Start of the Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Fotos: Thomas Abel

On Wednesday, 4 July, the Third Interdisciplinary Dialogue took place at the BGHS. The topic was Inclusion & Exclusion: Historical and Sociological Perspectives on Premodern Societies, the Law, and Organizations.

The deputy director of the BGHS Prof. Dr. Thomas Welskopp introduced into the topic and welcomed the participants of the discussion. Afterwards every discussant explained how he or she approaches Inclusion/Exclusion.

BGHS Deputy Director Prof. Dr. Thomas Welskopp introduces the participants of the discussion.

For the sociological view Prof. Dr. Stefan Kühl and Prof. Dr. Alfons Bora were part of the panel. The historian perspective was represented by Prof. Dr. Antje Flüchter and Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Arlinghaus.

Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Arlinghaus, Professor for the High and Late Middle Ages (left).

Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Arlinghaus described the meaning of Inclusion/Exclusion in medieval societies. As part of his statement he showed that even the death of a person did not necessarily mean his exclusion from society. His example was a law-suit in a case of murder, in which the widow mustn’t speak for herself but only in the name of her husband as the victim.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Kühl, Sociology of organizations.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Kühl explained that he approaches Inclusion/Exclusion as the decisive mechanism for social systems in modern societies. As social systems he sees families, groups, movements and organisations. It is crucial for every system that it uses its own Inclusion/Exclusion mechanism.

Prof. Dr. Antje Flüchter, Middle Ages and early modern period.

Prof. Dr. Antje Flüchter gave insights about Inclusion/Exclusion phenomena in the early modern period. Beside other aspects she showed how a French colony in India had to deal with questions of Inclusion/Exclusion, since the colony’s French and Indian citizens were distributed to different law systems.

Prof. Dr. Alfons Bora, Sociology of Law

The perspective of law was also familiar to Prof. Dr. Alfons Bora, but with an sociological approach. For him, Inclusion/Exclusion is relevant in the process of juridification, when more questions of society can be judged by a court. As an example he mentioned the question if and how artificial intelligences should be made responsible for their decisions in front of a court.

The statements were followed by a discussion between the participants. In the end the audience addressed questions to the discussants.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Welskopp in discussion with Prof. Dr. Alfons Bora.

The Interdisciplinary Dialogue is meant to strengthen the communication between sociology and history.

For more information about the Interdisciplinary Dialogue please visit:

www.uni-bielefeld.de/bghs/Programm/BGHS_spezifische_Formate/dialog