is sociologist and lawyer. Since 1999, he has been holding a chair in sociology at Bielefeld University. His interests are sociology of law, theory of regulation, sociological theory, and qualitative methods. He was a member of the German Ethics Council (appointed by the Federal Parliament and Government) from 2008 until 2012. Since 2010, he has been acting as deputy director of the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS, funded by the German »Excellence Initiative«). From 2008 until 2012, he was executive editor of the Zeitschrift für Soziologie. Since 2000, he has been working as one of the editors of Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie – The German Journal of Law and Society.

is a doctoral researcher in sociology at Bielefeld University. From 2010 till 2013 he was a member of the Graduate School “World Society – Making and Representing the Global”. His main research concerns Global Social Policy and welfare state development in Eastern Europe. In his PhD thesis he focuses on East European non-EU members and goes into the question, whether Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are variations of the European welfare state model. In addition he is interested in cultural history of football. Martin Brand holds a diploma in political science from Free University Berlin.

is a doctoral researcher in sociology at Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) and a research associate of the project „The discursive construction of conflict and international organizational decision-making processes between normative frameworks of peacebuilding and securitization - the case of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI)", funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research. Her research presently focuses on the sociology of international relations, international organisations, critical security studies, knowledge sociology and discourse theory.

Current projects include research on knowledge and discursive frames of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) (PhD project), an article on UN interventions from a world society perspective (forthcoming in 2014, co-authored with Mitja Sienknecth and Mathias Albert) as well as research and evaluation work on UN SC Resolutions 1325 and 1820, women's participation and the prevention of violence against women. A sociologist by training, Kerstin has worked as a conflict prevention and recovery practitioner with the UN's Development Programme from 2003 to 2009 (Switzerland, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, South-East Europe & CIS).

(Dr. phil.) is a research associate at the Research Group ‘Transnationalization, Development and Migration', Bielefeld University. She is currently a member and coordinator of the C1 project within the Collaborative Research Centre 882. Her current projects deal with social inequalities in transnational perspective, global mobility, sociology of citizenship and the transformations of locality. Recent publications include "Transnational Migration" (Polity Press, 2013, co-author) and "Migrants and Cities" (Ashgate, 2012).

is professor for Public Law, Political Theory and Constitutional History at the Faculty of Laws at Bielefeld University. He is a member of the Collaborative Research Centre 882 “From Heterogeneities to Inequalities” and was am member of the former Collaborative Research Center 584 "The Political as a space of communication in History". His special fields of interests are modern Constitutional History of the 20th Century, Human Rights Research, Security and Safety and its legal protection as well as the laws of Integration (of foreigners) in German and the EU.

Recent publications:

• Law as the Basis and Object of Political Communication, in: Steinmetz/Gilcher-Holtey/Haupt (ed.), Writing political history today, 2013, S. 191-206
• The interrelationship between domestic judicial mechanism and the Strasbourg Court rulings in Germany (mit Dr. S. Müller), in: Dia Anagnostou (ed.), The European Court of human rights - Implementing Strasbourg´s Judgments on Domestic Policy, 2013, S. 27-48

studied sociology and history at the Universities of Bielefeld and Warwick. After having worked at the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft in Bonn, he is currently doctoral researcher and research associate at the University of Bielefeld. His PhD project focuses on the delegitimization of empire as a mode and model of political organization since the late 19th century and investigates the causes and conditions of this long-term as well as global normative transformation process. His research interests include sociological theory, historical sociology, sociology of empires as well as globalization and world society theory.

is (retired) Professor for Political Communication and Risk Sociology at the Faculty of Sociology of Bielefeld University. His research concentrates on Political Communication, Global Terrorism, Risk Issues, and Systems Theory.

Publications:

Main:

Büscher, Chr./Japp, K.P. (Eds.), 2010: Ökologische Aufklärung. 25 Jahre „Ökologische Kommunikation, Wiesbaden: VS

Recent:

Suicide Missions and Vocabularies of Motives. Risk, danger and the primacy of communication (forthcoming)

is Junior Professor of Transnational History of the Americas and Ex­ecutive Director of the Center for InterAmerican Studies at Bielefeld University. His research areas include Latin American and Transnational History, Inter-American Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Indigeneity and Identity Politics, Social Movements. He has done field and archival Work in Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico and the US. He has recently published "Politische Räume jenseits von Staat und Nation" (2012), "Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas" (2011), "Transnational Americas. Envisioning Inter.American Area Studies in Globalization Processes" (2013), and "En diálogo: Metodologías horizontales en ciencias sociales y culturales" (with Sarah Corona Berkin, 2012)

is an extraordinary professor (apl. Professor) for sociological theory, history of sociology and historical sociology at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University. Formerly, he has done research on the history and methodology of German historical sociology. Today he focuses on the theoretical problem of how total wars (like World War I and II) determine social change in modern society. Combining sociological theory and historical research, he aims at integrating total wars into a theory of modern society which has up until now considered modern society as civil society.

