SFB 600:  Strangers and Poor People. Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion from Classical Antiquity to the Present Day

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2002 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485009

This collaborative research centre focusses on the attitudes and behaviour towards strangers and paupers in various types of society from classical antiquity to the 20th century. The organization and limitation of social solidarity poses a fundamental problem for all societies and here, more than in any other field of social interaction, conflict over social opportunities and participation is closely connected to conflict on the symbolic level of different modes of perception and interpretation of a social order. Being a stranger or a pauper are not personal characteristics that are clearly defined but both have to be seen as the result of processes of social interaction and ascription which try to legitimize the inclusion or exclusion of these two sets of people. A further common factor is that their situation does not necessarily lead to exclusion but rather has to be seen as a social status where forms of inclusion and exclusion are combined. Typical for the treatment of both strangers and paupers is the conflicting coexistence of, on the one hand, modes of exclusion ranging from the setting up of institutional boundaries through to xenophobia causing pogroms and even physical destruction and, on the other hand, modes of inclusion ranging from a grey area of toleration to emphatic rhetoric solidarity and support. This ambivalence is the main focus of the collaborative research centre. By examining these phenomena from a wide historical and geographical perspective, it will be possible to identify and explain common characteristics and differences as well as continuities and fundamental changes in the ways European and Mediterranean societies treated and lived with strangers and paupers. This is an important contribution to a social and cultural history of European and Mediterranean societies.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - Entstehung und Entwicklung einer multikulturellen Gesellschaft im griechisch-römischen Ägypten (Project Head Heinen, Heinz )
• A02 - Roms auswärtige Freunde (Project Head Heinen, Heinz )
• A04 - Christen und Juden: Inklusion und Exklusion angesichts religiöser Differenz in Gemeinden und witeren Organisationsformen (9.-17.Jahrhundert) (Project Head Haverkamp, Alfred )
• A05 - Foreign Rulers - Foreign Subjects. Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion during the Transfer of Sovereignty in Europe from the second Half of the 18th Centuries to the second Half of the 19th Centuries (Project Heads Gestrich, Andreas ;  Schnabel-Schüle, Helga )
• A06 - Migrants' Control by Public Administrations, Organised Migrant Support and the Life Strategies of Mediterranean Labour Migrants in the Coal and Steel Industry Regions between the Rhine and the Meuse (1945-1990) (Project Head Raphael, Lutz )
• A07 - Jews in Rural Contexts from the Later Medieval to the Early Modern Periods (15th to 17th Centuries): Inclusion and Exclusion through Lordships and Communities in Selected Territories of Franconia (Project Head Hirbodian, Sigrid )
• A08 - Network Ties and Identity Constructions - Return Migration Strategies of Ethnic Germans in the Context of Changing Regimes of Migration (Project Heads Hahn, Alois ;  Schönhuth, Michael )
• B02 - Christliche Gemeinschaften in ihrer Bedeutung für Armut, Fürsorge und Seelsorge im hohen und späten Mittelalter (Project Head Haverkamp, Alfred )
• B03 - Catholic and Protestant Poor Relief in the Early Modern Era between Ecclesiastical, State and Communal Responsibility (Project Heads Dorn, Franz ;  Schnabel-Schüle, Helga )
• B04 - Poverty and the Politics of Poverty in European Cities in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Project Heads Gestrich, Andreas ;  Raphael, Lutz )
• B05 - Poverty in Rural Regions between Welfare Politics, Charity and Self-Help during the Industrial Age (1860-1975) (Project Head Raphael, Lutz )
• B06 - Poor Relief in Central and Upper Italy - Continuity and Change from Christian Late Antiquity into the High Middle Ages (Project Head Clemens, Lukas )
• B07 - Poor Relief and Catholic Identity: Poverty and the Poor in Catholic Germany during the Early 19th Century (Project Head Schneider, Bernhard )
• B08 - Binnenstaatliche Wohlfahrtstaatskonstruktionen und internationale Armutsbekämpfung: Die Europäische Union als entwicklungspolitischer Akteur (Project Heads Harnisch, Sebastian ;  Maull, Hanns Walter )
• B09 - Welfare Measures and Euergetism as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon in the Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor as well as in the Late Republican and Imperial Italy (Project Heads Herrmann-Otto, Elisabeth ;  Schäfer, Christoph )
• C02 - Orders of Images: The Representation of Strangeness and Poverty in Italian Art and Visual Culture (13th-16th centuries) (Project Head Wolf, Gerhard )
• C4 - Inklusion- und Exklusionsfiguren und Sementiken des Fremden (Project Head Bohn, Cornelia )
• C05 - Foreigners in their Own Country. On Semanticising the ,Gypsy' from the 19th Century to the Present (Project Head Uerlings, Herbert )
• C06 - Der Einsatz visueller Medien in der Armenfürsorge in Großbritannien und Deutschland um 1900 (Project Head Loiperdinger, Martin )
• C07 - Forms and Functioning of Political Representation of Strangers and the Poor in the Federal Republic of Germany (Project Head Thaa, Winfried )
• C09 - Rich Ragpickers, Familiar Foreigners: Representations of Jews in 19th Century German-speaking Literature (Project Head Schößler, Franziska )
• C10 - Political Representation of Poverty in Political Parties in Germany (Project Head Jun, Uwe )
• INF - Humanities Research Network and Database System - an Integrated Platform to Collect, Analyse and Publish Primary Data (Project Heads Burch, Thomas ;  Uerlings, Herbert )
• MGK - Integrated Research Training Group: Strangers and Poor People. Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion from Classical Antiquity to the Present Day (Project Head Schnabel-Schüle, Helga )
• SYN - Synthesis (Project Heads Raphael, Lutz ;  Uerlings, Herbert )
• Z - Central Bureau (Project Head Uerlings, Herbert )
• Ö01 - Exhibition: Poor Devils - Saints - Social Parasites: Perspectives on Poverty (Project Heads Clemens, Lukas ;  Uerlings, Herbert )
• Ö02 - "Greeks and Romas, Jews and Egypts in the Multi-Cultural Society of Egypt in Classical Antquity" - A DVD-Production for Pedagogical Use (Project Head Schäfer, Christoph )

• Applicant Institution: Universität Trier
• Participating Institution: Deutsches Historisches Institut in London; Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Herbert Uerlings