Nächste Ausgabe
1/2024: Between private and public: hybrid spaces in the upheavals of the Corona pandemic
The ongoing digitization includes a process of social and political transformation which effects the relation of what is private and what is considered public. The corona-pandemic accelerated this transformation. This changed roles and spaces, it created new insecurities and expectations, concerning spaces of residential living for instance: The distinction between an individual's role as parent and as employee became more fluid and vague. This points to the cracks in the relation between the private and the public. The pandemic has revealed the limits and ambivalences in the constructions of private and public spheres that have always existed.
This issue focusses on two connected questions: How do spaces and roles change in the course of the transformations of the Corona pandemic? How does this transformation effect the relation between private and public? How are the two processes of transformation interconnected, the transformation of roles and spaces on the one hand and the transformation of the distinction of private and public on the other hand?
Edotis: Sarah Jäger, Frederike van Oorschot and Florian Höhne.
1/2025: Practices and institutions of solidarity - socio-ethical and political-theological perspectives
Solidarity is back – on the streets, in social salons and political speeches as well as in theoretical debates. After decades of the dominance of the neoliberal paradigm of privatization and sweeping modernization, the renaissance of the concept of solidarity is surprising for some and only logical for others. Others, on the other hand, diagnose an increased pressure to act responsibly out of solidarity with an overburdened society – and thus a new variant of neoliberalism. In particular, the diagnosis of an entrenched situation of multiple, overlapping crises initially makes recourse to solidarity seem plausible. Be it the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its (global) economic and political consequences, the ecological catastrophe, the precarious situation of refugees and migrants or the emergence of new polarization issues: Solidarity seems to be an eternal fountain of youth when it comes to addressing a common (emergency) situation and mobilizing the power of cohesion and thus the willingness of individuals to work together to overcome it.
However, it is noticeable that solidarity does not simply return in its classic forms as a movement of the trade union movement and as a social principle realized in welfare state institutions. Contemporary debates on solidarity in particular emphasize its controversial, contested, ambivalent character: How far does solidarity go in the face of the ongoing destruction of the planetary foundations of life? Who does it include and who does it exclude under the impression of continuing colonial and patriarchal conditions? What solidarity efforts are demanded of whom - for whose benefit? Who has access to solidarity institutions, should support them and benefits from them? To what extent are solidarizations accompanied by desolidarizations and are these inevitable processes? Contrary to an apparently existing intuitive plausibility in social contexts, the concept of solidarity today requires a contouring that also turns to forms and structures of solidarity other than the familiar ones.
This suggests focusing primarily on the relationship between practices and institutions of solidarity and, in doing so, proceeding with a particular sensitivity for contexts, inclusions/exclusions and social (power) relations. A contemporary understanding of solidarity can only be developed through a variety of perspectives and contexts and in relation to other key concepts and basic categories. The discussion builds on a long tradition of dealing with the topic of solidarity in political theologies and Christian social ethics. Against the backdrop of the current crises, this tradition needs to be continued, updated or even readjusted. This issue aims to make a contribution to this.
Editors: Michelle Becka, Bernhard Emunds, Josef M. Könning, Walter Lesch
Schreiben für ethikundgesellschaft
