Special Research Unit: Network and ResourceComplexes
Management:
Scholarship holders: Pia Hilsberg M.A., Karin Pfister M.A., Marc Schwenzer M.A., Daniel Steinberg, Sandra Teuber Dipl.-Geogr.
The Special Research Unit ‚Networks and ResourceComplexes‘ is an additional institution of the Collaborative Research Centre 1070 RESOURCECULTURES. The goal is to address the comprehensive issues of the Centre, to complement the range of research subjects of Collaborative Research Centre 1070 and to integrate additional disciplines.
To see the publications of the Special Research Unit please click here
The unit conducts five PhD projects:
PhD Projects
Pia Hilsberg (Historical and Cultural Anthropology):On 'Do-It-Yourself': Urban Life Design and the Use of Resources Oscillating in the Tension between Nature, Culture and Technology |  |
The intention of this PhD thesis is to examine the phenomenon of non-commercial home production of everyday objects in modern urban context using an ethnographic approach. The tangible and intangible resources, as well as the human and non-human actors participating in the (resource-) complex ‘Do-It-Yourself’ will be identified. How are ‘nature’ and ‘naturalness’ created within this network?
Karin Pfister (Social and Cultural Anthropology):Doing sex - an ethnographic study of sex as social practice in Botswana. |  |
The peculiarities of sexual relations in Botswana lead to the creation of sexual networks. The exchange of tangible goods and services is an important factor within these networks. We assume that around these networks a ResourceComplex ‘Sexuality’ emerges that will be examined during an anthropological field study. |
Sandra Teuber (Geography):SoilCultures - A Comparative Ethno-Pedological Analysis of the Perception of the ResourceComplex 'Soil-Cultivation' in Public |  |
Soil is the fundament of livelihood for a fast growing world population and provides basic functions for any society. But, to which extend is a society aware of this fact? Interviews and surveys, as well as the analysis of historical records will serve to examine the knowledge about soil in southern Germany.
Marc Schwenzer (Sociology):Contextual Conditions of Class-specific Appropriation of Education and Transfer of Status |  |
This PhD project will conduct a comparative and quantitative study of the effects of varying national conditions on the unequal distribution and ‘inheritance’ of resources and the differences in status marked by them. The central question is how specific national contexts influenced the mediation of status, acquired by education, during the recent decades. For a start a distinction will be made, between groups rich in resources and others with limited access to them. The definition will be based on differences in education, income and assets. Applying a simple model, it will be assumed that easy access to collective resources influences the use and inter-generational transfer of private resources (like for example cultural capital, specific to a certain family).
During its initial phase the project is mainly concerned with the influence of institutional context factors and a valid operationalising of status inheritance by education. In a later phase the focus will be on the influence of collective social capital.
Daniel Steinberg (History of Economy):ResourceComplexes and Networks within Processes of Migration |  |
It has been demonstrated by a considerable number of economic studies that an abundance of ‘natural resources’ may turn out to be a ‘curse’ instead of a ‘blessing’. Countries rich with raw-materials often show a low economic prosperity, inadequate investments in education and instable political institutions. The focus of the PhD thesis will be on the relationships between ‘resource shocks’ and selectivity and quantity of migration. The effects of this relationships will be theoretically modelled and the resulting models tested with data from specific resource shocks in history applying econometric approaches.