News

Lunch Lecture Contested Property

Silke van Dyk will give a lecture at the University of Vienna on May 21 on the question “Infrastructures in the field of tension between private and collective property: A new politics of the public?” The occasion is a lunch lecture on the book Nach dem Privateigentum.

New Working Paper online!

In this new Working Paper, we present key research results of the CRC 294 "Structural Change of Property" from the first funding phase (2021 to 2024).

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New publication!

Sofia Bianchi Mancini's paper on "Narrating Divine Property: The Case of Sacred Groves in Statian Poetry" has just been published open access.

New publication!

Maria Pfeiffer and Marco Sonnberger published a new article titled "Rushing for the gold of the energy transition: An empirical exploration of the relevance of landownership for the wind energy expansion in Germany" in Energy Research & Social Science.

Read the full article here

New publication!

Jan Dirk Harke published "Die Geburt des Eigentums", a new volume of the SFB-series, with Campus Verlag.

Event information

The projects B08, C05 and JRT06 will be hosting the workshop "Umkämpfter digitaler Kapitalismus: Neofeudalismus, Geopolitik und soziale Konflikte" on March 13 and 14 in Jena. Register via email to Florian Schadwinkel (florian.schadwinkel@uni-erfurt.de).

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We are now also on Bluesky!

You can now also find out about our events and other news from the SFB on Bluesky!

Firmly countering attacks on the freedom of research and teaching

The statement was written by a network of gender researchers in the wake of the current attacks on academic freedom and gender studies and was first published by the Gender Studies Association on February 5, 2025. The Collaborative Research Center endorses this statement and stands up for academic freedom. It strongly condemns attacks against gender researchers, but also all other scientists. You can read the full statement (in German) here!

 

New publication!

Robin Saalfeld published the article "From Renters to Investors? Residential Property and the Asset Economy in German Couples’ Lives" in Housing, Theory and Society.

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New Publication!

A collaborative effort of the first SFB funding phase has just been published in the Berlin Journal of Sociology: The special issue “StadtRaum und Eigentum”! It contains six articles from our SFB and two articles from the SFB 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”.

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Job advertisement for student assistants in the SFB

As of April 1, 2025, we are looking for three research assistants to support us in the area of website/public relations, or with the New Library of Property, or to support project C05 (“Property at Universities in Germany, England and Brazil”)! The application deadline for all positions is 16.02.2025. For further information, please see the following links (in German): Job SFB Website | Job Library of Property | Job C05

Call for Papers

We invite abstracts for a workshop on "Identity-forming consumerism and socio-ecological transformation", which will take place from October 16-17, 2025 in Erfurt. Please see here for more information (in German).

New Publication!

The recently published issue of Kurswechsel (3/2024), which focuses on “Questions of Ownership”, also includes articles by members of the SFB: Agnieszka Althaber asks, “Who owns the money in a relationship?”, Stefan Schmalz and Catalina Renč address the financialization of critical digital infrastructure.

New blogpost online!

In their new blogpost Silke van Dyk, Petra Gümplová and Markus Kip provide an insight into the commons research of the Collaborative Research Centre. Commons are a main concept in discussions about alternatives to property and non-private forms of property.

 

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Vacancies for researchers in the SFB

Our second funding phase has started and a number of research projects are offering positions for researchers (doctoral and postdoc).

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Tilo Wesche in conversation with the German Research Foundation

Tilo Wesche (A06) spoke to the GRF about the question of what rights nature has in the exkurs interview format.

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Two new podcast episodes of appropriate online!

The 17th episode of our podcast appropriate documents the book presentation by Felix Krämer (A02), who together with Matthias Ruoss presented their publications on the topic of debt in the new history of capitalism.  

The 18th episode of appropriate documents the workshop “From Contested Ownership to (In)Voluntary Returns - interdisciplinary perspectives on the postcolonial fight for restitution and reparation” and includes an interview with our former Mercator Fellow Flower Manase. 

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New blogpost online!

Helen Bönnighausen, Luzie Gerstenhöfer, Maria Pfeiffer, Marco Sonnberger and Anne Tittor have published a new blog post. It evaluates the key findings of the workshop “Energy crisis, ownership and services of general interest - the energy system in transition”. The key question is what role the ownership of energy infrastructures plays for services of general interest (in Germany).

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We will be funded for another 4 years!

It is now official: the German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved funding of over 13.4 million euros for the project of the Universities of Jena and Erfurt. Silke van Dyk will be the new spokesperson for the SFB for the next four years. More information in the FSU Jena press release.

