Cécile Stehrenberger gives a working paper on 'Theorizing the “Global Hispanophone” as dynamics of (dis-)entanlgement. Suggestions from a History of Science perspective'

During the last two decades, a number of historians representing a variety of fields have advocated for or at least diagnosed a “global turn” in their respective (sub-)disciplines and areas of study. Among them were historians of science who developed conceptual thoughts on how scientific knowledge traveled, especially in the context of imperialism and colonialism, across national and regional boarders, and how it emerged as a result of such transmissions and the connection between the geographical and political areas, to which it contributed. Departing from their reflections, as well as from feminist and decolonial science and technology studies approaches, in this article, I propose an understanding of the Global Hispanophone as dynamics of (dis-)entanglement. I suggest that its scholars study how entities referred to as “Spanish” or “hispano” become entangled with others in cultural contact zones and how the resulting hybridity is concealed and purified in processes that I call disentanglement. Moreover, I argue that “Global Hispanophone” studies should analyze in what ways entanglements are being prevented in the first place. While I focus in this paper on the (dis-)entanglements of scientific knowledge, its basic assumption is that the dynamics that I elaborate on, can be explored also in regard to other forms of knowledge, and beyond the field of science.

Martin Mulsow presents a working paper on 'Amsterdam's Secret. Politics, Alchemy and the Commodification of Knowledge in the 17th Century'

In August 1688, duke Frederik I. of Saxe-Gotha dissappeared for a stay in Amsterdam. What did he do there? He arranged a selling of wood from the Thuringian Forest to the Dutch - officially -, but more secretly he negotiated with the French about renting his troops to them, and even more secretely he conducted alchemical experiments in order to transform base metals into gold. His hope was to get a lot of gold to rent even more troops, and through the avails to be able to enlarge the territory of his small state. I reconstuct the story of Frederik's Amsterdam sojourn to give an impression of the commodification of knowledge in an early knowledge society such as the Netherlands. Alchemists sold their secret skills to princes. How did this shadow marked function? What was the alchemical milieu in Amsterdam in the late 17th century?

Tanja Visic is presenting a working paper on 'Ethnography of living arrangements, informal work and the transnational care: Experiences of domestic workers from the former Yugoslavia in Germany'

The main objective of the doctoral research project is to examine the phenomenon of care and domestic work from a perspective that combines a macro-level and micro-level using ethnographic approach based on case studies, thick descriptions and perspectives from the actor’s points of view. The text you are reading is doctoral dissertation description which is divided into five parts. The first part introduces the subject of research, main research questions and information about fieldwork that has been conducted so far. The next two sections outline main theoretical debates around domestic and care work within feminist theorization of care work, migration and globalization studies. In the fourth and fifth section I contextualize previously mentioned debates within Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav female labour migration indicating the research gaps in the field and potential contributions of my research project. Next two parts will inform you about research questions, levels of analysis, approach to the research and concepts which will be applied in the study. In the last part I will present multiple practices of data collection known as ethnography I use in the research, and shortly introduce the methodology, namely the challenges of feminist ethnography while focusing on production of knowledge about women lives in specific socio-cultural contexts.