Geographies of the life course

Between 1950 and 1970, several places in Saxony and Thuringia disappeared from the map. They had to make way for the uranium mining operations of the Soviet-German joint stock company Wismut. The small Saxon town of Johanngeorgenstadt was particularly affected. The research project deals with the elaboration of a historical-geographical micrology of the loss using the example of Johanngeorgenstadt. The aim of the social-geographical sub-project is to examine the current geographies of loss in Johanngeorgenstadt with regard to biographies and life-world experiences. The question arises to what extent the microgeographies of loss paradoxically persist as negative spatialisations in the experience of the material environments of the town. The praxeological dimensions of loss ("doing loss") are traced as concrete practices of dealing with loss (remembering, mourning, reconstructing, repressing) in individual biographies and collective atmospheres. 

Against the background of the empirical work in the working group, theoretical and conceptual work on the development of a social-theoretical and political social geography is ongoing. The focus is on the relationship between society, community processes and space along the life course of people in late modern societies. Theoretical contributions to the foundation of such political social geography are developed on the basis of various social philosophical and social theoretical offers. In particular, the focus is affect theory, theories of difference and practice theory.

The project aimed to support and further develop the already existing visitor monitoring of the Hainich National Park Administration. The focus was on the quantitative, anonymized recording of visitors and the first integrated modelling of the distribution of visitors in the area of the national park. For this purpose, existing counting technology was selected, purchased and implemented, the previous workflows were integrated, basic modelling of visitor numbers was developed and accompanying social science research was conducted.

The project dealt with the discourse on post-migrant society and asked to what extent ideas and positions of post-migrant debates can serve as an impulse and shift in perspective for municipal integration policy practice. The elaborated contents, positions and ideas were developed taking into account the voices of actors from academia and practice in municipal integration policy. Based on a systematic evaluation of the literature that works with the label "post-migrant", twelve interviews with migration and integration policy experts from the fields of municipal administration, civil society and academia took place from January to March 2019. In March 2019, a large number of these experts came together for an inter- and transdisciplinary workshop to examine current local practices in integration policy and work from a post-migrant perspective.

The renegotiation of social and socio-spatial distance and proximity relationships taking place in connection with the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic in this country is of great interest from a social science perspective. It is to be expected that the "Corona crisis" and the changes caused by the measures of "social distancing" and "physical distancing" will lead to lasting changes in people's social relations. It can be assumed that negotiation processes of socio-spatial distance and proximity relationships in different social groups and milieus will each lead to different levels of concern and to a challenge for the social cohesion of society as a whole. The various individual, household-related, family-related or group-related insularizations go hand in hand with new forms of social (dis)integration, which are particularly reflected in the affiliative (bonding-related) exchange between individuals, groups and milieus.

In public and media discourses, during the COVID 19 pandemic and the associated socio-politically enforced measures to contain the virus, a distinction was made between risk groups on the basis of the category "age". This distinction reinforced existing social relations by solidifying already existing categorisations and spatial separation according to age groups. This is particularly evident in nursing homes for the elderly, where restriction and isolation make residents even more invisible. For this reason, the study intended to ask people in old-age care facilities how the measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 as well as the corresponding public discourses about it, the spatial and locational situation of old people in care facilities are perceived and experienced with special regard to the social relations of proximity and distance.