News

New publication!

Few people know that in a 1980 verdict, the Federal Constitutional Court placed social security benefits as (social) property of those entitled to them under the property protection of the Basic Law (Article 14). In an article for the journal Soziale Sicherheit, Silke van Dyk examines the role of social property in old-age provision and discusses implications for questions of (in)equality, (in)security and solidarity.

 

Read the article here (Paywall)

Event information

On July 1, Silke van Dyk will give a keynote on the topic "On lighthouses and their dark sides - transformative practice and public sociology" at the conference "Transformation Sociology Concrete" in Darmstadt. The lecture will examine the transformative potential of progressive municipalist city governments that aim to de-privatize the city on the basis of public infrastructures and common goods. The central question is what role prominent case studies play for transformative movements in other places and what the task of public sociology can be for the analysis and critique of so-called lighthouses.

New podcast episode online!

The 19th episode of our podcast appropriate, titled "Looking Back at Eight Years of Municipalist Government in Barcelona: The movement-party Barcelona en Comú" has been published. In cooperation with the Urban Political Podcast, Silke van Dyk and Luzie Gerstenhöfer are discussing the alternative approach to local politics by Barcelona en Comú with activist and former political advisor Elia Gran.

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Booklaunch "Umkämpftes Eigentum"

On May 20, starting at 6 pm, the recently published anthology “Umkämpftes Eigentum”, edited by Niklas Angebauer, Jacob Blumenfeld and Tilo Wesche, will be presented in Berlin.

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Job Advertisement for PostDoc Position

Project B06 "Property Inequality in the Private Sphere: Couple-Internal and External Drivers of Change in Property Arrangements in Couple Relationships" offers a PostDoc position (100%) to be filled as soon as possible. See here for the job offer.

Lunch Lecture Contested Property

Silke van Dyk will give a lecture at the University of Vienna on May 21 on the question “Infrastructures in the field of tension between private and collective property: A new politics of the public?” The occasion is a lunch lecture on the book Nach dem Privateigentum.

New Working Paper online!

In this new Working Paper, we present key research results of the CRC 294 "Structural Change of Property" from the first funding phase (2021 to 2024).

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New publication!

Sofia Bianchi Mancini's paper on "Narrating Divine Property: The Case of Sacred Groves in Statian Poetry" has just been published open access.

New publication!

Maria Pfeiffer and Marco Sonnberger published a new article titled "Rushing for the gold of the energy transition: An empirical exploration of the relevance of landownership for the wind energy expansion in Germany" in Energy Research & Social Science.

Read the full article here

New publication!

Jan Dirk Harke published "Die Geburt des Eigentums", a new volume of the SFB-series, with Campus Verlag.

Event information

The projects B08, C05 and JRT06 will be hosting the workshop "Umkämpfter digitaler Kapitalismus: Neofeudalismus, Geopolitik und soziale Konflikte" on March 13 and 14 in Jena. Register via email to Florian Schadwinkel (florian.schadwinkel@uni-erfurt.de).

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We are now also on Bluesky!

You can now also find out about our events and other news from the SFB on Bluesky!

Firmly countering attacks on the freedom of research and teaching

The statement was written by a network of gender researchers in the wake of the current attacks on academic freedom and gender studies and was first published by the Gender Studies Association on February 5, 2025. The Collaborative Research Center endorses this statement and stands up for academic freedom. It strongly condemns attacks against gender researchers, but also all other scientists. You can read the full statement (in German) here!

 

New publication!

Robin Saalfeld published the article "From Renters to Investors? Residential Property and the Asset Economy in German Couples’ Lives" in Housing, Theory and Society.

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New Publication!

A collaborative effort of the first SFB funding phase has just been published in the Berlin Journal of Sociology: The special issue “StadtRaum und Eigentum”! It contains six articles from our SFB and two articles from the SFB 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”.

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Job advertisement for student assistants in the SFB

As of April 1, 2025, we are looking for three research assistants to support us in the area of website/public relations, or with the New Library of Property, or to support project C05 (“Property at Universities in Germany, England and Brazil”)! The application deadline for all positions is 16.02.2025. For further information, please see the following links (in German): Job SFB Website | Job Library of Property | Job C05

Call for Papers

We invite abstracts for a workshop on "Identity-forming consumerism and socio-ecological transformation", which will take place from October 16-17, 2025 in Erfurt. Please see here for more information (in German).

New Publication!

