Research Projects at Freie Universität Berlin

Chinesische Frauen inner- und außerhalb diasporischer Netzwerke. Formen wirtschaftlicher Wiederaneignung und der Aufbau neuer sozialer Netzwerke

Post-Doc Project

Dr. Ximena Alba Villalever (Post-Doc, Ehem. Promovierende)

Institutions: Institute for Latin American Studies
Field/Area of work: Cultural and Social Anthropology of Latin America
Subject group: Law, Economics and Social Sciences
Start: 2017
End: 2019
Status: Completed

Christliche Sexualität(en) in säkularen Zeiten

Dissertation

Márcia Elisa Moser

Institutions: History and Cultural Studies
Institute/Seminar: Institute of Religious Studies
Field/Area of work: Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (HU Berlin)
Subject group: Humanities
Subject classification: Religious Studies
Status: Ongoing
Homepage 2: gender.hu-berlin.de

Constructing Masculinities: A Gendered Ethnography of the Conflict in Southern Thailand

Dissertation

Dr. Rutch Streicher

Institutions: Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
Field/Area of work: Political Sciences/ Gender Research
Subject group: Law, Economics and Social Sciences
Start: 2009
End: 2014
Status: Completed
Short description: Thailand has undergone several waves of violent uprisings in its southern Malay Muslim provinces, with a renewed insurgency starting in late 2001. What decisively sets this renewed wave of violence apart from earlier insurgencies is that young men constitute the bulk of the perpetrators. Although only little is known about their motives, it is clear by now that attacks are often targeted either at state institutions or at people – quite often Muslims – accused of collaborating with the state. The main puzzle informing this research project is: why young men? How and why do young Malay-Muslim men get involved in groups carrying out violent attacks? From a gender-theoretical viewpoint, the analytical focus is shifted to issues of power and identity, towards an understanding of the power processes behind the construction of ‘female’ and ‘male’ identities. The research-question is thus transformed into: How are youthful masculinities constructed in the context of conflict in the South of Thailand? And where do violent practices come into play? These questions are considered in relation to gendered conflict dynamics using ethnographic field research methods in one specific Southern Thai community.

Constructions of Gender in Contemporary British Shakespeare Productions

Dissertation

Marie Menzel

Institutions: Philosophy and Humanities
Institute/Seminar: Institute for English Language and Literature
Subject group: Humanities
Status: Ongoing
E-mail: marie.menzel@fu-berlin.de

Contesting Queer Liberalism in Brazil: Transnational Culture Wars and Political Homo-/Transphobia

Dissertation

Alrik Schubotz

Institutions: Institute for Latin American Studies
Institute/Seminar: International Research Training Group 'Temporalities of Future in Latin America'
Field/Area of work: Political Sciences
Subject group: Law, Economics and Social Sciences
Subject classification: Political Science
Start: 2019
End: 2022
Status: Completed
Keywords: Brazil; Resurgent religion; Gender and sexuality; Securitization; Transnational fields
Short description: Dominant approaches in constructivist International Relations (IR) research fail to adequately account for the current resistance to and contestation of identity politics. Instead, empirical studies centering on compliance display a bias towards “good” global norms and the agentive capacities of Western liberal democracies. This thesis challenges constructivist understandings of norm diffusion by analyzing the contestation of identity politics in Brazil. Based on a genealogical account of moralisitic securitization, I begin by tracing the historical formation of the political opposition to identity politics in Brazil. Proceeding with a focus on the transnational embeddedness of religious politics, I analyze relational configurations at the growing intersection of the political and religious fields that explain the increasing political influence of religious actors. In order to better explain the complexities and scope of the traditionalist dynamics unfolding in response to identity politics in Brazil, I then triangulate the previous two approaches with theoretical insights IR scholarship has recently gained from the norm contestation framework.
E-mail: a1rik@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Coping with Polygamy in Indonesia: Women’s Strategies to Seek Social Security in Unregistered Islamic Polygamous Marriages

