The SFB short film:

About property in transition and the work of the SFB.

This film is the work of Catharina Göldner and Katharina Hamann.

The members of the Collaborative Research Centre in summer 2023

Image: Marlen van den Ecker

Welcome to the website of the Collaborative Research Centre TRR 294 "Structural Change of Property"!

The Collaborative Research Centre pursues the goal of investigating the fundamental structural change of property that could be observed at the latest since 1989.  The Collaborative Research Centre contains a total of 23 subprojects at five locations in Germany: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Sprecher*innenhochschule), Universität Erfurt, Freie Universität BerlinCarl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Technische Universität Darmstadt.

While private property has gained in importance worldwide since 1989 under conditions of increasing concentration and deregulation, the resulting property system has proved to be both crisis-prone and highly controversial in the face of new economic, political and technological challenges. It isn't challenged only by the global financial and economic crises, but also by political conflicts over the appropriation, distribution and containment of private property, as well as by the dynamics of the knowledge and bio-economies, which are linked to alternative concepts of common property, shared use and free access to resources.

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.

visit page

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.

visit page

Events

Kino am Markt; Jena

Movie series „Property in view"

On July 8 we will show the movie Waking Ned (UK/IRL 1998).

read more...