12.-14. September 2019

Organized as a joint event of the Institute of East Asian Studies and the Center for Media Studies and Research on Modernity, the international transdisciplinary workshop “Connecting – Excluding” provided insight into a key issue of globalized networks. The event was funded by the Competence Area IV Cultures and Societies in Transition and took place on September 12 until September 14 at the conference hotel „Schützenhof“, Eitorf an der Sieg.
As connectivity is considered as an essential prerequisite for participation in globalized networks, the participants addressed practices that imply or presuppose exclusions in their connections and vice versa. Therefore, the discussion centered around the “other side” of connecting operations in the networks of media, society, economy, politics, law, science, art and culture.
Dieter Mersch discussed the notion of the social in network theory, Peter Bexte shed light on the colonial practices of connectivity in India and Marie-Claire Foblets presented a framework for research on migration and exclusion based on research at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. In her presentation, Gesa Lindemann addressed the tensions between authority, normative order and the social, Burcu Dogramaci gave an insight into her work on visual representations of work migration in Germany through photography and Fatima Kastner discussed the reconfiguration of memory through digital archives and algorithms. Nina Möntmann focused on the term actualization in the context of artistic practice that is dealing with globalized temporality. Gesine Müller problematized the (in-)translatability of world literature and Carolin Höfler focused the process of translation through models in design and scientific practice. In Martin Zillinger's presentation, the emphasis was laid on the dynamics of standardization in ethnographic research in the context of communities of practice and finally Wolfram Nitsch addressed security standards and surveillance operations in movies about burglary and intrusion.
During the workshop, the discussion was repeatedly opened towards the general dynamics of networking, storing, standardization and translation in order to make sense of the interwoven dynamic of connecting and excluding. In summary, the workshop provided for a lively debate about substantial phenomena and problems of global societies and cultures in their dynamic interdependencies and served as a starting point for further exchange among the participants.