Dissertation

Theresia Dyah Wirastri

Field/Area of work: Babylonian Medicine
Subject group: Humanities
Subject classification: Islamic Studies
Funding: Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
Start: 2013
End: 2018
Status: Completed
Short description: The discourse on polygamy in Indonesia is ever present and the practice causes controversy between people debating the pros and cons. While Islamic polygamous marriage in Indonesia is legal under certain conditions, it is frequently practiced informally creating many instances of unregistered polygamous marriages. Accordingly, Muslim women who live in unregistered polygamous unions have no legal rights to marital property in case of divorce or death of the husband. This insecure position of second, third or/and fourth wives living in unregistered polygamous marriages raises the question why women are willing to submit themselves to such an insecure situation? Is it based on religious convictions, are they afraid to remain single, or are they simply in love with someone who is already taken? Does legal insecurity actually mean economical and social insecurity in practice? Nevertheless, it is not my intention to take sides in the ideological debate between most women organizations making a plea for abolishment of the practice, and most Islamic fundamentalist groups in Indonesia in support of it. Instead, I am concerned with the experiences and strategies of the women in the legally and - perhaps also - socially vulnerable position of a wife in an unregistered polygamous marriage. This research attempts to unravel how appeals on Islamic norms, state norms, and more universal norms and values, including love, loyalty and parental responsibility are applied strategically (or emotionally) by all actors involved in marital clashes surrounding the marital property. Besides that, my research will assess whether polygamy is part of a wider contestation of the State’s authority in establishing Islamic norms. After the fall of Soeharto (1998) the issue of polygamy is especially apt to explore to what extent the state authority in Islamic matters is contested from within Indonesia’s Muslim society. This research is part of the socio-legal domain, combining legal analysis with sociological and anthropological approaches. The starting point of the research is a legal one: the disadvantaged legal position of women whose polygamous marriage has not been registered. The legal analysis is followed by sociological and anthropological field research, which assesses the consequence of this weak legal position and the strategies that women employ to cope with them.
Publications: http://lbsopac.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/DB=30/CMD?ACT=SRCHA?IKT=6068&SRT=YOP&TRM=1103709414

Created to Bleed: Blood, Women´s Bodies and Gender in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine

Research Project

Dr. Ulrike Steinert (Post-Doc)

Institutions: History and Cultural Studies
Institute/Seminar: BABMED - Babylonian Medicine
Subject group: Humanities
Funding: The Wellcome Trust, London
Start: 2011
End: 2013
Status: Completed
Keywords: Antiquity; Art of Healing; Body; Cross-cutting Issue Gender; Cultural Anthropology; Ethnomedicine; Gender Studies; Greek Antiquity; History of Medicine; Human Medicine Interdiscilinary; Mesopotamia; Woman; Women
Short description: The research project to be carried out during a two-month guest stay at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA) at the University of Oxford, aims at a reanalysis of the notions connected to female blood in Mesopotamian medical cuneiform texts of the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE. The researcher intends to write a study that elucidates the Babylonian healers' ideas and knowledge relating to female bleeding, in relation to cultural evaluations attached to bodily discharges in medical and other texts (e.g. myths, rituals). The study will show how views of female blood tie in with broader cultural concepts about the gendered body and human nature. The research will depart from previous studies by proposing a culture-specific conception of female bleeding in Mesopotamia differing from the notion of menstruation developed in the Hippocratic medicine - as a regular phenomenon restricted and essential to women's bodies. Integrating the textual and historical evidence with anthropological analyses of menstruation in non-Western cultures, the study will stress the ambivalent meanings attached to female bleeding in Mesopotamia, while shifting away from an overemphasis on notions of impurity and pollution, often regarded in current Assyriological research as decisive for Mesopotamian views on female blood.

