Prof. Dr. Theresa Wobbe

Parasitic Dependency, Desocialization and Punctually Weakening Violence in SADs

To explore power, violence, and trauma, it is specifically helpful to foreground inter-rela- tional dynamics, bodily practices, and cultural logics, which are at the center of SADs. By focusing on the reciprocal yet asymmetrical dimension of these power relations, my re- search will draw on the concept of parasitic dependency, because it puts both the domi- nated and the dominator into perspective, and has the effect of normalizing inequality. 
The normalization effect raises questions such as how SADs are materialized in taken- for-granted practices, routines, expectations etc. of social asymmetries resulting in the camouflage and naturalization of inequality and power relationships. Cases in point will involve partner sexual violence and sexual abuse of children. Research refers to violence and resistance studies that consider resistance a punctually weakening violence, namely low-threshold and flat forms of violent practices. These concepts are situated at the inter- section of memory and trauma studies addressing the archives of violence. Topics that will be included are domestic work, sex labor, partner sexual violence (with links to the cultural economies of SAD: RA B), Nazi forced laborers (Fremdarbeiter), and women in the Holocaust. Sources will include official documents, factual and fictional texts, litera- ture, life writing, film, photography. 

By methodologically reflecting the micro-, meso-, and macro-level the research contrib- utes to the differentiation of shades, degrees, and inter-relations within SADs. This project aims to identify the mechanisms by which SADs are institutionally anchored. The pro- cesses of desocialization, namely the deracination from contexts of belonging, the violent domination of natally alienated people, the generally dishonoring of persons and their social isolation. 

Edited Volumes

• 2024. With M. Braig and L. Renard. Sklaverei, Freiheit und Arbeit: Sozio-historische Beiträge zur (Re-)Konfiguration von Zwangsarbeit. De Gruyter.
• 2019. With I. Berrebi-Hoffmann, O. Giraud, and L. Renard. Categories in Context. Gender and Work in France and Germany, 1900–Present. New York: Berghahn Publishers. 

Articles

• 2023. "Imperiale und nationale Logiken des Kaiserreichs: Migrationsregulierung und Ansiedlungspolitik." In Polarisierte Welten. Verhandlungen des 41. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 2022.
• 2023. With L.Renard, N. Schalkowski, and M. Braig. "Deutungsmodelle von Arbeit im Spiegel kolonialer und geschlechtlicher Dimensionen: Kategorisierungsprozesse von 'Zwangsarbeit' während der Zwischenkriegszeit." In Zeitschrift für Soziologie 52(2). 
• 2022. With L. Renard. "Free Versus Unfree Labor. Challenging Their Boundaries." In Shifting Categories of Work. Unsettling the Ways We Think about Jobs, Labor, and Activities, edited by L. Herzog and B. Zimmermann, 105–118. New York: Routledge.
• 2021. "Die Differenz Haushalt vs. Markt als latentes Beobachtungsschema. Vergleichsverfahren der inter/nationalen Statistik (1882–1990)." In Soziale Praktiken des Beobachtens: Vergleichen, Bewerten, Kategorisiere und Quantifizieren, edited by B. Heintz and T. Wobbe, 195–222. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie Sonderheft 73. Wiesbaden: Springer. 
• 2019. With L. Renard. "La statistique internationale comme instrument de globalisation? La carrière de la catégorie 'travailleurs familiaux' au sein de l’Organisation internationale du travail (1919-1982)." In Revue française de sociologie 60(4): 595–619.