Disintegration Processes Research Group: Theory and Practice

Against the backdrop of great pressure of change, modern societies have seen the emergence of a dynamic of integration/ disintegration, in which problems of access, participation and belonging associated with recognition deficits lead to fear and experiences of insecurity, exclusion etc. In certain circumstances, these may find expression in destructive activities and regressive phenomena that are potential threats to a humane society and liberal republic. The object of the Disintegration Processes Research Group at Bielefeld is to investigate and analyze important problem areas, through a cluster of 18 interlinked projects, which at identifying measures capable of increasing the integration potential of modern societies. More concretely, its research is concerned with the long-term structural and developmental preconditions of violence; the growing insecurity and recognition deficit in the workplace; the legitimation of social injustice and associated negative images of the other; group conflicts among young people and xenophobic discrimination; social stigmatisation through notions of the enemy and the alien; status anxiety and the sense of threat; and changing processes of norm creation in the wake of accelerated social change.
The research group's various projects are thus concerned with the resulting unresolved requirements of integration, flagging threats to the central values of civil society and identifying problematic and potentially destructive phenomena, from the justification of ideologies of inequality and social difference through xenophobic attitudes, ethnic and cultural conflict, to far-right violence. The conference offers an opportunity to present and discuss the research group‘s most significant findings, and is open to all.