The Art of Narrating and the Question of Cultural Acknowledgment: The Case of <i>Die Kinder von Golzow</i> and a Reunified Germany

Grüning, Barbara

doi:10.1111/j.1467-954x.2011.01961.x

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…As a result, this kind of analysis seems somewhat aimed at corroborating the broader memory narratives on GDR-society (cf. Grüning, 2010) rather than searching for a more neutral perspective to reflect on the development and relationship of the two German sociologies during the Cold War.…”

Section: Studies On Sociology In the Gdr: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marxist sociology in East Berlin (1949–1989): A field-spatial analysis

Grüning

2023

Journal of Classical Sociology

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The main objective of the paper is to identify the logic of the sociological field in the GDR, looking at how it was spatialized in the city of East Berlin. In this regard, I am less interested in providing an overview of the different research streams of the main sociologists operating in the scientific and academic institutes located in Berlin than in reconstructing some crucial dynamics at work there and highlighting their effects at the social and symbolic levels. The underlying idea is that, especially in East Berlin, the sociological knowledge produced was less homogeneous than it has been represented in the existing literature. Without negating the existence of shared aspects characterizing Marxist-Leninist sociology, also superimposed on the political elite, a field analysis enables us to see how the different positions and trajectories of GDR-sociologists had an impact on their approaches to theoretical, epistemological, and methodological questions, and on their understanding and uses of concepts deriving from both Marxist-Leninist and “bourgeois” sociology. In the analysis, I will first compare the social trajectories of two of my interview-partners as paradigmatic of two different sociological habitus depending on their different academic/political socialization, networks, and positions in the field. As a second step, I will present a sketch of the sociological field drawn from 63 curricula of sociologists active in East Berlin in an attempt to pinpoint, on a larger scale, the homologies between the social and symbolic spaces of the field. Thus, the underlying idea is to examine the intersection of the “quasi-structural properties” of the field with its “phenomenological aspects” concerning the “feel for the game.” While the two understandings of field are interdependent, it is in the second one that the physical space as a localized social space played a crucial role in defining the material, social, and cultural constraints and opportunities actors faced which, in turn, influenced their practices and choices.

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Section: Studies On Sociology In the Gdr: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marxist sociology in East Berlin (1949–1989): A field-spatial analysis

Grüning

2023

Journal of Classical Sociology

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show abstract

“…The East and the West of the country, which had created separate national identities, were now suddenly brought together. Although East and West Germany have been politically reunified, its identities have not entirely been meshed together (Gruning, 2010; see also Zazilska-Florczuk & Ciechanowicz, 2011;Faas, 2016, p. 42).…”

Section: Fall Of the Berlin Wall And The Second Migration Wave: Post-mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This intragroup conflict stems from cultural and socioeconomic regional differences that are deemed contradictory. For example, East and West Germany, although no longer having a wall as a barrier between the two, still have cultural and social barriers (Silver, 2010;Gruning, 2010; see also Zazilska-Florczuk & Ciechanowicz, 2011).…”

Section: The Importance Of Language Attainmentmentioning

confidence: 99%