Doctoral candidates

Lukas Arnold studied history and sociology in his bachelor's degree and completed his master's degree in "Social and Political Theory" at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck in 2019. He then worked for four years as a research assistant and lecturer in the research group for empirical social sciences at the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences in Dornbirn. Since 2023, he has been a doctoral student in the project "Affluence and the Gender Gap in STEM Study Choices" at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck.

The dissertation gets to the bottom of the so-called "gender equality paradox". It describes the phenomenon that gender inequality in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is greater in the so-called "developed" countries, where the genders often formally have the same rights, than in the so-called "developing countries". In order to approach this phenomenon, the effects of social background, as well as individual attitudes towards career and study choices and gender roles, are analysed in a theory-driven, quantitative approach. To this end, both cross-national studies and data from the German National Educational Panel Study are analysed.

Christian Greis graduated from the University of Bolzano in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in
Social Pedagogy in 2017, a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy at the University of
Innsbruck and in 2020 a Master's degree in "Sociology - Approaches to
contemporary society" at the FernUniversität in Hagen with a thesis on
with a thesis on "The unconditional basic income, a socio-political
model of the future?".

The thesis of my work is that Castoriadis is the true successor of Adorno and, with him, of Critical Theory in the field of social theory. He can escape Honneth's intersubjectivism without a concept of society, just as he can invalidate the functionalist
in Adorno's thinking without having to give up the sting of social criticism in his theory. In doing so, he develops, according to a further assumption, a social-theoretical approach in the spirit of Adorno, which attempts to grasp society in its disgruence.

Daniela Gruber completed her diploma study at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Her diploma thesis focused on transnational religious networks of Roma and Sinti in France and Austria. Her research topics are migration, minorities and transnationalism, using qualitative research methods. During her studies in Vienna, she worked for editorial efforts at the human rights organisation "Bedrohte Völker" in Vienna.

The dissertation deals with integration processes in the autonomous region of South Tyrol in North Italy. Following Bourdieu, integration processes are worked out by a theory of practice, focusing particularly on social network building in the social space. The work contains a qualitative study that includes biographical interviews with female and male migrants from Pakistan and Germany as striking examples, considering their migration experience by entering into new social fields and their everyday life. The argumentation line goes along the focus on social network building as crucial in integration processes and its interconnections with other aspects of accumulating and transforming economic and cultural capital. The work aims to examine the mechanisms, which are going on in the society by a theory of practice, including immigrant's habitus dispositions as an engine for strategies of social networking and their positioning in the society. The argumentation is linked to concrete practice of network building over a long-term period related to gender issues, in contrast to an essentialist cultural view on integration, forced by public discourse, political debates and research studies, which emphasize cultural differences in referring to women from Muslim origin countries and where Pakistani women are regarded as the "upholders of the culture" in playing their major rule in transmission and appreciation of the cultural values of their origin country.

Dominik Gruber studied sociology and education in Salzburg. He has been working on his doctorate at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Innsbruck since 2018. Dominik Gruber works as a research assistant in the field of social psychiatry in Upper Austria. From 2011 to 2018, he also worked as a lecturer at the University of Salzburg, Department of Political Science and Sociology (Department of Sociology).

In his dissertation project, Dominik Gruber is working on a critical theory of societal/social diversity. The concept of diversity is to be anchored in social theory and its critical potential scrutinised. To this end, theoretical considerations by Judith Butler and Theodor W. Adorno in particular will be utilised. The theoretical and normative areas of tension between Butler and Adorno and between post-structuralist and materialist-critical thinking will be utilised to explore the potentials and limits of a critical concept of diversity.

Christine Jost completed a bachelor's degree in social work at the University of Bolzano and a master's degree in sociology at the University of Innsbruck. Her master's thesis focussed on the topic of female violence in adolescence. She also completed a teacher training programme in sociology. Since 2021, she has been working as a teacher of sociology in teacher training in Luxembourg. Since July 2024, she has been working on her dissertation in the field of educational sociology.

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, University of Innsbruck. Currently, I am working on the Austrian Science Fund project "Affluence and the gender gap in STEM study choices" . I also serve as an academic editor of PloS One. I hold a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Central European University. My research interests include gender inequality and environmental economics with more than ten peer-reviewed publication.

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A surprising finding from recent social science research is that the difference between men and women in the choice for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study is greater in wealthier and more gender-egalitarian countries. This counter-intuitive finding is known as the Gender-Equality Paradox (GEP). However, there hardly exist tests of this explanation. It is unknown whether and how parental household affluence affects men`s and women`s STEM study preferences and choices, let alone whether household affluence accounts for GEP in various societal contexts. Thus, I will address these research gaps to answer GEP from perspectives of affluence effects.

