The research cluster examines the social, economic, political and cultural practices, processes, norms and structures that generate various forms of precarization and inequality in relation to ways of living, working and being. Particular attention is paid to the gender-specific effects and implications of these processes.
A central aspect of the cluster is the question of what role gender - especially in its connection with other dimensions of inequality, such as race, class or origin - plays in violent forms of categorization, marginalization, desecuritization and discrimination. It examines how certain ways of life, forms of work, identities or bodies become particularly endangered, vulnerable or precarious as a result. Standardization processes that define, for example, a "correct" way of life (such as the male employment biography or heterosexual nuclear families) lead to visible and invisible patterns of recognition and exclusion.
In these processes, institutions and legal systems often work with essentializations and attributions that isolate certain groups and perpetuate structural discrimination. This prevents the equal participation of particularly vulnerable groups, who are excluded from the labor market, social security or legal protection, for example. The materiality of life, the vulnerability of people and bodies, is an essential component of this precarization, which always becomes political.
The cluster focuses on the interactions between processes of social order formation and the materiality of life, particularly in areas such as work, education, the body, space and nature. These entanglements are particularly visible when it comes to precarious working conditions, flight and migration, racism or violence. A central interest here is the question of how social conditions that are strongly influenced by gender affect people, animals and the environment. At the same time, it also examines the resistance and counter-movements that arise, for example through individual or collective efforts to change normative structures.
The research projects aim to analyze the relationship between precarious living conditions and relations of violence and to show how gender shapes and contributes to shaping these relations. The projects include both historical and contemporary analyses and shed light on the significance of gender in social relations of inequality. Another focus is on the study of political and social movements (such as feminist movements, LGBTIQ* movements, labor movements and civil rights movements) that address inequality and develop strategies to overcome it.