College of Fellows

Global Encounters: Politics of Division

Die so genannte ‘Politik der Spaltung’ setzt sich in unseren Gesellschaften zunehmend durch, sowohl in alten als auch in relativ neuen Demokratien. Politiken der Spaltung nutzen bestehende oder neu geschaffene soziale Trennungen und Spaltungen aus, um sie als politisches Mittel zur Aufrechterhaltung bestehender Machtstrukturen und des Status quo einzusetzen. Schlüsselbeispiele für eine solche Politik der Spaltung sind die wechselnden Varianten des Ethnonationalismus, der auf der Vorstellung einer exklusiven Staatsbürgerschaft beruht, die bestimmte rassische, religiöse und nationale Gruppen entmenschlicht und verunglimpft, oder die Verstärkung von Feindseligkeit, sozialer Angst und politischer und rechtlicher Spaltung auf der Grundlage von Geschlechter- und Sexualitätspolitik. Die Politik der Spaltung ist jedoch keineswegs eine Erfindung des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Es gilt daher, ‘globale Begegnungen’ zeitgenössischer und historischer Politiken der Spaltung daraufhin zu untersuchen, wie sie beschworen und vermittelt werden, innerhalb einer bestimmten Bevölkerung an Anziehungskraft gewinnen und sich im Laufe der Zeit in Bezug auf ihre ideologische Raffinesse, ihre Reichweite und ihre Darstellungsformen weiterentwickeln, und zugleich neues Licht auf aktuelle und historische Fälle zu werfen, in denen  Politiken der Spaltung gleichzeitig durch lokal verankerte und global inspirierte Bewegungen herausgefordert werden, die neue Allianzen, soziale Praktiken und Vorstellungen, basierend auf den Grundsätzen der Fürsorge, der Interdependenz, des Zusammenhalts und der Solidarität, schmieden.

Die Focus Group „Global Encounters: Politics of Division“ bringt eine interdisziplinäre Gruppe von Wissenschaftler:innen zusammen, die sowohl im globalen Süden als auch Norden forschen und innovative methodische Ansätze anwenden, um diese Frage aus sozialwissenschaftlichen und geisteswissenschaftlichen Perspektiven zu behandeln. Die Focus Group wird gemeinsam unser theoretisches Verständnis der Prozesse und Mechanismen für den Aufbau einer zivilen Kultur der Resilienz gegen hasserfüllte Politik vorantreiben und gleichzeitig unser Wissen über die ‘Politik der Spaltung’ vertiefen und verbreitern.

Veranstaltungen

4.-6. Februar: The Politics of Division: Legal and Knowledge Regimes

Global Encounters Conference

4.-6. Februar 2026

Die Global Encounters Focus Group „Politics of Division” organisiert gemeinsam mit dem College of Fellows eine Konferenz zum Thema „Politics of Division: Legal and Knowledge Regimes”, die vom 4. bis 6. Februar an der Universität Tübingen stattfindet. Diese Konferenz lud zur Einreichung von Beiträgen ein, die sich mit dem Thema „Politics of Division” befassen und einen kritischen Dialog zwischen den Disziplinen fördern. Weitere Informationen und der Zeitplan folgen in Kürze.

25. April 2025 – Kickoff-Workshop: Politics of Division

 25. April 2025, 12:00-15:00 Uhr

 Alte Aula (Münzgasse 30)

Im Sommersemester 2025 begrüßt das College of Fellows gemeinsam mit der Plattform Global Encounters vier neue Global Encounters Fellows in Tübingen, die gemeinsam und mit weiteren Fellows und Tübinger Wissenschaftler:innen in einer Focus Group "Politics of Division" zusammenarbeiten.

Personen

Iymon Majid
Global Encounters
Religionswissenschaften
2025

Fellowship: Global Encounters Fellowship
Affiliation (host institution, host scholar): Institute for the Study of Religions, hosted by Dr. Carola Lorea 
Stay in Tübingen (from – until): June 2025 – May 2026
Research Project: Managing Conflict: Law, Politics and Religion in Kashmir
Research Areas: Comparative Political Theory; Modern South Asia, Contemporary Islam

Publications

  1. “When Less is More: Low Voter Turnout and Electoral Politics in Kashmir” India Review 24, No.1(2025): 108-129.
  2. “Integrating Kashmir: Modernity, Development and Sedimented Narratives”, American Journal of Islam and Society 41, No. 3-4, (2024): 86-100.
  3. “Violence and Insurgency in Kashmir: Understanding the Micropolitics”, India Review 21, No. 4-5, (2022): 576-598.
  4. “Confronting the Indian State: Islamism, Secularism, and the Kashmiri Muslim Question”, International Journal of Asian Studies 19, No.1, (2022): 67-80.
  5. “A Theseus Paradox: Interrogating the Shift in Islamism in Indian-administered Kashmir”, Politics, Religion & Ideology 21, No. 3, (2020): 353-373
  6. “Politicizing the Street: Graffiti in Kashmir”, Economic and Political Weekly 53, No. 14, (2018): 61-66. (co-authored) 
Contact: iymonmajidspam prevention@gmail.com
Activities at the College of Fellows: Workshop; reading and writing groups
About: Iymon Majid is a political scientist specialising in comparative political theory and South Asia. His work critically interrogates the tense negotiations between religious authority and state governance in modern Kashmir. Before coming to Tübingen, he held a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Hye Min Oh
Global Encounters
Asien-Orientwissenschaften
2025

