International

The Institute of Sociology pursues broad and sustainable internationalization. This is initially based on existing partnerships, particularly within the framework of the Erasmus program. In addition, the Institute of Sociology actively pursues collaborations that explicitly enable a perspective that goes beyond the European framework and are effective on three levels: exchange of students and teachers, team teaching within the framework of cooperative seminars and research  collaborations.

Since 2013, the Institute of Sociology has had a cooperation with the North West University (Campus: Potchefstroom & Mafikeng), Republic of South Africa, funded by the DAAD's ISAP program. Cooperation that was expanded in 2017 thanks to Erasmus + funding. The exchange of students (BA and MA) and lecturers began in 2014 and takes place regularly in the summer semester (incomings) and winter semester (outgoings). The institute has had a focus on Southern Africa in research and teaching for around 30 years, so far with an emphasis on the topics of AIDS and hospice research. Annual excursions with students have been taking place for about the same length of time and have been taking place primarily to Botswana for about ten years, and this year to South Africa.

There has also been a cooperation with the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago since 2015 and a student and training partnership funded by the DAAD since 2019.

Thanks to funding from the DFG in 2017 to 2018 to establish a binational cooperation on the topic of “Local articulations of the interconnection of global inequality and decolonial perspectives”, an international research network was created in this context, involving colleagues from Macquarie University, the University of Leeds Beckett and Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. An international workshop took place at JLU in April 2017 and another took place at UWI in spring 2018. The student exchange on the B.A. and Master level has been initiated since 2016 and has been expanded by ISAP. A further collaboration is currently being set up with the Australian universities of Macquarie (Sydney) and Monash (Melbourne).

Workshops took place at both universities in the summer of 2017. In both cases, the perspective is not only to aim for jointly responsible research projects, but also to extend the cooperation to the exchange of students. A follow-up workshop with Monash University will take place at JLU in the summer semester of 2018. Initial co-teaching activities have been agreed with colleagues from Macquarie University.

The institute is also in contact with universities in Russia (Kazan Federal University), Poland (University of Łódź), Latin and North America as well as in the Caribbean in accordance with its research and teaching priorities and is systematically expanding these relationships. There is a regular research exchange in the field of discourse analysis with the Institute of Sociology at the University of Lodz (Poland) and an exchange at staff level with the Institute of Philosophy, Journalism and Mass Communication at the Federal University of Kazan.

This process of active internationalization pursued by the Institute of Sociology follows the idea that social and cultural studies are fundamentally only possible from an international perspective in the present globalized and digitalized social spaces. This is of course even more true when reflecting on the transformation of cultures. Neither  research nor teaching  can rely solely on internal social perspectives. Rather,  what is required is a research-practical and  didactic inclusion of the dimension of globalization both at the level of social and cultural interaction and with regard to the enforcement of dispositifs, concepts and practices of social domination and cultural hegemony. On an everyday practical  level, the collaborations serve to  raise cultural awareness and impart  experience.