studied sociology and political science in Duisburg-Essen, Bielefeld and St. Petersburg. He is currently a doctoral researcher at Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology, Bielefeld University. In his PhD project, he analyzes how interaction-like structures enable transnational connections of social movements. His research interests include globalization, interaction, social movements as well as ethnography and social theory.

is Senior Lecturer for Political Theory at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University. His research interests include Political and Social Theory and Philosophy and History of Political Thought. Among his most recently published books are: "Politische Philosophie der Besonderheit" (2014, co-authored with F. Martinsen), "Gewaltbefragungen. Beiträge zur Politischen Theorie der Gewalt" (2014, co-editor with F. Martinsen) and "Jenseits von Glauben und Wissen" (2011).

(MA, University of Bielefeld) is presently a lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland). She is completing her PhD at the Institute for World Society Studies at the University of Bielefeld (Germany). Her research interests include organizational sociology and technology studies, in particular the case of business software as a pattern of globalization.

is professor of social anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University. The regional emphasis of her studies is on the Himalayan region, South Asia and on immigration societies of Central Europe. Her research conducted in the field of political and legal anthropology focuses generally on ethnicity, democratization processes at the sub-national level and globalization processes viewed from social anthropological perspective. Her recent projects concentrate on a theory of belonging as well as on the nexus between heterogeneity and inequality observed at German and South Asian Universities (studying, students’ lives and student politics).

Recent publications:

• ‘The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas. Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics’ (ed. together with G. Toffin), New Delhi: Sage.
• ‘Facing Globalisation in the Himalayas. Belonging and the Politics of the Self’ (ed. together with G. Toffin), New Delhi: Sage (in press).

is researcher in the research group “Sociology of Transnationalization, Development and Migration” at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University. Her research interests are migration, transnationalization and family sociology. Her dissertation project focuses on transnational personal relationships of Turkish migrants in Germany. Eveline Reisenauer is among others a co-author (with Thomas Faist and Margit Fauser) of “Transnational Migration” (Polity Press, 2013).

is Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat) at Bielefeld University. His research interests are organizational sociology, political sociology, world society studies, historical sociology and qualitative methodology. In his dissertation he studied the emergence of transparency as a global norm, its implementation in organizations, and unintended side-effects. His current research revolves around the dual role of rankings in the context of organizations: They are produced by organizations and they have impacts on organizations.

(M.A. European University Viadrina, Frankfurt Oder) is a doctoral researcher at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University. Her dissertation project focuses on involuntary return and migration dynamics in West Africa against the background of externalization of EU migration policies, and specifically the individual dimensions of post deportation in Mali. Her research interests include migration, development, transnational and local networks as well as integration, discrimination and gender relations. From 2009 to 2013, she worked at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva, Ankara and Nuremberg.

is a postdoctoral researcher in the DFG funded Project “Expatriate Manager. A New Cosmopolitan Elite? Habitus, Every Day Practices and Networks”. She has carried our research on translocal spaces and transnationalization of knowledge in different empirical fields. In her research on translocal life worlds of female Bolivian migrants in the Global City Buenos Aires she concentrated on dance as a translocal practice. As a researcher in the VW funded Project „Negotiating Development: Translocal Gendered Spaces in Muslim Societies“ and in her doctoral dissertation she focused on the transnational negotiations of public spheres, Women's and Human Rights in islamizing Malaysia. In the current project on Expatriate Managers she carries out research on highly skilled migration and mobility in the context on transnational corporations. Her main research interests are: transnationalization and mobility, skilled and non skilled migration, global civil society, global negotiations of knowledge, processes of identity construction in Latin America and Southeast Asia, global ethnography.

Selected Publications:

• Spiegel, Anna (2010): Contested Public Spheres. Female Activism and Identity Politics in Malaysia, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
• Spiegel, Anna (2008): Negotiating Women's Rights in a Translocal Space. Women's Organisations and Networking in Malaysia, in: Gudrun Lachenmann and Petra Dannecker (Hg.): Negotiating Development in Muslim Societies: Gendered Spaces and Translocal Connections, Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 171-192.
• Spiegel, Anna (2007) Wissen zwischen Globalisierung und Lokalisierung, in: Rainer Schützeichel (Hg.): Handbuch Wissenssoziologie und Wissensforschung, Konstanz: UKV, S. 737-784.
• Spiegel, Anna (2005): Alltagswelten in translokalen Räumen. Bolivianische Migrantinnen in Buenos Aires, Frankfurt a.M.: IKO –Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation.

