by Danae Ioannou
Events such as the universal exhibition Reformation 2017 are always an encounter of people and their cultures, ideas, values and convictions. However, a noteworthy aspect of this large-scale event is the participation of many universities and colleges that designed the ‘Gates of Freedom’, as the organisers call them, spread throughout Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
An interdisciplinary team of artists and academics represents Vienna with its ‘GLASPALÄSTE’ concept. GLASPALÄSTE represents the attempt of a cooperation between art and sociology by asking the participating researchers artists and visitors the central questions: ‘Why are there borders/limits/boundaries?’, ‘where are your respective borders/limits/boundaries?, ‘which borders/limits/boundaries would you transgress?’. The diverse resulting answers are subsequently analysed and evaluated by sociologists. Hence, due to Vienna University’s participation, this sociological research is taken to Lutherstadt Wittenberg. Still, what do we mean when talking about sociology? In order to provide some food for thought in regards to answering this complex yet relevant question, turning to Max Weber’s classic definition serves a purposeful starting point.
“Sociology […] shall mean: a branch of academia which seeks to understand social behaviour by means of interpretation and thus aims at explaining its course as well as its effects in a causal way.” 01
Thus its main objectives can be defined as the observation of social phenomena, their systematic description and finally their plausible explanations (cf. Abels 2009, p.69). It is important to remember that the role of a sociologist is to discern phenomena and to make them accessible to the public without acting in a judgemental way.
Due to the presence of universities and academic research, questions and considerations about ethics and responsibility in sociological research are invariably tightly linked. Likewise religion, they are often the most-discussed yet also the most controversial and therefore the most relevant topics, which is why they are addressed in this article as well. In the course of the GLASPALÄSTE project, which, including the planning, exhibition and reflection phase, will last over three years, we have often come upon questions of ethics and responsibility without always reaching conclusive agreement. The design of the ISTANBUL-OTTOBRUNN_PALAST may serve as clear example therof, when we were confronted with the boundaries straight at the beginning of the project once the Istanbul school pulled out. Differing opinions and different ways of dealing with this situation, i. e. on the one hand by the palace designers (Danae Ioannou and Elif Agde) as the directly affected sociologists, and the project leaders and editors on the other, led to a formulation of borders/limits/boundaries that was taken up as a ‘project within a project’ in the ISTANBUL-OTTOBRUNN_PALAST and which has been made publicly visible in the urban space of Wittenberg.
However, for me as a sociologist, the most interesting aspect of this ‘project within a project’ is introducing visitors to the world exhibition to the existence of different aspects of research ethics and questioning. These begin with the impact on a topic once the decision to conduct research about it has been made: ‘why was this very topic and this line of questioning chosen?’ ‘What purpose did it serve?’ ‘Which course of conduct of the researchers is linked to their entry and exit from this field of study?’ ‘What means were employed?’ ‘What is the relationship with the object or institutions of study?’ ‘Which (academic) criteria underlie the writing and editing of the research and its conclusions?’ ‘Where can suitable publication opportunities be found?’ ‘And last but not least: ‘what will the research findings be used for and who by?’
Since such approach would contradict the spirit of sociology, the aim of integrating this line of questioning into the project GLASPALÄSTE is not to make generalised statements. In the sense of the aforementioned questions, it is rather about inspiring the reader to deal with ethics, responsibility and the relevant associated boundaries in relation to their everyday experience, to religion, as well as to often seemingly distant and abstract (university) research.
- Weber 1992; zit. nach Abels, Heinz 2009: 57). Einführung in die Soziologie. Band 1: Der Überblick auf die Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
