Shifting Worlds: InterAmerican (Dis)Entanglements
About us
Both North and Latin America are currently experiencing comprehensive upheavals with a potentially global reach. The transformation processes affect a wide range of human-environment interactions. The term 'shifting worlds' refers to natural as well as political and social environments that are inextricably linked. In times of far-reaching crises and fundamental upheavals, they give rise to diverse heuristics and practices of "life" in different social contexts.
The focus area aims to re-examine the crises and processes of upheaval in the Americas in their relationship to the global world. In the Americas, extreme ranges of transforming conflict situations, forms of cultural and ecological diversity, political power constellations and the clash of heterogeneous epistemologies between the Global North and South can be researched - as in a kind of laboratory. These processes will be analysed both in terms of their effects ('changing worlds') and with regard to the actors involved ('changing worlds'), in the present and in historical contexts.
The innovative character of the focus area results from the conceptual expansion of the established Bielefeld entanglement approach to include the perspective of the disentanglement of practices, actors and epistemologies. The conceptual expansion allows a broader interdisciplinary opening of the humanities and social sciences to the economic and natural sciences at the research organisational level; in terms of content, it allows targeted access to the focus of 'Shifting Worlds', which is operationalised via three interlinked research axes.
- Research Axes
Planetary Care
© Tara Evans In the first research axis on Planetary Care, the existing expertise on the Anthropocene is supplemented by a broad concept of care. The question of the "good (survival) life" is addressed here primarily in relation to threats to the planet. The challenge is to think together the planetary and the world region of the Americas - not least in a historical dimension. In addition to questions of resilience to crisis and disaster situations, this axis also addresses concerns about bio- and chemodiversity in the biosphere, as well as economic contributions in dealing with ecological crises.
Disembedding Power
© Christine Roy While the focus of Planetary Care examines processes of (re)establishing equilibrium in the interaction of humans with natural environments, the second axis deals with Disembedding Power, disruptive changes in constellations that encompass questions of (de)legitimisation, enforcement and replacement of political, legal, economic and technical power. It is precisely in situations of fundamental upheaval that a variety of profound but also opposing dynamics of de- and interdependence set in, which also affect the underlying material dimensions of social relations. The focus on power relations combines concrete practices and current political conjunctures with long-term hegemonic processes and democratic dynamics that affect coexistence under conditions of geopolitical upheaval.
Contested Collectives
© Ryoji Iwata Both Planetary Care and Disembedding Power are concerned with distinct processes that actively or passively contribute to 'Shifting Worlds'. The focus of the third research axis on Contested Collectives, on the other hand, is on the systematic questioning of existing and emerging epistemologies and heuristics of world-making; the research axis thus opens up the targeted exchange of empirical research and theoretical reflection. It deals with questions concerning the rethinking of different actor constellations and forms of coexistence and community building in dealing with situations of crisis and upheaval. In addition to different cosmovisions (of the Global South and North), concepts of the conviviality of human and non-human actors and descriptive models of migration studies, more comprehensive changes in historical orders of knowledge are also addressed here.
