How are science, research and international cooperation (North-South; South-South) shaped by the current global COVID-19 pandemic and what is the significance of the Humanities and Social Sciences in times of crisis? What are the constraints and opportunities in these areas? What are the consequences for the work of the Merian Centres and the international research community?
Over the past year, the five Merian Centres, all located in different regions of the Global South, have felt the restrictions on international mobility resulting from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on research and exchange conditions to a considerable extent. At the same time, however, the Merian Centres are an extremely suitable place to observe, accompany and conduct research on the effects of the pandemic with regard to research and science in their respective partner regions. The selected representatives of the Merian Centres will provide insights on how the pandemic currently affects their respective locations and in what impact the resulting restrictions had on academic, research and international cooperation. They will also outline what new forms of solidarity emerged as a result of the global crisis. The aim of the event is to present and compare how dealing with the pandemic has changed the work at research institutions (constraints and opportunities), and to ask to what extent and in which ways the pandemic has created further visible (in)equalities between the Global South and the Global North. The discussion will include but not be restricted to financial aspects, bureaucratic burdens, aspects such as different access to resources, impact on economy and society, and eventually the question of knowledge production around the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic within the Merian Centres.
Participants/Panelists:
ICAS:MP (Delhi/India): Vidhu Verma & Laila Abu-Er-Rub
CALAS (Guadalajara/Mexico): Sarah Corona Berkin & Jochen Kemner
Mecila (Sao Paulo/Brasil): Gloria Chicote & Jörg Klenk
MIASA (Accra/Ghana): Abena Oduro & Susann Baller & Agnes Schneider-Musah
MECAM (Tunis/Tunisia): Khaled Kchir & Julius Dihstelhoff
The talk will be held virtually via ZOOM. Please register via mecam-office(at)uni-marburg.de.
The discussion is part of the Science Festival Globe21 on the topic of "Border Crossing-Solidarities“, which is taking place in Leipzig, Germany, from 14-17 July 2021. All discussions within the dialogue forum will be translated from/in English, French & German. A recording of the event is being planned.
For more information on the festival: globe-festival.de and welcome-to-leipzig.de.
The idea behind the BMBF Merian Initiative is that the in-depth exchange with scientists on site in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the cooperation with foreign universities and non-university research institutions, makes a significant contribution to the long-term networking of top-level German regional science research with the respective partner countries and regions.
The Merian Family
ICAS:MP
The M.S. Merian-R. Tagore Internal Centre od Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political: Comparative Perspectives on the Long Twentieth Century’ (ICAS:MP) in Delhi was the first Merian Centre funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2015. Researchers from the Universities of Erfurt, Göttingen, Würzburg and the German Historical Institute London worked together with colleagues from India in a preparatory phase to set up ICAS:MP. Since Mid-2018, the centre is in its main funding phase with over 80 affiliated researchers in seven thematic modules who conduct collective and individual research within ICAS:MP’s research framework. Every year, the centre invites 10-15 outstanding Fellows who contribute to the findings of the permanently associated researchers.
Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS)
Composed of eight Latin American and German universities, the Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS) is an academic space dedicated to strengthening transregional and transdisciplinary academic cooperation in the Humanities and Social Sciences between Latin America and Germany. Its main offices are located in Guadalajara (Mexico) and it has regional centers in San José (Costa Rica), Quito (Ecuador) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). The central topic "Facing Crisis" derives from Latin America’s significant experience in dealing with multiple crises. In facing these challenges, theoretical and empirical approaches are generated that are of importance not only for the region, but also for the general understanding and solving of the current problems of humanity.
Maria Sibylla Merian International Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila)
Mecila studies the multiple interrelations of conviviality and inequality from an interdisciplinary perspective. It focuses on processes of negotiation, legitimation, contestation, and transformation of existing hierarchies as they take place in everyday interactions and within institutions. The historical, environmental, economic, social, and political contexts in which these interactions occur, as well as their representations, are of central relevance. Mecila is an academic consortium composed of three German institutions: Freie Universität Berlin (coordination), Universität zu Köln, and Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz); and four Latin American institutions: Universidade de São Paulo, Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento, El Colegio de México, and Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CONICET / Universidad Nacional de La Plata). Mecila’s headquarters are in São Paulo, Brazil. Its activities take place at all seven member institutions, as well as at other cooperating institutions with joint projects.
Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)
The Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) is dedicated to the topic of ‘Sustainable Governance’. Governance we define as the interplay of informal and formal rules for steering public affairs, embedded in social, material and cultural practices of everyday life. MIASA’s three research foci are: sustainable environmental transformation, sustainable conflict management, and sustainable democracy. MIASA is based on the beautiful campus of the University of Ghana, Legon (Accra). It is the first Institute for Advanced Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa. MIASA is coordinated and supported by the University of Ghana, the University of Freiburg, the University of Frankfurt, GIGA Hamburg and the DHI Paris.
Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM)
MECAM, founded in 2020, is a platform for regional and international scientific exchange in Tunisia based on the central theme »Imagining Futures – Dealing with Disparity«. The centre is located at the Université de Tunis. Its research work focuses on the effects of multidimensional disparity on models, visions and ideas about future. MECAM’s research agenda focuses on questions of Aesthetics & Cultural Practice, Inequality & Mobility, Memory & Justice, Resources & Sustainability, and Identities & Beliefs. MECAM is a joint endeavour of a consortium of seven Tunisian and German research institutions: It is coordinated by the Philipps-Universität Marburg and the Université de Tunis and supported by the Universität Leipzig, the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, the Institut Tunisien des Études Stratégiques (ITES) in Tunis, and the Université de Sfax.
