2017
bachelor thesis
Philipp Tilman Hartung
"Aushandlungen zwischen Schutz und Verselbstständigung: Unbegleitete minderjährige Flüchtlinge in Betreuung der Jugendhilfe in Göttingen"
In accordance with the social security code, refugees under 21 years of age residing in Germany without close relatives fall under the supervision of the Office of Youth Welfare (Jugendhilfe). Therefore since 2014, the Office of Youth Welfare in Göttingen has operated a special section for minor refugees. As a result of their work, over 80 male refugee minors are currently accommodated throughout Göttingen and individually supervised. This paper is based on ethnographical fieldwork with a number of refugee minors as well as the social workers who supervise them. It details the backgrounds and motivations of the refugees and investigates how social workers can address the specific interests of minor refugees against the backdrop of asylum laws and broader societal expectations.
GISCA No. 16, 2017
master thesis
Jana Gellert
"Zur Bedeutung von Religion im Umgang mit dem globalen Klimawandel: Perspektiven von zwei christlichen Gemeinden in Suva, Fidschi"
Christianity is deeply embedded in the life of Pacific Islanders. The impact of Christianity on peoples’ lives goes far beyond their daily praying and visiting the Sunday church service. With her thesis on the significance of Christianity on dealing with climate change the author reveals the important and far reaching impact religion has on the daily routine and world view of the Pacific Islanders. She depicts the unique potential that scientists, pastors and fellow believers assign religion to reach and to empower the Pacific Islanders in an active understanding and handling of global climate change. Furthermore, the author advocates for an interdisciplinary collaboration of natural, human and social sciences as well as the abolition of the dualistic categories of religion and science in order to engage in a holistic examination of global climate change, to develop a global ethics of climate change, and to undertake practice-oriented research.
GISCA No. 15, 2017
master thesis
Jonathan Yainishet
" ‘Same same but different‘: Ethnic nationalism and North Korean migrants in South Korea."
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Seoul, this paper examines processes of ethnic differentiation concerning North Korean migrants in South Korea. Making use of anthropological insights into ethnicity and ethnic boundary making, it explores how the notion of a unified, homogenous Korean people emerged historically and how the (post-) Cold War border regime on the Korean peninsula engenders an othering of North Korean migrants in South Korea through idioms of ethnicity, despite discourses on multiculturalism and a waning of ethno-nationalist sentiments in South Korea. I argue that the increased
influx of North Korean migrants in South Korea provides the ackground not only for (re-) negotiations of ethnic nationalism but also of ethnic identity and ethnic unity in South Korea.
GISCA No. 14, 2017
talk at institute's colloquium
Jonas Bens
"Rhetoriken der Sentimentalisierung und die Zerstörung von Weltkulturerbe vor dem Internationalen Strafgerichtshof"
The Prosecutor v Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi’ was the first case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) that dealt with the destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime. In this case, the relationship of persons and things was central. Based on courtroom ethnography conducted during the proceedings, and informed by affect and emotion research, this article identifies the rhetorical practice of sentimentalizing persons and things as a key process of legal meaning making. Through sentimentalizing all parties rhetorically produce normative arrangements of bodies by attributing emotions to the relevant persons, things and other entities and thus qualitatively differentiating them, and by affectively arranging and relating them to each other. Sentimentalizing provides an affective-emotional frame in which to assess guilt and innocence, justice and injustice.
GISCA No. 13, 2017
bachelor thesis
Meret Hesse
"Poesie zur Selbstbehauptung und Anfechtung: Die Bedeutung alternativer Memories für das Handlungsvermögen von Dalit Dichterinnen. Eine Analyse ausgewählter Gedichte von indischen Dalit- Autorinnen"
Building on the explanation that Dalit Women are thrice discriminated within Indian society, through Gender, Caste and Class, this paper examines the agency of Dalit Women Poets. With help of the concept of Alternative Memory this work therefore looks at five poems of Dalit Women Poets Meena Kandasamy, Challapalli Swaroopa Rani, Viljay Kumari und Darisi Sasi Nirmala to analyse how and in which moments the agency of Dalit Women shines through.
GISCA No. 12, 2017
master thesis
Federica Guccini
"A Sense of 'Recognition': Negotiating Naming Practices and Identities of Overseas Chinese Students in Transcultural Spaces"
Working with several anthropological theories of migration, identification and language, this paper aims to shed light on negotiations of Chinese naming practices in transcultural social
spaces. Many Chinese youths studying abroad acquire international names in addition to their Chinese birth names that they use in different situations. The author argues that name choices are deliberate decisions, tied to a great amount of self-awareness and agency, as well as identification processes and positionalities in social space. Moreover, ‘Chineseness’ plays an important role even in the adoption of Chinese-international names, as inherently Chinese naming practices often contribute to the name choice. The research results show that names will be used contingently in different social spaces, and most often with the goal to create a ‘sense of recognition’ – the wish for an identity, or a multiplicity of identities, to be visible through the name.
GISCA No. 11, 2017
bachelor thesis
Max Müller
"Die vietnamesische Diaspora in Berlin: Transnationale Identitätskonstruktionen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Viet Kieu und Bindestrich-Deutscher"
Building on the concepts of Diaspora and Identity, this thesis explores how a group of german-born young adults, who are of Vietnamese descent, construct their identity . While their parents migrated into the former GDR as contract workers and stayed in Germany after the reunification, they were born and raised in Germany. Thus growing up in a transnational social field, connecting their ancestral homeland and their country of residence, they navigate their sense of belonging between those two cultures.
GISCA No. 10, 2017
master thesis
Rhea Braunwalder
"Keep(ing) it in the Family?: Intergenerational Care Relationships in a Contemporary Japanese Village"
Based on 9 weeks of research on the island of Sado I unite the concepts of care, generation and the life course to examine how people observe care responsibilities in the context of depopulation and migration associated with rural Japan. I concentrate on the care of children, care of parents and care of the deceased and assert that care, understood as a socially recognized right which people have in certain life phases, is exchanged in a long term intergenerational contract. Care duties can strengthen intergenerational relationships, and can lead to frustration and the feeling of having no choice, especially amongst eldest sons who are traditionally seen as care-takers of the family. For younger generations, I observe an increased flexibility in care duties, where the contract as such seems unlikely to dissolve. The thesis is on a different level a reminder of the relevance of villages as anthropological field sites.
GISCA No. 09, 2017
talk at institute's colloquium
Mark Münzel
"Jaguar und Wildschwein, eine Fabel für Menschen. Oder: Der Aufstieg des Jaguar zum Himmel, ein Karriereleitfaden für Wissenschaftler"
The so-called „Amerindian Perspectivism“ (Perspectivismo Ameríndio) is an attempt to dump on the shoulders of South American shamans a European philosophy, namely the phantasies of Power of Nietzsche interpreted in a fascistoid way. I tell this by way of an animal parable in the style of South American Indian parables, but which also is supposed to be a caricature of the schematic sketches of Structuralism and of Perspectivism.