Fellowship: Global Encounters Fellowship
Affiliation (host institution, host scholar): Faculty of Humanities, Insitute of Asian and Oriental Studies, hosted by Jun. Prof. Dr. Yewon Lee 
Stay in Tübingen (from – until): March 2025 – March 2026
Research Project: Alternative Facts Built on Memes in the Politics of Division – Formation of Post-Truth Knowledge and Finding the Way Out
Research Areas: Anti-Feminist Backlash, Epistemic Justice, Feminist Pedagogy, Young Generation, New Media, Intersectionality and Cultural Diversity, Korean Society 

Publications

  1. 2025. 02 You are the 20,000th person to ask me this question - the indefatigable Femi answers. Taehak Publishing/Nal Pub. Paju. ISBN: 979-11-681033-0-6 http://aladin.kr/p/PzmPM
  2. 2024. 02 Epistemic Vulnerability of Korean Budding Feminists in the Era of Post Feminism Reboot Doctoral Dissertation, Ewha Women's University https://dspace.ewha.ac.kr/handle/2015.oak/267226
  3. 2024. 01 The ‘Tal-jo’ Diary of a Matriarch – Ain’t I a Woman? In: Reading bell hooks together. Dongnyokpub. Paju. ISBN: 978-89-729711-4-6http://aladin.kr/p/dQFXD
  4. 2022. 12 The Strangers in the Feminist Classroom. In: Equality in the Classroom, now. Dongnyokpub. Paju. ISBN: 978-89-729707-1-2 http://aladin.kr/p/FQiFe
  5. 2022. 06 Feminist Pedagogy through the Silence in a Time of Backlash. In: Women’s Studies Review, 39(1). Korean Women’s Institute at Ewha Women’s University. Seoul. ISSN: 15987698 https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002853596
  6. 2021. 06 The Political Responsibility of “No. 1 Orphan Exporter” and the Appearance of Compassionate Korean. In: Memory&Vision, 44. Korea Democracy Foundation. Seoul. ISSN: 1599712x https://kiss.kstudy.com/Detail/Ar?key=3889946
  7. 2019. 12 Well-Grounded Anxiety Becoming Hate: A Focus on the Discourses of Recognizing Refugees’ and Women’s Fear. In: Gender and Culture, 12(2). Keimyung University Institute of Women’s Studies. Daegu. ISSN: 20056354 https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002550145
  8. 2019. 06 Encounters with ‘Ugly Koreans’ and the Construction of the ‘Other’. In: Memory&Vision, 40. Korea Democracy Foundation.Seoul. ISSN: 1599712x https://kiss.kstudy.com/Detail/Ar?key=3683340

Contact: 

eoberangspam prevention@gmail.com

hye-min.ohspam prevention@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de

Activities at the College of Fellows: Global Encounters Fellowship – Politics of Division

About: Dr Hye-min OH is a feminist scholar, writer, filmmaker, and educator. She holds a PhD in Women’s Studies from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul and an MA in Gender and Diversity from the Freie Universität Berlin. Her dissertation, entitled ‘Epistemic Vulnerability of Korean Budding Feminists in the Era of Post-Feminism Reboot.' focused on the contemporary and generational context, examining the impact of feminism and anti-feminism backlash on the young generation. 

Following the emergence of the #MeToo movement in the arts sector, she has taught mandatory feminist courses at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul for six years. In an educational environment characterized by acceptance and resistance, she cultivated her interest in feminist pedagogy. She participated in numerous projects to develop educational content and published academic papers and books. In addition to her previous activities, she has expressed a desire to research the current situation in which alternative knowledge, defined as information that deviates from established facts and is often used to manipulate public opinion, is replacing and influencing reality. To this end, she was awarded a Global Encounters Fellowship at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany, where she is currently engaged in research to identify responses to this phenomenon from a transnational perspective, with a particular focus on resilience and institutionalization.

Blair Proctor
Global Encounters
Soziologie
2025

Fellowship: Global Encounters Fellowship
Affiliation (host institution, host scholar): Department of Sociology, hosted by Prof. Dr. Boris Nieswand and Jun. Prof. Dr. Bani Gill 
Stay in Tübingen (from – until): April 2025 – March 2026
Research Project: Necropower: Perpetual Exploitation of Black Geographies in New Orleans & Johannesburg - The Quest for Human Liberation

Research Areas: 

  • Geography (Black Geogrpahies/Urban Planning/Exclusionary Zoning/ Public Policy)
  • Africana Studies (African Diaspora Studies/ African American Diaspora Studies/ African Studies)
  • Sociology (Historical/ Whiteness Studies/ Race, Class, and Gender/ Urban Sociology/ Environmental Justice/ Social Justice/ Social Problems/ Sociology of Culture/ Sociology of the Body/ Race and Health)