Ph.D. student in Sociology with a double degree agreement between FFLCH-USP (Brazil) and SoWi-University of Innsbruck (SoWi-UIBK). Holder of a Doctoral Scholarship (promotion of young talent) from UIBK and also a Doctoral Scholarship from CNPQ (suspended). I have a Master's degree in Education from the Graduate School of Education at USP, working on the Sociology of Education research line. In 2022, I completed my internship abroad at the University of Zagreb (Croatia), as well as taking part in a Master's and PhD workshop at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. I am a research member of GPSECC/USP-Brazil (Research Group on the Sociology of Education, Culture and Knowledge) and FZ Social Theory/UIBK-Austria (Research Centre for Social Theory). I have a degree in History from FCL-UNESP/Assis (2017).

The purpose of this research is to investigate the practical sense inherent in the dynamic of football fans' with the structural change in football culture. Over the last 40 years, administrators of national and international football institutions, in dialogue and collaboration with their sponsoring companies and the states of their respective countries, have advocated a format of football that can be commodified more closely along the lines of neoliberal commerce. In various parts of the world, through organized movements against the new model of football, a wide range of fan groups defend the previous condition of the football pitch as a way of preserving a "traditional" or "authentic" format of the game, as opposed to the "modernisation" of the sport. Although researchers on the subject recognise and investigate the conflicting relationship between fans and the transformations in national fields in much of the world, there is a notable analytical gap in the practical meaning operated by fans in their opposition between "modern" and "traditional" football. Several researchers brought evidence that this ongoing encompasses diverse perspectives, coming from a popular defence of a cultural right to a conservative agenda, making it clear the relevance to study the existent meaning through this struggle. For that, this research uses Pierre Bourdieu's sociological tools to analyze the "resistance to modern football" as practice signified by social relations, and in that case, regards the economic domination of football as a symbolic domination (and a symbolic resistance). This conception gives relevance to the practical dynamic existent between football fans and the sport itself, and with the social space to which they belong, taking their class positions and its relational dynamic with the others. In this research, I propose objectifying the native concepts of "modern" and "traditional" used by football fans in their practices of perception, appreciation, and taking a stand concerning the neoliberal transformations mentioned above. These perspectives will be analysed in the light of the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu,2008). It allows us to understand these transformations as a unification of the symbolic goods market. Within this context, adherence to the "modern" is seen as a force of attraction towards neoliberal structuring. At the same time, opposition to this transformation ("tradition") represents a force of inertia towards maintaining the doxa incorporated into the fans' social practice. Therefore, I use these oppositional categories to investigate the social uses of these perceptions and positions on the restructuring of football's symbolic economy and its respective doxa and the material and symbolic motives that mobilise fans to adhere and/or resist the "modern". In a way to highlight the relevance of the social structure and its symbolical economy, this research is developed in two countries (Brazil and Germany) that belong to different historical processes, which means, different social structures. It specifically looks at organised football fans of two prominent clubs, S.E. Palmeiras (Brazil) and F.C. Bayern München (Germany), and their groups Mancha Alvi-Verde and Schickeria München. The research uses a mix of qualitative methods, including interviews and ethnographic research, and quantitative analysis such as Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA).

Manuel Rotter completed a Bachelor's and Master's degree programme in Sociology at the University of Innsbruck. At the beginning of his studies, he primarily dealt with questions of global economics and neoliberal socialisation within the framework of world system theory. This debate underpinned his subsequent focus on the interdisciplinary study of social relations to nature and the ecological crises of the present day. He wrote his Master's thesis on the social causes of anthropogenic climate change, in which the 'industrial market society' in particular was thematised as a driving force of human climate impact.

Research interests: Environmental sociology, economic sociology, historical sociology, human-nature relationship, sustainability

Carla Scheytt studied "History" and "Politics/Economics/Society" at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). In her Master's degree in "Social Science" at RUB, she focussed on methods of empirical social research. She has been a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck since 2021.

Specialisations and interests: Qualitative methods and methodologies, research ethics, sociology of science, higher education research

The dissertation project is dedicated to research ethics in qualitative social research. Although research ethics is increasingly being addressed in the social sciences, partly because research ethics review procedures are being further institutionalised, research on ethical practice has so far been largely lacking. The aim of the project is to empirically analyse the research practice of qualitative researchers with regard to ethics. It is assumed that the practice is shaped on the one hand by the chosen qualitative methodology and methodological procedures and on the other hand by the institutionalisation of research ethics. The work ties in with sociological research into the sociology of science and organisational sociological approaches to university research. As part of the dissertation, qualitative interviews will be conducted with sociologists conducting research and a document analysis will be carried out and analysed. The project is intended to add value to the discourse on research ethics in the social sciences, for the reflective examination of qualitative social research with its own methods and for sociological research in sociology.

Claudia Schütz studied sociology, political science and communication and media studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and completed her Master's degree in "Social and Political Theory" at the University of Innsbruck with a thesis on the Stuttgart 21 civic protest movement. Her thesis was honoured by the Austrian Sociological Association as an outstanding sociological work. From 2016 to 2019, Claudia Schütz worked as a development education officer at the Dreikönigsaktion. She then took over the project management for an EU project to reduce food waste at Abfallwirtschaft Tirol Mitte.

