CRC 923: Threatened Order

Project B 02: Famine as a Threat to Religious and Social Order (2011-2015)

The Topic

Famines (and other catastrophes) exerted such pressure on communal order that is absolutely necessary to juxtapose communications of threat with coping mechanisms. The project B 02, “Famines...,” proposes that wherever religion is involved, catastrophes present a threat to two kinds of orders , namely that of communal life and its welfare system, but also theological interpretations of a world order which is assumed to be the result of Providence and thus supposed to be good with its corresponding religious practice of worship and charity. In order to appropriately address the object of study itself—famines in Christian societies—in keeping with the general approach of the CRC and its project area “Disasters”—these two levels must be examined in relation to one another.

Four Dimensions of Analysis

The sub-project thus aims to adopt precisely those four dimensions of analysis that characterize the CRC as a whole and underpin the long-term perspectives and coordination of the various research topics:

We ask questions about the concrete dimension: What exactly caused the famines in the climate events of the Little Ice Age, glaring shortages in industrial societies, the globalization of managing catastrophes—and what do these in turn mean in economic, ecological, social, or cultural terms? What was learned and passed on? What did people experience themselves, what did they see in the slums in other parts of the city, or in moving images reproduced in newspapers and on television or UNICEF posters?
We ask questions about changes in the chronological dimension: Was famine an irrevocable element of the human condition? Was it a harbinger of the end times, a foreshadowing of the future? How were worldviews on nature, man and society, God and transcendent powers in such scenarios related to each other as agents?
We therefore seek to define the social dimension in such a way that the communication of threats did not and does not only occur within society itself. Instead, given religious practice and theological reflections, they were inextricably tied to God and transcendental entities. Who were the devout Christians, who were the followers of the Devil or runaway capitalism? And who advanced strategies of inclusion or exclusion or other efforts to cope with the situation?
The emotional dimension feeds on the interaction of these other concrete, chronological, and social dimensions. We are looking for signs and influences of helpless exposure, the fear of something even worse, the social organization and religious praxis of processing rage and doubt. We want to study feelings of solidarity that were rooted in both sympathy and a sense of superiority. We inquire after the aggression towards those considered responsible and attempts to civilize these urges and direct them into productive channels.