(MA, University of Heidelberg) is completing her PhD at the Institute for World Society Studies at the University of Bielefeld (Germany). Her dissertation project focuses on the institutionalization of early childhood as a global issue. Her research interests include world society studies, globalisation, childhood, semiotics, visual sociology, and embodied sociology. Current publications are "The cultural construction of Global Social Policy. Theorizing Formations and Transformations", Global Social Policy 13 (1) 2013, 24-44; "Universalizing Early Childhood: History, Forms and Logics" in Twum-Danso Imoh, A. and Ame, R. (eds.), Childhoods at the Intersection of the Local and the Global, Palgrave, 2012, 34-55; "Ungleiche Kindheiten aus globalerPerspektive.Internationale Indikatoren und die Konstruktion von Kindheit" (Unequal childhoods from a global perspective. International indicators and the construction of childhood), Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung 4 2009, 471-486.

(Dr. rer. pol.) is a post-doctoral researcher within the BMBF-funded project “The Americas as Space of Entanglements” at the Center for InterAmerican Studies at Bielefeld University. Her research interests are theories of development, social movements, environmental and health policy and gender relations with a strong focus on Latin America. She has done field research in Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Her recent publications are: Financialisation of Food, Land, and Nature. Special Issue of the Austrian Journal of Development Studies, Vol. XXX 2-2014, special issue co-editor together with Jenny Simon (2014); Geschlechterregime und Sozialpolitik in Argentinien und Bolivien, in: Tuider, Elisabeth/ Burchardt, Hans-Jürgen/ Öhlschläger, Rainer (Hrsg.): Frauen (und) Macht in Lateinamerika, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag (2013); Gesundheitspolitik in Lateinamerika. Konflikte um Privatisierungen in Argentinien und El Salvador, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag (2012).

is professor for the history of modern societies at Bielefeld University and director of the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology. His research interests include the history of capitalism and modernity, the history of social movements, the history of work and workers, media history, and theoretical and methodological issues in historiography.

Recent publications:

• Unternehmen Praxisgeschichte. Historische Perspektiven auf Kapitalismus, Arbeit und Klassengesellschaft, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2014.
• Amerikas große Ernüchterung. Eine Kulturgeschichte der Prohibition, Paderborn: Schöningh 2010.
• Fractured Modernity. America Confronts Modern Times, 1890s to 1940s, München: Oldenbourg 2012 (edited with Alan Lessoff).
• Anerkennung – Verheißung und Zumutungen der Moderne, in: Axel Honneth, Ophelia Lindemann u. Stephan Voswinkel (Hg.), Strukturwandel der Anerkennung. Paradoxien sozialer Integration in der Gegenwart, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus 2013, S. 41-73.

has been working on global social policy and social protection in the global South for several years. In order to contribute new knowledge to the global perspective on social policy, she has lately dedicated her major research to an extensive and systematical analysis of the national arrangements of social assistance. She is a member of the FLOOR research project on social cash transfers, which is part of the interdisciplinary FLOOR research group on social security as a human right. In cooperation with two team colleagues she has produced the currently most comprehensive data base on social assistance in cash in the countries of the global South. By selective insights in national cases, such as a study in South Africa, she has learned a lot about different views on social protection in different contexts.

Katrin Weible graduated from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, with a Master´s degree in Sociology, Political Science, and Public International Law. She is currently writing her PhD thesis. Until early 2014, she is a visiting research fellow at the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. Doctoral Dissertation: Social Protection in the Global South. Data construction, conceptualization, and institutional analysis of Social Cash Transfers.

is professor of sociology at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University. The regional emphasis of her studies is on the Arab realm, particularly selected countries in the Mashriq. Her research focusses on the shifting of gender relations, religion, knowledge and multiple modernities as well as multiple gender cultures; this is exemplified by her article Gender Knowledge in the Arab-Islamic Realm. On the social situatedness of gender as an epistemic categorie, In: Stefanie Knauss/Theresa Wobbe/Giovanna Covi (ed.), 2012: Gendered Ways of Knowing in Science. Trento: Fondazione Bruno Kessler, S. 155-176. Her recent project focuses on intercultural communication and cultures of understanding in transnational dialogue spaces.