Previous Research Unit (Funding Period I)

Coordinators:

Principal Inverstigators:

In the first funding period, the research unit Borders investigated how globalization, migration, technological change, regional integration, and political backlash challenged territorial integrity and citizenship across different regions and historical periods. It asked whether these pressures stemmed from internal contradictions within liberal states or external shocks, who promoted alternatives to liberal border regimes, and whether identity-based or non-liberal counter-models were emerging. Finally, it explored whether current contestations were merely reshaping border practices or fundamentally transforming the liberal order itself, with major implications for migration, sovereignty, and the future of liberal societies.

Research Projects

Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity - The Contestation of Material Representation in National Museums of the Global North
Prof. Dr. Philipp Lepenies, Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht
Nov 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 Contesting the Liberal Border Script. Migrant Protests as Struggles for Citizenship and Personhood
Prof. Dr. Christian Volk
Oct 01, 2022 — Mar 31, 2023 Varieties of Diversity Scripts
Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Yasemin Soysal, Prof. Dr. Kathrin Zippel
Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 War in Ukraine, Russia’s potential decoupling from the global internet and the changing perspective of emerging powers on internet and data governance
Prof. Dr. Katharina Bluhm, Prof. Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse
Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 A Longitudinal and Multilocal Qualitative Analysis of Displacement from Ukraine: Trajectories, Attitudes, and Return vs. Integration
Prof. Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse
May 01, 2022 — Apr 30, 2023 Rethinking Individual Self-determination and Women’s Emancipation. Global South Feminism(s) and the Contestation of Liberal Feminist Thought
Prof. Dr. Gülay Çaglar
Jul 01, 2021 — Jul 31, 2022 Gender, Border Expansion, and the Liberal Script: Masculinity and Territorial Legitimacy in US-German-Japanese Relations, 1868-1914
Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Dr. Maximilian Klose
Jun 01, 2020 — Dec 31, 2021 The Liberal Script in Ukraine's Contested Border Regions
Dr. Johannes Gerschweski, Dr. Heiko Giebler
Oct 01, 2020 — Aug 31, 2024 Gender, Borders, Memory: Contestation of the Liberal Script in the Catalan Separatist Movement
Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Johannes Heß, Tobias Klee
Sep 01, 2020 — Aug 31, 2023 Debating the Legitimacy of Borders: How the Admission or Refoulement of Refugees is Justified Across the World
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gerhards, Prof. Dr. Steffan Mau, Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Jun. Prof. Dr. Daniel Drewski
Oct 01, 2019 — Sep 30, 2022 Performing the Liberal Script: Audiovisual Arts and the Aesthetics of Self-Determination
Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht
Apr 01, 2019 — Dec 31, 2021