The SFB short film:

About property in transition and the work of the SFB.

This film is the work of Catharina Göldner and Katharina Hamann.

The members of the Collaborative Research Centre in summer 2023

Image: Marlen van den Ecker

Welcome to the website of the Collaborative Research Centre TRR 294 "Structural Change of Property"!

The Collaborative Research Centre pursues the goal of investigating the fundamental structural change of property that could be observed at the latest since 1989.  The Collaborative Research Centre contains a total of 23 subprojects at five locations in Germany: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Sprecher*innenhochschule), Universität Erfurt, Freie Universität Berlin, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Technische Universität Darmstadt.

While private property has gained in importance worldwide since 1989 under conditions of increasing concentration and deregulation, the resulting property system has proved to be both crisis-prone and highly controversial in the face of new economic, political and technological challenges. It isn´t challenged only by the global financial and economic crises, but also by political conflicts over the appropriation, distribution and containment of private property, as well as by the dynamics of the knowledge and bio-economies, which are linked to alternative concepts of common property, shared use and free access to resources.

News

The SFB in the media

Felix Krämer (A02) was interviewed by Deutschlandfunk in the program “Systemfragen” about the history of debt in the USA. With reference to the abolition of slavery, he explains how the property relations of that time still have an impact today and how government austerity measures also in Germany contribute to their further entrenchment.

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Looking back on the time with Mercator Fellow Klaus Bosselmann

The legal scholar Klaus Bosselmann from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) was a Mercator Fellow at the SFB in June. At the Jena Social Theory Colloquium, he gave a lecture on "Beyond Property: Trusteeship for the Earth". In addition, a workshop on "Private property and public commons - narrowing the gap" was organized with him.

In the new episode of our SFB podcast appropriate, you can listen to Klaus Bosselmann's abridged lecture and a subsequent interview.

 

New publication!

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath and Qian Zhao (C01) have published a new book. The anthology East Asian Ethical Life and Socio-Economic Transformation in the Twenty-First Century. The Ethical Sources of the Entrepreneurial Renewal of Companies and Communities looks at ethical culture in East Asia, examines the impact it has had on economic and social transformation, and explores what impact it might have on solving current problems. It also looks at cooperative enterprises and corporate social responsibility.

Call for Papers

For the conference "Gender, Nature and Ecology. Articulating the political-intellectual traditions of French and German ecofeminism in a global perspective" which is co-organized by Susanne Lettow (C02), contributions are sought. The conference will take place from October 7 to 8, 2024 in Paris and Anna Saave (University of Freiburg), former member of the CRC, will give a keynote speech. The PDF with more information is available here.

To the News archive...

Events

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Volkshaus; Jena

International Annual Conference "Beyond (Private) Property"

At the conference in Jena, we will discuss different forms of ownership that cannot be reduced to private property - which is dominant in modern societies - and ask about possibilities for organizing social relations in a non-property form or beyond private property.

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Universität Erfurt; Erfurt

Workshop: From Contested Ownership to (In)Voluntary Returns: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Postcolonial Fight for Restitution and Repatriation

The interdisciplinary workshop aims to reassess the fight for repatriation and restitution by bringing together questions of ownership and voluntariness that are addressed in the Collaborative Research Center “Structural Change of Property” (Universities Erfurt and Jena) and the DFG-Research Group “Voluntariness” (Universities of Erfurt, Jena and Oldenburg). Focusing on questions of ownership, the workshop will examine how activists have tried to contest Western notions of ownership in the debates on repatriation and restitution and how Western museums and collection have reacted towards these efforts. The workshop will take place with our Mercator Fellow Flower Manase. 

To the complete schedule of dates...

An overview of the most important events of the Collaborative Research Center is available here.