Längst gibt es altersgerechte digitale Assistenzsysteme. Doch sind Umfang und Geschwindigkeit ihrer Verbreitung sowohl in Pflegeeinrichtungen als auch in privaten Haushalten weitgehend unbekannt. Informationen zu tatsächlich eingesetzten Systemen, realisierten Umsätzen und Marktvolumen sind kaum zu finden. Obwohl es viele Vermutungen hinsichtlich der Hindernisse bei der Einführung altersger…
The effects of the intra-African and European deportation regimes brought about since the European Union's externalization of its migration and development policy by transferring it to countries of sub-Saharan Africa remain largely understudied - especially their effects on people's everyday life after forced returns. Based on extensive field research, Susanne U. Schultz's book analyses the sup…
Luxembourg - international financial center, European administrative center, destination country for immigration? This empirical study provides insights about a society that has hitherto largely eluded scientific investigation and observes the processes of identity construction in globalised conditions.The interdisciplinary team of authors exposes the processes of subjective appropriations and …
Algorithms are not to be regarded as a technical structure but as a social phenomenon - they embed themselves, currently still very subtle, into our political and social system. Algorithms shape human behavior on various levels: they influence not only the aesthetic reception of the world but also the well-being and social interaction of their users. They act and intervene in a political and so…
This book is about the radical novelty of modern polities in a functionally differentiated world society. Premodern states were at the apex of a stratified, hierarchical society. They dominated society and all its groups and strata. Modern polities have to be understood through the ecology of relations among different function systems. They have to find and incessantly redefine their place in s…
In Southern Africa, marriage used to be widespread and common. However, over the past decades marriage rates have declined significantly. Julia Pauli explores the meaning of marriage when only few marry. Although marriage rates have dropped sharply, the value of weddings and marriages has not. To marry has become an indicator of upper-class status that less affluent people aspire to. Using the …
How to do cultural studies in the twenty-first century? This essay collection is not a handbook, encyclopedia, or a »state of the field« compendium. Instead, it is a reflexive exercise in cultural studies, featuring fifteen accessible essays on a selection of critical key works published since 2000. The contributors aim to provide readers with a fresh and engaging look at recent criticism, ex…
In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blin…
The British and American Congo Reform Movement (ca. 1890-1913) has been praised extensively for its ›heroic‹ confrontation of colonial atrocities in the Congo Free State. Its commitment to white supremacy and colonial domination, however, continues to be overlooked, denied, or trivialised. This historical-sociological study argues that racism was the ideological cornerstone and formed the m…
The »return of great power competition« between (among others) the US, China, Russia and the EU is a major topic in contemporary public debate. But why do we think of world politics in terms of »competition«? Which information and which rules enable states and other actors in world politics to »compete« with one another? Which competitive strategies do they pursue in the complex environme…