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
- Project duration: 2021 – 2024
- Funded by the German research foundation (DFG)

Situational Awareness: Sensing Security in the City
- Project management: Prof. Dr. Christine Hentschel and Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann
- Project duration: 6/2020 – 8/2023
- Funded by the German research foundation (DFG)

Evaluation study on the work of Legato, a counseling center in Hamburg offering exit support and counseling for people affected by religious radicalization

project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann / Dr. Nils Schuhmacher
project time frame: 1 Mar 2017 – 31 Jan 2018
sponsored by the Pestalozzi Association

Predictive Policing: An ethnographic study of new technologies for predicting crimes and their consequences in police work

project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Krasmann
project time frame: Jan 2017 – Dec 2018
sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation

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” (VESPER^plus)

project management: Dr. Bettina Paul
development: Dipl. Soz., Dipl. Krim. Christina Schlepper and Dipl. Soz., Dipl. Krim. Christian Wickert, M.A.; Simon Egbert, M.A.
project time frame: Sept 2011 – Aug 2014
sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research

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

Doctorate in Cultural and Global Criminology (DCGC)

local coordination: Dr. Nils Schuhmacher

Common Study Programme in Critical Criminology (CSP)

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.