The recently published issue of Kurswechsel (3/2024), which focuses on “Questions of Ownership”, also includes articles by members of the SFB: Agnieszka Althaber asks, “Who owns the money in a relationship?”, Stefan Schmalz and Catalina Renč address the financialization of critical digital infrastructure.

New blogpost online!

In their new blogpost Silke van Dyk, Petra Gümplová and Markus Kip provide an insight into the commons research of the Collaborative Research Centre. Commons are a main concept in discussions about alternatives to property and non-private forms of property.

 

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Vacancies for researchers in the SFB

Our second funding phase has started and a number of research projects are offering positions for researchers (doctoral and postdoc).

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Tilo Wesche in conversation with the German Research Foundation

Tilo Wesche (A06) spoke to the GRF about the question of what rights nature has in the exkurs interview format.

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Two new podcast episodes of appropriate online!

The 17th episode of our podcast appropriate documents the book presentation by Felix Krämer (A02), who together with Matthias Ruoss presented their publications on the topic of debt in the new history of capitalism.  

The 18th episode of appropriate documents the workshop “From Contested Ownership to (In)Voluntary Returns - interdisciplinary perspectives on the postcolonial fight for restitution and reparation” and includes an interview with our former Mercator Fellow Flower Manase. 

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New blogpost online!

Helen Bönnighausen, Luzie Gerstenhöfer, Maria Pfeiffer, Marco Sonnberger and Anne Tittor have published a new blog post. It evaluates the key findings of the workshop “Energy crisis, ownership and services of general interest - the energy system in transition”. The key question is what role the ownership of energy infrastructures plays for services of general interest (in Germany).

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We will be funded for another 4 years!

It is now official: the German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved funding of over 13.4 million euros for the project of the Universities of Jena and Erfurt. Silke van Dyk will be the new spokesperson for the SFB for the next four years. More information in the FSU Jena press release.

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New publication in the book series “Structural Change of Property”

The fifth volume in the Open Acess series has been published by Campus today. Exploring the economic, sociological, and philosophical implications of property, this book titled Havings aims to overcome the conceptual and ideological limitations inherited from 19th-century debates and legal developments. The author Carsten Herrmann-Pillath (C01) introduces a new conceptual framework that substitutes the term “property” with the terms “having” and the neologism “havings”, analyzed through two dimensions: the action modes of having (appropriation, recognition, and assignment) and the structural modes of havings (possession, ownership, and property).

Cancelled: Event information

The SFB in the media

Tilo Wesche (A06) talks about two recent rulings on the rights of nature in an interview with the FAZ.

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Event information

From 25 to 26 November, the Sharing Symposium “Mit Hochschulen auf dem Weg zur sozial-ökologischen Transformation” will take place, which is organized by the transfer project Nucleus Jena in cooperation with the CRC “Structural Change of Property”, in particular the project C06. Christoph Henning, Bettina Hollstein, Tilman Reitz, Helen Bönnighausen, Malte Janzig and Jörg Oberthür will also be represented with contributions and lectures.

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The SFB-movie series Eigentum im Blick is back on October 22

As before, the series will bring the debate on property issues to the screen once a month and show a movie about conflicts over property, current dynamics of change and possible alternatives. A member of the SFB will introduce the film and be available for a discussion at the end. 

Next Tuesday, October 22, at 8 pm, we will be showing the film DAS SCHMUCKSTÜCK (France, 2010). The film will be introduced by Dirk Schuck (A03).

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Movie Lichter der Straße at DOK Leipzig

Director Anna Friedrich curated and documented the cultural programme of the Nomadism Conference, which was organized by the SFB's A03 project in July 2022. Now her documentary film is being released, in which she accompanies four women who are nomadic in Germany. The movie Lichter der Straße will premiere at the Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film.

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New publication!

Henrike Katzer, Malte Janzing, Christoph Henning, Jörg Oberthür, Hartmut Rosa (C06) have published an article in the Zeitschrift für Soziologie. In it, they examine whether and how the world relations of subjects change when property relations are set in motion. To this end, they look at practices and experiences of homesharing and analyze whether irritations and changes in relations to things, social relations and self-relations can be observed.

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The SFB in the media

SFB spokesperson Silke van Dyk (C04) writes in her guest article for Der Spiegel about the need for a strong left and the tasks it faces. In addition to defending liberal democracy, she emphasizes the need to build a social and infrastructural foundation, which includes strengthening public infrastructure as opposed to private property. She also emphasizes that criticism of the system from the left, which targets the fundamental problems of the economic and social system and thus also takes a critical view of property relations, is central.  

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