Project number		Translational Research Program  L64
Title		HANDBOOK GLOBALISATION FACE TO FACE
Principal investigator		GINGRICH Andre
Approval date		29.11.2004
University / Research institution		die Forschungsstelle für Sozialanthropologie, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Scientific field(s)
Keywords		social anthropology, society, globalisation, processes of identity, culture, processes of transformation
Homepage		http://www.oeaw.ac.at/sozant

The research in this translational project will explain and make accessible paradigmatic changes in social and cultural anthropology in a way that provides instruments for practitioners to conceptualise the sociocultural realities. This is particularly necessary in a global situation where sociocultural processes present some of the most acute questions. At the same time, the debates led in social and cultural anthropology about globalisation have given rise to foundational reorientations of the discipline. Thus, there is a twofold necessity to make the resulting innovative concepts and terminology present in public discourse and to make them relevant to agency.
In this endeavour, the Translational Research Project can be seen as a follow-up project to the ongoing research programme "Local Identities and Wider Influences", realised by means of the Wittgenstein2000 Prize at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and can be based on the foundational results and scientific experience of the participants. This team of scientists has been intensively examining the newest positions of international science on globalisation in social and cultural anthropology and so offers a pool of highly qualified academics which is unique in this field in the German-speaking world.
The scientific premises for this Translational Research Project are therefore excellently suited to fulfil the need to make the new concepts currently being discussed in the anglophone, francophone and Scandinavian scientific community accessible to a broader public in German-speaking areas. A central aim is to concisely portray positions of the scientific landscape, which has become very fragmented since the fall of universalist metatheories, to offer an overview and - considering their novelty - to put the theories on trial by means of examples in order to estimate their applicability. The practical, networked structure of the handbook will further facilitate the aim of making the contents easily accessible.
In the sense of this approach to translational research, an essential aspect of making basic science operable for non-scientific practical application lies in laying open implicit scientific knowledge. A primary subject will therefore be to determine the contexts and connotations that allow a definition of the basic concepts by their position in the field of social and cultural sciences.
In this research process, the outside perspective of practical work serves as method to guide explication. This way practical relevance and theoretical/methodical progress in science will be connected in a comprehensive self-reflective process conducted in two workshops. One workshop with participants coming from inter- and transcultural practical work is to guide the direction of research and ensure its practical relevance. The other workshop with international leading scientists in the field will guarantee the continued reference to basic science.

With its distinctive structural and content configuration, the "Handbook Globalisation Face to Face" opens a wide range of possibilities for action for the in many ways central approach of social and cultural sciences to current processes of globalisation. By means of scientific self-reflection the book presents a medium for confrontation in current international science, which has up to now been lacking. Thus, it has the potential to become a classic educational work as well as a standard compendium of the positions of cultural and social anthropology for use in neighbouring disciplines. In particular, the methodical connection to a practical perspective will make basic science productive for decision-makers outside of the scientific world.