Research Group "Voluntariness" Receives Another 2.2 Million Euros in DFG Funding

The researchers deal with voluntariness as a political practice in history and the present. The basic assumption of their research is that various types of "voluntariness" are of central importance for the governance of different societies.

Despite its great relevance, the topic has so far received little attention in historical research. However, the scholars' reflections benefit from social and political debates that currently revolve around the relationship between voluntarism and coercion in neoliberal societies. The research project takes up these debates and at the same time lets the analytical gaze circle further, namely to the forms and meanings of voluntariness across epochal and spatial boundaries: from the Middle Ages to the present, from the German dictatorships of the 20th century to postcolonial societies. The research group is particularly interested in the relationship between socio-political order on the one hand and the self-understanding and modes of action of concrete historical and contemporary actors on the other.

For further information on the first and second funding phases, please see the posters in the marginalia.