Under the heading “Ambivalences of Voluntariness”, Jürgen Martschukat, spokesperson of the DFG Research Unit Voluntariness, will give a brief overview of the research of our group on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, from 12:00 to 12:30 in the foyer of the research building “Weltbeziehungen” in Erfurt, as part of the series “Treppenhaus Lectures”.
The research group deals with the questions and challenges of understanding how voluntarinesss as a normative category seems to have become a principle of how people are governed in contemporary Western democracies. People are called upon to do things voluntarily in many parts of their everyday lives, and the relevance of voluntariness emerges in a wide variety of current debates. Based on this diagnosis from the present, the group in its first funding period has already been able to show that very ambivalent conditions exist as to how concepts of voluntariness have been and are powerful in the past and present. However, we can also talk about how its meaning varies for authoritarian or post-colonial societies, and how findings of our current sub-projects show that voluntariness is far more complex than simply perceiving it as an opponent of coercion or that a concept from our current debates cannot be uncritically transferred to other forms of society and government or even excluded there.
The “Treppenhaus-Lectures”, which takes place every two weeks, includes lectures from current projects by colleagues working in the research building “Weltbeziehungen” in Erfurt. The 30-minute events, which take place from 12:00 to 12:30 in the foyer, are open to the public and anyone interested on campus is invited to drop by. The short presentations offer participants the opportunity to get to know the range of research topics, ask questions and join in the discussion. Registration is not required.
