In the summer term of 2026 our Research Unit presents a lecture series in cooperation with the Department of History of the University of Erfurt. Both international guests and members of the group will present and discuss research on “The Politics of Voluntariness. Global and Postcolonial Perspectives.”
Seven talks and discussions explore and critique established views on the Enlightenment narratives, on subjectivity and self-ownership, on personal and political agency, on work and social reproduction, on migration and security – through the lens of voluntary action and in global and postcolonial perspectives.
Featuring the approach that acting voluntarily is always situational and grounded in conditions of possibility they discuss how people’s voluntary action takes on very different shapes across different times and societies.
All talks take place at the University of Erfurt in the Reserach Building “Weltbeziehungen”, from 6:15pm to 7:45pm. Everybody interested is cordially invited, there is no registration necessary.
Download our poster with all dates and titles!
PROGRAM AND ABSTRACTS
Talk #1 · 15.04.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : NIKITA DHAWAN (TU Dresden): Unvoluntary Subjects of Enlightenment: The Postcolonial Conundrum
The opening talk examines how postcolonial subjects became entangled in Enlightenment narratives of reason, progress, and modernity not through voluntary adoption, but through coercive incorporation into imperial projects. It explores how Enlightenment ideals functioned less as universal promises and more as disciplinary demands that reshaped colonized peoples’ social, political, and ethical horizons. By focusing on how modernity was imposed rather than chosen, the talk highlights the ambivalent legacy of Enlightenment norms in postcolonial life: at once a language of emancipation and a structure of domination. Ultimately, the analysis invites a reconsideration of what it means to inhabit Enlightenment when its terms were never offered as a choice.
Talk #2 · 22.04.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : GURMINDER K. BHAMBRA (U Sussex, Brighton): Modern Subjectivity and the Political Economy of Colonialism
The consolidation of modern social theory in the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim coincided with the highpoint of European empires and the outbreak of global war between them. Yet, empire lay outside the purview of mainstream social theory except as a phenomenon associated either with earlier historical periods and civilizations, or, as a later development of an expanded capitalism whose rise is understood separately from the colonialism that made it possible. The issue, as Gurminder K. Bhambra will argue, is not simply to add empire and colonialism to sociology’s repertoire of topics, but to show how the concepts and methodologies with which that repertoire is associated need to be fundamentally transformed.
The talk addresses the broader relationship of colonialism to modern social theory and its idea of the modern subject. The modern (European) subject is defined in terms of self-ownership associated with wider discourses of emancipation and equality. However, that understanding of the modern subject arises in the context of colonial domination, including the practices of taking others into ownership and appropriating their means of subsistence and reproduction. Those who were alienated from the idea of self-ownership, by themselves being taken into ownership—or, more simply, enslaved—cannot just be included within understandings of modern subjecthood based on the idea of the subject capable of property, the possessive individual. Those subjects who refuse self-alienation through their disavowal of the very idea of individuated property—and who were dispossessed and annihilated in the process of the European expression of modern subjecthood—similarly are unable simply to be accommodated into a definition of modern subjecthood by virtue of being freed from the ‘tyranny’ of traditional life. They stand outside standard understandings of the modern subject epistemologically, while their outsider position is itself a consequence of historical actions undertaken by European subjects as the expression of their own (misrecognised) modern subjectivity.
Talk #3 · 06.05.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : PHILIPP WINTERHAGER (TU Berlin): Verantwortung abgeben, Verantwortung übernehmen. Freiwilligkeit im mittelalterlichen Amtsverzicht
*** For the abstract please switch to the German version of this website- ***
Talk #4 · 20.05.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : REGULA LUDI (U Fribourg): “We Are Fed up with Unpaid Housework and Sick of Altruism.” Second-Wave Feminism, Unpaid Work, and Volunteering
In the 1970s, second-wave feminism launched a radical attack on established gender relations. Among other things, feminists denounced the gendered division of labor as a structural arrangement that forced women into economic dependency on men and obligated them to render services for their families and society for free. The predominant ideology of gender difference supported this arrangement with the claim that women’s duties as wives, mothers, and citizens were biologically determined by their reproductive functions and thus did not qualify as work in the strict sense of the term. In their critique, feminists argued that housework, caring, child-rearing, and volunteering not only satisfied essential human needs, but in effect generated economic value. Inter alia, they demanded that women’s unremunerated activities be made visible statistically to expose their economic significance. These demands led to the introduction of unpaid work as a new category in labor statistics. It aggregated a broad variety of activities, such as housework, caring, community services, and volunteering. This epistemic shift enhanced the visibility and recognition of these unremunerated activities. But its impact on volunteers and voluntary activities was ambivalent and in many respects contrary to the feminists’ initial aspirations to smash established gender arrangements.
Talk #5 · 03.06.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Is Migration Ever Voluntary? Migration Between Agency, Coercion, and Power ; Discussants: Tahire Erman (Bilkent U), Pierre Monforte (UIC Barcelona), Florian Wagner (U Erfurt)
This academic roundtable critically reflects on the shifting meanings of agency, coercion, and solidarity in debates about migration. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the discussion explores how notions of voluntary migration are produced, contested, and instrumentalized across political, legal, and social contexts. Under conditions shaped by war, inequality, gender relations, climate crisis, restrictive border regimes, and deportation enforcement, voluntariness in migration becomes a deeply unstable category. Rather than reflecting free choice, many migration decisions emerge from constrained agency within coercive structural contexts. Similarly, so-called “voluntary return” is often shaped by legal precarity, fear of enforcement, and limited alternatives. Voluntariness, in this sense, functions less as an empirical reality and more as a political and administrative label that obscures power relations. What role do institutions, states, and international organizations play in shaping these categories? How do migrants themselves understand the boundaries between forced and voluntary (return) migration? How do migrants and volunteers react to the illegalization of migration and support networks?
Talk #6 · 17.06.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : PEER ILLNER (Groningen U): The Mutual Aid Dilemma: Disasters, Crises and Social Reproduction
In an age of climate catastrophe, mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and wildfires hit, as cuts to federal spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organized welfare programs of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building voluntary aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid plays a double-edged role in cuts to social spending. Framing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, this talk tracks a shift in American emergency aid towards a new relationship between the state, the market, and civil society.
Talk #7 · 01.07.2026 · 18:15 – 19:45 · Erfurt Campus, C19.00.02 : EDUARDO ABOULTAIF (U Kaslik), MARA ALBRECHT (U Erfurt): Between the State and the Street: Qabadayat as Voluntary Security Actors and Agents of Political Mobilization in Lebanon (1943–1980s)
The talk will focus on the Qabadayat, a local phenomenon of voluntary security actors in Lebanon from Ottoman times until well into the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Typically from humble origins, these strongmen became leaders of the young men in their neighborhoods. Celebrated for their physical strength and adherence to masculine codes of honor, the Qabadayat are often remembered as local heroes. They constituted a significant informal institution at the neighborhood level, acting as intermediaries and power brokers within Lebanon’s patronage system. By connecting local populations with political elites and state representatives, the Qabadayat were agents of political mobilization, e.g., for elections or protests. Their diverse responsibilities included protecting the neighborhood against external threats, policing crime, settling internal disputes, and preserving traditions and moral rules. However, their local authority was usually based on the use or threat of violence. We position the Qabadayat within the broader field of research on voluntariness and voluntary engagement. The talk focuses on their voluntary nature and their ambiguous position as both protectors of the neighborhood and as violent actors who skirted the rule of law. It traces their evolving role within the political system from Lebanon’s independence in 1943 until they gradually disappeared during the civil war when militias replaced them.
