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Department of Social Sciences
Departmentof Social Sciences

Photo: UHH/Hentschel

Criminological Social Research

In April 2025, the subject area of criminological social research was integrated into sociology after the MA program in International Criminology was phased out.

This page provides an overview of research projects in criminological social research between 2010 and 2025. This page will not be updated.

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

International support for doctoral and early career researchers