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New publication in the book series “Structural Change of Property”

The fifth volume in the Open Acess series has been published by Campus today. Exploring the economic, sociological, and philosophical implications of property, this book titled Havings aims to overcome the conceptual and ideological limitations inherited from 19th-century debates and legal developments. The author Carsten Herrmann-Pillath (C01) introduces a new conceptual framework that substitutes the term “property” with the terms “having” and the neologism “havings”, analyzed through two dimensions: the action modes of having (appropriation, recognition, and assignment) and the structural modes of havings (possession, ownership, and property).

Cancelled: Event information

The SFB in the media

Tilo Wesche (A06) talks about two recent rulings on the rights of nature in an interview with the FAZ.

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Event information

From 25 to 26 November, the Sharing Symposium “Mit Hochschulen auf dem Weg zur sozial-ökologischen Transformation” will take place, which is organized by the transfer project Nucleus Jena in cooperation with the CRC “Structural Change of Property”, in particular the project C06. Christoph Henning, Bettina Hollstein, Tilman Reitz, Helen Bönnighausen, Malte Janzig and Jörg Oberthür will also be represented with contributions and lectures.

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The SFB-movie series Eigentum im Blick is back on October 22

As before, the series will bring the debate on property issues to the screen once a month and show a movie about conflicts over property, current dynamics of change and possible alternatives. A member of the SFB will introduce the film and be available for a discussion at the end. 

Next Tuesday, October 22, at 8 pm, we will be showing the film DAS SCHMUCKSTÜCK (France, 2010). The film will be introduced by Dirk Schuck (A03).

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Movie Lichter der Straße at DOK Leipzig

Director Anna Friedrich curated and documented the cultural programme of the Nomadism Conference, which was organized by the SFB's A03 project in July 2022. Now her documentary film is being released, in which she accompanies four women who are nomadic in Germany. The movie Lichter der Straße will premiere at the Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film.

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New publication!

Henrike Katzer, Malte Janzing, Christoph Henning, Jörg Oberthür, Hartmut Rosa (C06) have published an article in the Zeitschrift für Soziologie. In it, they examine whether and how the world relations of subjects change when property relations are set in motion. To this end, they look at practices and experiences of homesharing and analyze whether irritations and changes in relations to things, social relations and self-relations can be observed.

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The SFB in the media

SFB spokesperson Silke van Dyk (C04) writes in her guest article for Der Spiegel about the need for a strong left and the tasks it faces. In addition to defending liberal democracy, she emphasizes the need to build a social and infrastructural foundation, which includes strengthening public infrastructure as opposed to private property. She also emphasizes that criticism of the system from the left, which targets the fundamental problems of the economic and social system and thus also takes a critical view of property relations, is central.  

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New publication in the book series “Structural Change of Property”

The fourth volume in the Open Acess series has been published by Campus today. Sofia Bianchi Mancini, Helen A. Gibson, Dirk Schuck and Markus Vinzent are the editors of the volume Relating to Landed Property. The contributions in this volume engage with postcolonial critiques of land tenure and provide a much-needed contextualisation of the ways in which histories of divine possession, empire, settler colonialism, slavery and the dispossession of indigenous peoples inform contemporary practices of land tenure.

Panel “Generativität und Eigentum” (Generativity and ownership) on practical philosophy conference

Susanne Lettow (C02) will chair the panel “Generativity and Property” at the Conference on Practical Philosophy, which will take place at the University of Passau from September 19-20, 2024. Abibi Stewart (C02) will speak on the panel on “Generativity as Labor in the Context of the Global Reproductive Economy”. Helen Gibson (A02) will speak on “‘Critical Fabulation’ as a historical-philosophical method: Grand Midwives and the unlearning of propertization”. The detailed program is available here.

Call for Papers

Contributions are being sought for the journal Cultural Science, edited by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath (C01). The journal is dedicated to the study of more-than-human culture. Contributions may be critical, analytical and/or empirical. Dialogic contributions are sought that are interested in the production and translation of new ideas and new knowledge, especially across perceived and contested borders between systems, groups and identities, and academic disciplines. The PDF with more information is available here.

 

New source of the quarter in the New Library of Property

Eduardo Relly (JRT03) presents the Carta de Belém in this quarter's new source. The declaration represents an important step in the debate on the indigenous struggle for the ownership of biodiversity.

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New publication!

Silke van Dyk and Markus Kip (C04) have published an article entitled “Double Democratization and the Politics of Property in Municipalist Barcelona” in the Journal of Political Sociology. They analyze the political engagements regarding property during the reign of the new municipalist government in Barcelona.

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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.