Chair for Economic and Social History „Who Cares? Changing Family and Care Relations“
Mother, father, child(ren) – the traditional family image still serves as an ideal and a benchmark today. This image is, however, contrasted by modern developments: new possibilities in reproductive medicine, changes in the legal landscape as well as the day-to-day life of families whose diversity is becoming increasingly visible in society. They challenge society to communicate about who and what family is and will be in the future. Care relationships and their form are being (re)negotiated. Public debates show the political and societal relevance of the topic.
Establishing a scientific base for those debates is the goal of the project “Who Cares? Changing Family and Care Relationships”. It is located at the Chair for Economic and Social History under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Katja Patzel-Mattern. Started in Autumn 2024, the project strives to research and analyze familial structures and care relationships as well as their transformation in an interdisciplinary manner.
The project hypothesizes that diversity is and has been the deciding principle in the question of “Who Cares?”. Parenthood, family, and care relationships have always been lived in a far more diverse way than suggested by the ideal of a nuclear family, established in the 18th century. The project will examine how and why ideas and lived realities of families change. Familial structures are strongly shaped by culture, which is why differences in care relationships in different societal subgroups beyond Germany and Europe will be studied as well. What happens when their respective expectations meet and are negotiated, for example in interethnic relationships or those with multiple religious affiliations?
So, care relationships are affected not only by ethical and moral expectations and psychosocial conditions of the individual, but also by sociocultural and economic pressures as well as the legal context. This is why the research project is interdisciplinary; it includes a total of ten people from five different fields.
The project group is preparing a bigger joint project, for which they want to obtain third-party-funds. Their goal is to push interdisciplinary family research forward and to train young researchers in the field simultaneously. These young researchers, schooled in both interdisciplinary methodology and science communication, are prepared for the job market both in and outside of academia, be it in care research or care work. To share research results of associates and other researchers as well as practical contributions and family research news with the interested public, the research project also runs an academic blog called “Who Cares?”.
Funded by the Excellence Strategy of the German federal & state governments.