From Social Movement to Ritualized Conference Spaces: The Evolution of Peace Research Professionalism in Germany

Abstract

The article employs anthropological ritual theory and the concepts of symbolism and liminality to provide a theoretical framework for analyzing ethnographic insights into the academic peace research community in Germany. Using secondary sources for a broader historical outline, I analyze the evolution of peace research discourses in Germany from the beginnings as a new social movement to a contemporary professionalized policy space in which knowledge discourses are (re)produced. Academic conferences and the routines around presenting theoretical papers have become institutionalized by the ritual dynamics of a small group of organizers and venues, fostering “indoor rituals” that represent transformations of the activities of the “outdoor” peace movement that was active in postwar Germany for many decades.

TED Talks on International Development: Trans-Hegemonic Promise and Ritualistic Constraints

“…There is now a growing body of research that specifically analyzes elite‐driven closed‐door practices that shape “expert knowledge” creation (Easterly, ) and resulting policies in international development. What started as sociological and anthropological studies of global conference spaces (Lechner & Boli, ; Riles, ) has branched out to global summits and related social media interactions (Denskus & Esser, ), gender dynamics in policy‐making (Eyben & Savage, ), and the ritualization of global peacebuilding knowledge at both national and international conferences and workshops (Denskus, , ). Resulting observations on the ritualizing effects of world conferences as “secular” processes to focus “world attention on selected topics” and to enshrine “certain ideas and symbols as ‘totems’ of world society” (Lechner & Boli, , p. 102) seem instantly applicable to social media, including TED talks.…”