Research
The profile initiative “Violence and Security” at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo) spans in three research fields.
A first field explores emerging landscapes of security and international peace orders. The graduate programme Democratising Security in Turbulent Times, funded by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg as part of a state-wide research funding scheme (Landesforschungsförderung) from 2020-2024 explores the challenges of democratic security politics in times of fundamental transformations. In the project Conflict and Cooperation at the Climate-Security Nexus (CLICCS B3) we contribute to the cluster of excellence on Climate, Climatic Change and Society at the University of Hamburg with an analysis of the multifaceted interactions between climate change and dynamics of insecurity and resilience. The project Situational Awareness: Sensing Security in the City, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), investigates contemporary security strategies against the backdrop of unforeseeable dangers such as terrorist attacks on urban grounds. The project International Police Missions: Foreign Experts in Conflict-Affected States, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), sheds light on the role of police experts as global governors.
A second field focuses on the analysis of narratives of insecurity and the radicalisation of public spheres. Works revolve around apocalyptic narratives articulated in global climate activism and – in very different ways – in the protests against the corona measures or in far-right movements. In addition, we are concerned with the destabilisation and polarisation of national public spheres in which extremists radicalize themselves and others through tactics of digital information warfare and commit verbal and physical acts of violence, also beyond the digital space (Cooperation with SNF-Loughborough University). Finally, we investigate the meta narrative of the myth of war and peace with the project The Myths of War and Peace in Practices of Global Governance of Disarmament (CONACYT/CSS).
A third field deals with contested norms, principles and rights in global conflicts. These include, especially, politically and geographically sensitive regions where, as part of CLICCS we study contested climate justice. In International Relations, research on norm contestation has shed light on new security actors whose practices contribute to the transformation of violence. Studies in the context of the ‘Women, Peace and Security’ agenda on the transgression of the prohibition of sexualized violence against women and girls in wars have shown that the inclusion of affected stakeholders in the formulation of new security strategies generate sustainable impact on countering sexualized violence. We are also interested in how and why particular ideas of legitimate and illegitimate forms of violence enter humanitarian law, and how humanitarian law, in turn, affects these ideas and the exercise of violence itself. Finally, a project submitted to the German Research Foundation aims to understand what the destruction and the reconstruction of architecture means for the self-understanding of societies and the emergence of communities.