Telling People Apart: Sorting, Grouping and Distinguishing

The Collaborative Research Centre 1482 “Studies in Human Categorisation” [Humandifferenzierung] organised a summer school at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz from June 18-24, 2023. In five work-intensive days (plus voluntary program on June 18th and 24th), we examined a phenomenon that is as ubiquitous as it is fundamental: Human beings continuously differentiate and categorise each other in a variety of ways, for example by age, gender, nationality, religion, language, race, attractiveness, but also by dietary habits or music preferences. In an exchange with renowned experts from various disciplines, conceptual and methodological foundations for the study of human categorisation were discussed in different formats.

The summer school understands itself as an explicitly transdisciplinary endeavour and was therefore aimed at doctoral students from all kinds of disciplines concerned with "differences" between humans, but also between humans and non-humans (things as well as animals). The goal of the summer school was to engage its participants in the discussion and development of new perspectives on practices of human differentiation. The summer school offered its participants the opportunity to jointly explore the theoretical concept and empirical research perspective of "human categorisation". Participants reflected on their own research projects in the light of the insights gained in these discussions. “Human categorisation” contains the proposal to bring the heterogeneity of human differences investigated in different fields under one conceptual umbrella. Crucially, these differences are not – as the concept of "diversity" for instance assumes – regarded as given differences between types of human beings, but as the result of practices of human categorisation. Moreover, the relevance of certain categories, such as gender or race, is not simply assumed, but treated as an empirically open question. Discussions focused on the "doing" of differences as well as their "undoing".

The summer school pursued the following overarching questions:

•  What is the analytical value of "human categorisation"? What is the theoretical and empirical potential of this perspective?
•  How can practices of human differentiation be investigated? Which methodological approaches are suitable for which forms of human categorisation?
• Under what conditions does a particular difference become salient? How, when and why does a certain category appear to be particularly relevant? How do they re-emerge or disappear again?
• Who or what are the agents of categorisation? Human beings? Artifacts? Institutions? Discourses
• Who categorises whom? When do self-categorisations and categorisations by others correspond to or contradict each other?

In this summer school, participants came together in a variety of formats to work on their projects. There were workshops led by international experts, including professors from the Collaborative Research Centre, from various disciplines, such as sociology, linguistics, theatre studies, translation studies, anthropology, history, or media and cultural studies. Every morning we started with a writing breakfast, giving participants the opportunity to reflect on the previous day. One-on-one advisory sessions allowed participants to discuss their projects or their careers with advanced scholars. The program was rounded out by keynote lectures by Stefan Hirschauer, Rivke Jaffe and Jürgen Streeck.