Publications

  1. “Coloured South African Politics and the New Orleans Afro-Creole Protest Tradition,” in the edited volume The African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action! Teresa N. Washington, ed. Oya’s Tornado’s Books, 2016.
  2. “Coloured South African Consciousness: Blurring the Lines of Identity Formation and Space,” in the edited volume New Frontiers in the Study of the Global African Diaspora: Between Uncharted Themes and Alternative Representations. Glenn A. Chambers, Rita Kiki Edozie, and Tama Hamilton-Wray, co-ed. Michigan State University Press, 2018.
  3. “Race, Space and Urban Renewal in New Orleans: From Plessy through Katrina,” in Architecture_Media_Politics_Society (AMPS) Journal Proceedings Series 24.2: ISSN 2398-9467, Jason Montgomery, ed. UCL Press. February, 2022.
Contact: proctorbspam prevention@newpaltz.edu
Activities at the College of Fellows: As a potential fellow, I propose to collaborate with my Tübingen hosts Dr. Boris Nieswand and Dr. Bani Gill in the Global-Tübingen Urbanities Network (G-Turn). I plan to incorporate my former Urban Planning and Geographer skills from the City of Phoenix Development Services and Public Transit departments and my current interdisciplinary field as a Black-Studies scholar and Urban Sociologist. Enganing with G-Turn would be an opportunity to contribute to projects centered on diversity, community development, sustainbility, and civic engagement. 
About: Blair M. Proctor, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of African History in the Department of Black Studies, State University of New York (SUNY) and New Paltz. Dr. Proctor is also a Research Associate with the Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Dr. Proctor is a former Fulbright U.S. Scholar in South Africa, for a project titeled: Westbury Rising: Promoting Yourself - CEO of your lives for the makings of a better community. Dr. Proctor's latest article "Necropower" in New Orleans: Plantation Politics and the Perpetuation of Black Geographies within the COVID-19 Era," published in the December issue of GeoJournal Springer Nature. Dr. Proctor's article “Jazz, Vice, Geography, and Revolution: The Triumph and Fall of the Harlem & Sophiatown Renaissances (1920-1948)” in the Safundi journal, Routledge - Taylor & Francis., April 2025. Anticipated. Additionally, Dr. Proctor's contribution “Host or Home in the Motherland?: Questions of Forgetting Mother, Diaspora, Circularity, & ‘Aliyah’ to Ghana, " to the edited volume Sacred Cutlures in Politics, Roberta Sabbath and Daniel Nii Aboagye Aryeh, co-ed. DeGruyter Academic Press, September 2025. Anticipated.

Andrew Russo
Global Encounters
Islamische Theologie
2025

Fellowship: Global Encounters Fellowship
Affiliation (host institution, host scholar): Center for Islamic Theology, hosted by Prof. Dr. Erdal Toprakyaran
Stay in Tübingen (from – until): April 2025 – March 2026
Research Project: Valorous Defeat: North African Narratives of the Morisco Expulsion
Research Areas: Mediterranean History, Europe and MENA, Migration and Diaspora Studies, Religious conflict and coexistence, Orientalism, Slavery and Captivity

Publications:

  1. “Memories of the Morisco Expulsion in the Writings of Muammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ.” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 13.4 (2022): 435-450.
  2. “The North Atlantic in the Islamic Cartographic Imaginary,” Viator 51.1 (2021): 35-45.
  3. (Book Review) Autobiography and Letters of a Spanish Nun. ed. Susan Diane Laningham. trans. Jane Tar. Toronto and Tempe: Iter Press and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2016. The Sixteenth Century Journal. L.2 (Summer 2019): 525-6.
Contact: a.elmer.russospam prevention@gmail.com

Activities at the College of Fellows:

At the College of Fellows, I will form a focus group with the other members of the current Global Encounters cohort. I plan to participate fully in College of Fellows academic life and work collaboratively with the other Global Encounters Fellows. I will spend my time in Tübingen preparing a book manuscript for publication, as well as other article length projects. I will also take part in several symposia and workshops.

About: 

I am a historian of the late medieval and early modern period, with a focus on religious, cultural, and migration histories. I earned my PhD in History from the University of Rochester in 2024. My research has been supported by Fulbright-Hays, the Renaissance Society of America, and the American Institute of Maghrib Studies, among others. My current book project “Valorous Defeat: North African Narratives of the Morisco Expulsion” examines how memory, conflict, and religious identity interact during migratory processes and diasporic communities and is based on archival research in Morocco, Tunisia, and Spain.

 

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Carola Lorea

Professor for the Study of Religions ‘Rethinking Global Religion’ (Host)

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Yewon Lee

Asien-Orient-Institut, Abteilung für Koreanistik (Host)

Prof. Dr. Boris Nieswand

Professur für Soziologie mit dem Schwerpunkt Migration und Diversität (Host)

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Bani Gill

Junior-Professur “Urban Futures of the Global South” (Host)

Prof. Dr. Erdal Toprakyaran

Professur für Islamische Geschichte und Gegenwartskultur (Host)

Matthias Bornemann

Plattform Global Encounters

Dr. Sara Bangert

College of Fellows