Study Group „Concepts of the Enemy - Formation, Development and Reception“ (until 2012)

History shows that religious and political cleavages regularly consolidated into concepts of the enemy that served as motivation for and legitimation of pursuing a conflict. However, concepts of the enemy can remain virulent beyond an actual conflict and can develop an effect that permanently creates identity for a social group or nation. There are numerous concepts of the enemy, extending from the ancient disputes between Greeks and Persians and the medieval Crusades to the America-Soviet confrontation in the Cold War.

The study group’s objective is to examine from a historical and social scientific point of view the construction mechanisms and the reception of different concepts of the enemy. By focussing on education, development and also on the reception, the dynamics and the processuality, which such a construction is based on, are to be taken into consideration. One issue that will also be discussed here is whether the notion of the concept of the enemy can still be a reasonable category of analysis, particularly for the examination of postmodern contemporary societies characterised by ambivalences. Coming to mind here is the current discussion about social antipathies towards Islam, for example.

In the first meetings, the term “concept of the enemy” is to be defined and theories about its origins, development and reception are to be discussed. Subsequently, the developed theoretical frame will be applied to the individual projects of the study group’s members in order to open up new perspectives on each of the fields of research.