Benjamin Bunk (Max-Weber-Center) receives Feodor Lynen's research fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

For the project "Education, Biography and Movement(s). Education processes in the landless movement and refuse collection initiatives in Brazil between personal reference and social conditions", Benjamin Bunk receives a Feodor Lynen research fellowship of 15 months by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The aim of the project is to further explore and to show the educational significance of social movements, following previous work. The project is part of the study of international movements and at the same time a contribution to the establishment of a new field in education science. The interdisciplinary approach of the project is fundamentally aimed at linking the theory of education and socialization theories by means of the methodological reconstruction of educational processes and biographies in movements. The project is initially located in a regional, Latin-American context. However, this also results from a post-colonial critique of the place and the tradition from which current knowledge production takes place - opening up the possibility of contrasting global with local phenomena and ways of thinking.

In essence, the research project examines the question of how subjects are formed in social movements. More precisely, how do self-relationships, world-understandings, and world-conditions transform and / or transform themselves into movements and to what extent does this play a role for the bio-graphic development? At the same time, it can be assumed that educational processes are different under conditions of change and that protest movements are therefore special socialization areas. Since, from a subject-centric perspective, personal relationship contrasted with movement varies and changes in the life-history as well as the social conditions for educational processes in movements differ. Research will focus on method-oriented case studies, related to ‘movement’, ‘movements’ and their regional embedding and a typology worked out. The main research target is the landless movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra, MST) as well as three local rubbish collector initiatives (Catadores de Papel, CdP) in Brazil.

As of June 2017, a research stay of 12 months in Brazil (host: Prof. Dr. Emil Sobottka) is planned, followed by up to three months in Finland (host: Prof. Dr. Teivo Teivainen). The project is integrated into the educational research network ‘Education and Social Movement’ and the Max Weber Center at the University of Erfurt and the interdisciplinary project ‘Local politicization of global norms’.