Cyborgs, Bildträgerinnen, Plot-Maschinen: Figur-Ding-Beziehungen in Constance- und Flore-Erzählungen

Dissertation

Antonia Murath

Institutions: Philosophy and Humanities
Institute/Seminar: Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature
Field/Area of work: Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies
Subject group: Humanities
Subject classification: Literary Science
Start: 2018
Status: Ongoing
E-mail: amurath@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Homepage: geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de

DAAD-Projekt: Gender Equality in Egyptian Higher Education

Research Project

Prof. Dr. Margreth Lünenborg, Prof. Dr. Brigitta Schütt, Dr. Barbara Sandow

Institutions: Margherita von Brentano Center
Subject group: Women and Gender research
Funding: DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) mit Mitteln des Auswärtigen Amts
Start: 2012
End: 2014
Status: Completed
Staff: Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Kairo, Universität Alexandria, Universität Sohag, South Valley Universität, Ägyptisches Ministerium für Hochschulbildung
Keywords: Gender research, gender equality, gender studies, gender justice, diversity, higher education, Egypt, transformation partnership
Short description: The project aims to establish a transnational dialogue on gender equality and to develop and implement gender equality measures at Egyptian universities. It is a cooperation between Freie Universität Berlin and the Egyptian universities Cairo, Alexandria, Sohag and South Valley as well as the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education. Activities include the establishment of gender equality centers, mentoring visits, workshops on equal opportunities, a summer school on gender and diversity management, and the development of a living handbook for gender equality offices.
Homepage: fu-berlin.de

DARÜBER SPRECHEN – Prävalenz, Prädiktoren und Auswirkungen von sexueller Aggression unter Jugendlichen: Eine Längsschnittstudie mit drei Messzeitpunkten

Dr. Isabell Schuster

Institutions: Education and Psychology
Institute/Seminar: Primary Education
Subject group: Law, Economics and Social Sciences
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Status: Ongoing

Chinesische Frauen inner- und außerhalb diasporischer Netzwerke. Formen wirtschaftlicher Wiederaneignung und der Aufbau neuer sozialer Netzwerke arrow_forward

Christliche Sexualität(en) in säkularen Zeiten arrow_forward

Constructing Masculinities: A Gendered Ethnography of the Conflict in Southern Thailand arrow_forward

Constructions of Gender in Contemporary British Shakespeare Productions arrow_forward

Contesting Queer Liberalism in Brazil: Transnational Culture Wars and Political Homo-/Transphobia arrow_forward

Coping with Polygamy in Indonesia: Women’s Strategies to Seek Social Security in Unregistered Islamic Polygamous Marriages arrow_forward

Created to Bleed: Blood, Women´s Bodies and Gender in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine arrow_forward

Cyborgs, Bildträgerinnen, Plot-Maschinen: Figur-Ding-Beziehungen in Constance- und Flore-Erzählungen arrow_forward

DAAD-Projekt: Gender Equality in Egyptian Higher Education arrow_forward

DARÜBER SPRECHEN – Prävalenz, Prädiktoren und Auswirkungen von sexueller Aggression unter Jugendlichen: Eine Längsschnittstudie mit drei Messzeitpunkten arrow_forward

Chinesische Frauen inner- und außerhalb diasporischer Netzwerke. Formen wirtschaftlicher Wiederaneignung und der Aufbau neuer sozialer Netzwerke

Christliche Sexualität(en) in säkularen Zeiten

Constructing Masculinities: A Gendered Ethnography of the Conflict in Southern Thailand

Constructions of Gender in Contemporary British Shakespeare Productions

Contesting Queer Liberalism in Brazil: Transnational Culture Wars and Political Homo-/Transphobia

Coping with Polygamy in Indonesia: Women’s Strategies to Seek Social Security in Unregistered Islamic Polygamous Marriages

Created to Bleed: Blood, Women´s Bodies and Gender in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine

Cyborgs, Bildträgerinnen, Plot-Maschinen: Figur-Ding-Beziehungen in Constance- und Flore-Erzählungen

DAAD-Projekt: Gender Equality in Egyptian Higher Education

DARÜBER SPRECHEN – Prävalenz, Prädiktoren und Auswirkungen von sexueller Aggression unter Jugendlichen: Eine Längsschnittstudie mit drei Messzeitpunkten