Research
Ongoing research projects of the department
2025-2029
CALAS joint project
In the current phase: ''Creating Horizons: Accelerations, Transformations, and Emergencies"
The Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS) is an inter- and transdisciplinary research network on social transformation processes in Latin America funded by the BMFTR. The University of Kassel is part of the network via the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos (CELA). The project pursues the following goals
- promote regionally anchored research in international research groups
- Transfer knowledge to society and politics
- Promote dialog and exchange with internationally renowned researchers
- Strengthen cooperation between science, civil society and politics - including "other forms of knowledge"
- Promote research-oriented and international networking in teaching and research
The spokespersons at the University of Kassel are CALAS Director Prof. Dr. Kristina Dietz, represented by CELA Director Prof. Dr. Liliana Gómez.
The research network "DemoReg", funded by the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts (HMWK), deals with the increasing tendencies of democratic regression. The research focuses on the question of how democratic regression manifests itself in a spatio-temporal perspective and in discursive contexts and which normative, institutional, cultural and historical dynamics underlie it. The project pursues four objectives:
(1) To identify structural deficits in political and social developments of democracy as well as potentials for strengthening democracy.
(2) The determination of concrete factors that are anchored in structures, historical path dependencies and conceptual-communicative relations of local social spaces and influence democratic processes and attitudes. In this context, we are also interested in systematic differences between spatial and settlement types.
(3) The combination of studies of democratic spaces with analyses of their temporality. Democracy cannot do without a progressive reference to the future. At the same time, in regressive times it is linked to the ideal of a past that is to be restored, which contradicts its own principles.
(4) The development of perspectives for action to strengthen democracy within the framework of transdisciplinary, participatory research together with political and social actors.
As part of "DemoReg", Prof. Kristina Dietz's department is conducting joint research with Prof. Bernd Belina (Goethe University Frankfurt), Dr. Reiner Becker (Demokatiezentrum Hessen), Prof. Eva Wegner (Philipps University Marburg) and Prof. Miguel Pellicer (Philipps University Marburg) on populist-discursive constructions of urban-rural contrasts. The aim is to reconstruct populist invocations of the country in public discourse in order to investigate whether, how and why these invocations are effective in Hessian villages. Based on the observation of global tendencies of changes in urban-rural relations in the context of democratic regression, we discuss the results of the research in an internationally comparative way
The network is part of the program "Strengthening Democracy Research Hesse" launched by the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Art and Culture, which is part of the "Immediate Program 11+1" of the Hessian state government and is funded by the Ministry.
The spokespersons are Prof. Dr. Ursula Birsl (Philipps University Marburg) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Biebricher (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Further information: https://www.uni-marburg.de/de/aktuelles/news/2025/starke-demokratie-durch-starke-forschung-hessens-neuer-forschungsverbund
The completed research projects
- August 2014 bis Dezember 2019 (abgeschlossen): „GLOCON: Globaler Wandel - lokale Konflikte? Landkonflikte in Lateinamerika und Subsahara-Afrika im Kontext interdependenter Transformationsprozesse“ (Leitung mit Prof. Dr. Bettina Engels). Gefördert durch das BMBF im Rahmen der Fördermaßnahme „Nachwuchsgruppen Globaler Wandel, 4+1“. (s. www.land-conflicts.net)
- Juli 2009 bis Oktober 2013 (abgeschlossen): "Fair-Fuels? – Zwischen Sackgasse und Energiewende: Eine sozial-ökologische Mehrebenenanalyse transnationaler Biokraftstoffpolitik." (Ko-Leitung mit Prof. Bernd Hirschl, Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW, Berlin). Gefördert durch das BMBF im Rahmen der Sozial-Ökologischen Forschung (SÖF)