Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Sahr has been appointed the Leibniz Professor
at the Centre for Advanced Studies, for the winter semester, 2012/13.

He is Professor for Social and Culture Geography at the Department of Geography, Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), since 2008.
He also lectures, on invitation, at the Institute for Regional Studies at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT).
Prof. Sahr has broad empirical experience in social research in Brazil, formerly also in Caribbean Studies, but is also known for his participation in the development of non-representational approaches in the field of "New Cultural Geography", both in Germany and Brazil.

Curriculum Vitae / Research projects

Publication

Die Antrittsvorlesung
findet am Mittwoch, den 06. November 2012, 17.00 Uhr im Alten Senatssaal (Ritterstraße 26)
zum Thema:
"Die postkoloniale Kondition der Amerikas zwischen Lebenswelt und geopolitischer Territorialität"
statt.

VERANSTALTUNGEN

Research Seminar
SocioFORMS and SpatioWORLDS in the Americas under the influence of globalization

Locale: Global and European Studies Institute, University of Leipzig
Time: Tuesdays, 9:00-11:00 (Oct. 16-29 Jan.)
Coordinator: Martina Keilbach ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), GESI

Based on a concept of Social Forms and Spatialization processes (cf. Simmel, Maffesoli, Deleuze/Guattari), this seminar focuses on the reterritorialization and reconceptualization of subjectivities in the globalization process. For this purpose, it introduces some non-representational theoretical approaches making use of empirical examples in the Americas, of the so-called “New World”, specifically, from Brazil, Canada, and Mexico (indigenous populations, Afro-Americans, caboclos/métis, European settlers of the 19^th and 20^th century, Japanese immigrants and Lebanese descendents).

1. Oct.16, 2012: From social space to SocioFORM: The sociological concepts of community and society, of individualization and mass configuration and its transformations.

2. Oct. 23, 2012: From spatializations to SpatioWORLDS: Concepts of space, structure and life world and its transformations under the influence of processes of individualization and massification.

3. Oct. 30, 2012: America –Cultural encounter as spatial creation

a. American SocioFORMS and SpatioWORLDS: some characteristics of the so-called “New World”.

b. Amerindian examples: The Inca Empire, the Mississippi cultures and its semi-nomadic fringes.

4. Nov. 6, 2012: The rise of individualism and modern collectivism in Europe and the New World –early SocioFORMS and their spatial configurations

a. The Mennonite case.

b. The Jesuit reductions.

5. Nov. 13, 2012: Slavery, etc.: New forms of labour life-worlds and its formation as a SpatioWORLD.

a. Pre-dimensions of slavery

b. The dimensions of slavery

c. The transformations of the abolition process

d. The reconfiguration of the Black Diaspora (ex. Rio de Janeiro, Chicago).

6. Nov. 20, 2012: Plantation America and its freedom fringe – SocioFORMS of liberty and its distribution

a. Engenhos, fazendas and ports as colonial centres of action.

b. Caboclos e Métis – living on the freedom edge.

c. Quilombos &Maroons – fighting in the liberty fringe.

7. Nov. 27, 2012: European mass migration and the proliferation of settlers’ life-worlds –Networks of SocioFORMs and SpatioWORLDs.

a. European settlers in Southern Brazil, fluid mosaics of multinationalities.

b. The immigration to Manitoba’s organized landscape. Agricultural life and geometrical territorialities.

c. The reconstruction of nationalism in the colonist´s life-worlds.

8. Jan 8, 2013: The rise of post-colonial national SpatioWORLDs in the Americas throughout the 19^th and 20^th century.

a. Brazil –Latin core/immigrant periphery.

b. Canada – a mosaic of nationalism.

9. Jan 15, 2013: Transitions of the nation state to mass society.

a. The actual cultural fragmentation of the nation state – minorities and minority rights.

b. Democratization and cultural diversity as new social formism.

c. The role of consumerism under post-modern conditions – a new spatial anti-national configuration of society.

10. Jan 22, 2013: Translocal and transnational networks of migrant families – the spatial configuration of a SocioFORM.

a. Communication networks of Mennonites in the postmodern world.

b. The transnational household as an economic unit – examples from the Caribbean.

c. The cultural divide in family networks.

11. Jan. 29, 2013: SocioFORMS and SpatioWORLDS of the postmodern Americas – conclusive reflections.

Public Colloquium, Centre for Area Studies
The Utopian and Pragmatic Construction of Societies in the Americas – methodological consequences for globalization research

Locale: Centre for Area Studies, University of Leipzig
Time: Nov. 28, 201
Coordinator:

The formation of “New World” societies has been different to processes of social formation and colonialism in other geographical areas, as for ex. in Asia (China, Japan, and India) or in Africa. Here, in the Americas, a stronger utopian potential has been revealed, as can be observed in the case of Jesuit reductions, of slavery as a new social relation in contrast to feudalism, the rise of Latin American nationalism as a revolutionary political process, and the ideological construction of North American individualism and democracy. However, the American colonial and postcolonial development is also accompanied by intense (and sometimes violent) irruptive cultural clashes, not only with the indigenous populations, but also during slave revolts, social unrest and resistance, and in the multicultural amalgam of immigrants. Therefore, the contradictory American social formation can only be investigated, if its philosophical criteria (idealism and pragmatism) become part of the investigation process itself. In this respect, my research reflections are drawing on some key thinkers like Ernst Cassirer, Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari und Peter Sloterdijk to understand non-representational research in an epistemological no-where land in-between of the edges of idealist and materialist approaches.

Workshop
Geographical methodologies of area studies in a comparative perspective – with empirical examples from the Americas
(with Prof. Dr. Cicilian Luiza Löwen Sahr - State University of Ponta Grossa, UEPG)

Locale: Global and European Studies Institute, University of Leipzig
Time: two weekends in January, 2013 (to be announced)

This workshop is intended to introduce from a practical perspective to empirical geographical research, using phenomenological, non-representational, functional and semiotic approaches. Thus, it is not so much the research result which is in the focus of this workshop, but the pragmatics of research techniques. Empirical evidences will be used from the Caribbean, Brazil, and Mexico.

International Post-Graduate Programme
Research techniques in traditional communities, experiences from Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico.(with Prof. Dr. Cicilian Luiza Löwen Sahr - State University of Ponta Grossa, UEPG)

Locale: Global and European Studies Institute, University of Leipzig
Time : Oct. 19, 2012, 13:00-16:00

This is a round-table talk on the experiences of social research in socially semi-closed communities, as Mennonites, quilombolas or caboclo communities in Brazil (and Mexico). It focuses primarily on interactions of positioning and communication, but also on processes of social integration and reflections within the life-worlds of the research partners.