Claudia Schütz is working on her dissertation in the field of protest and movement research. In her dissertation project, she is examining the wave of protests in democratic states and the social normative foundations as a prerequisite for collective mobilisation from 2011 onwards. She is particularly interested in the Gezi protests in Turkey and the Indignados movement in Spain. Between 2014 and 2016, she therefore spent several research stays in Turkey and Spain, supported by a Marietta Blau scholarship, among others.

After completing his bachelor's degree in political science (2018), Philipp Seeber completed a master's degree in history with a thesis on the Paris Commune in 2021 and a master's degree in sociology with a study on global inequality at the University of Innsbruck. He has been working on his dissertation as a doctoral student in sociology since 2022.

Martin Steinlechner studied sociology at the University of Innsbruck and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Department of Sociology. He is a member of the Austrian Sociological Association (ÖGS) and the European Sociological Association (ESA) and has taken part in several international meetings and conferences as a speaker.

In his dissertation, he is mainly concerned with Axel Honneth's theory of recognition and its positioning in the field of tension between the Frankfurt Critical Theory of Adorno and Horkheimer.

Martin Steinlechner is also actively involved as a transport planner and in this role deals with the daily requirements of spatial mobility and its complex problems.

Axel Honneth's texts often focus on the space of public decision-making, for example in "The Idea of Socialism" or earlier in "The Right of Freedom", in which Honneth outlines it as a place of reflexive self-thematisation and the articulation of social conflict that is free of domination. Just as the public space works simultaneously on the successful self and on the political order, the social conflict carried out in this space is not sufficiently determined by its mere articulation in public: it is also an expression of subjective experiences of disregard in a "struggle for recognition" and thus becomes the focal point of Honneth's entire theoretical structure.

However, according to my thesis, Honneth develops a concept of the subject in recognition theory that exaggerates the potentials of the subject and thus ultimately also those of social conflict. His perspective underestimates the fact that existing power relations are also reproduced in the order of recognition (Kögler). This can be seen, for example, in the implicit labelling of protest as the ideal of a normal resolution of social conflict: here, recognition theory underestimates the fact that the potential of protest evaporates in the legitimisation of the ruling order.

What concept of society does Honneth refer to from recognition theory to his more recent political theory of democratic morality, and what concept of critique subsequently results for his paradigm of a Frankfurt critical theory? Along these fundamental questions, the dissertation project ultimately follows a question about the whole: Does Honneth do justice to his claim to focus on human suffering and its transcending potential?

I completed a Bachelor's degree in Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Vienna and then a Master's degree in Sociology at the University of Innsbruck. In my master's thesis, I analysed the differences in Bourdieu's and Butler's theories of language in terms of their stability and dynamics. The title of the master's thesis was: "Performativity of language. A theoretical examination of the practical dimension of speech".

Since October 2020, I have been working as a university assistant and project worker at the Social Theory Research Centre at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck. In this context, I am writing my dissertation on the relationship between migration and development by investigating transnational engagement in African migrant organisations in German-speaking countries.

Sabine Wallner completed a Master's degree in Sociology and Gender, Culture and Social Change at the University of Innsbruck. Her academic education is characterised by a pronounced interdisciplinarity with a sociological focus, which has also had a lasting impact on her research interests. Sabine Wallner's dissertation deals with the phenomenon of the social interpretation of sexualised violence.

Mag. phil. Mathias Weiss, born 1983 in Hallein, Austria, studied sociology and cultural studies at the University of Salzburg with research stays at the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia and the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela. He is currently a PhD student at the Institute of Sociology of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Innsbruck, was a participant and speaker at the first international Climate Engineering Conference (CEC14 - Critical Global Discussions) in Berlin and is writing his dissertation on the topic of "Military geoengineering vs. civil society".
He has, among other things, trained as a carpenter. He has been involved in the independent art and culture scene since 2000 and has since realised projects at home and abroad at the interface between art, culture and science. Mag. phil. Mathias Weiss is a member of the Research Institute for Patriarchal Critique and Alternative Civilisations (Fipaz) and the Planetary Movement for Mother Earth (PBME).

The aim of the work is to clarify the question of whether and how the climate-manipulating option of geoengineering is treated - or not treated - as a factor triggering climate change and is constructed in scientific and public discourse. The aim is to show that geoengineering is about to reach a new stage in the implementation of an ideology of total "machinisation" (Genth) and control over the planet and all living things in order to get it under military, economic and engineering control for the first time in history. This is to be achieved by means of a sociological critique of ideology and analysis from the perspective of the "risk society" (Beck), critical theory as well as "critical patriarchy theory" (Werlhof) on the basis of its sociological critique of technology.