Habilitation

The Habilitation is a postdoctoral degree that provides the qualification for scientific teaching in the German university system.

Topic of my habilitation is the analysis of social practices in the formation of community. My first sub-project takes place in the USA and focuses the effects of the professionalization of community formation as it takes place in some elderly care centers in the United States.

Community relations in elderly care institutions

Social integration was and still is an important topic in sociological theory and research. Regarding the early European sociologists (Durkheim 1893; Simmel 1908; Tönnies 1887; Weber 1922), individuals’ integration was challenged by modernization. Traditional systems of communal relations – the primary ties to family, proximate friends, and neighbors – were dissolved as soon as men and women were liberated from the rigid affiliation to a specific social status. The feudal system not only provided a profession, rules and standards for living, and a marriage market but also ascribed social relations. Early sociologists expected individuals not just to be released from strict limitations due to individualization but also to loose social cohesion, to be atomized. Following their argumentation the end of community results in the absence of solidarity but also threatens human coexistence, as it is described in Durkheim’s concept of anomy.

The concept of community as a local and close set of social relationships influenced sociological research for decades (e.g. Chicago School). In the 1970ies Wellman (1979) reformulated the community question and allowed a new perspective on social integration with the idea of social networks. Social networks not necessarily include only proximate close or familial ties. The corresponding instruments (e.g. a role-related or exchange-based approach, etc., see Brownell/Shumaker 1984) allowed the inclusion of different social relations and liberated the idea of community into one “without propinquity”. The network approach revolutionized the research on social integration, social relationships, and social support and resulted in several large-scale social surveys that include name generating questions to research the concept of social capital (Bourdieu 1979; Coleman 1988; Lin 2001; Putnam 1993). These surveys showed that even highly mobile individuals have strong social networks and are not (necessarily) isolated or lonely.

Diverse theoretical concepts of social capital include social exchange, shared norms, social trust, or reciprocity. In my research I raise the argument that the network approach underestimates the value of proximate ties (while the traditional concept of community overestimates it). The instruments that mainly focus on strong ties might result in a blind spot for local (and probably) weak ties that are not as relevant as ties to family and friends but have a positive effect on everyday life and result in something I call “spatial trust”. The meaning of local community (for example neighborhood) and spatial trust changes over the life course and might differ regarding the SES.

Individuals that (just) moved to a Community Care Center change their social context and possibly have and will experience loss in their social networks. They might consider their new environment as a possibility to build up new communal ties if they understand the community as a form of neighborhood. In contrast they might not want to be involved into new ties and focus on existing ties to family members or even stay alone. Beside the practical consequences (e.g. starting and maintaining new social relationships) there probably exist differences in the understanding of the meaning of community.

To understand the significance of local ties for individuals I use an open approach of interviewing that allows for biographical narration. I expect to find different ways to design communal living in Retirement Communities that might continue social practices in relationship arrangements that are in turn result of a) socialization, b) biographical experiences and c) structures and strategies that are part of their new environment, the Care Center.

 

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.
Brownell, Arlene and Sally Ann Shumaker. 1984. “Social Support: An Introduction to a Complex Phenomen.” Journal of Social Issues 40:1-9.
Coleman, James S. 1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology 94:95-120.
Durkheim, Emile. 1893. De la division du travail social: Étude sur lóganisation des sociétés supérieures, vol. Alcan: Paris.
Lin, Nan. 2001. “Social Networks and Status Attainment.” Pp. 451-453 in Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective, edited by D. B. Grusky. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Simmel, Georg. 1908. Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Tönnies, Ferdinand. 1887. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Weber, Max. 1922. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr.
Wellman, Barry. 1979. “The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers.” American Journal of Sociology 84:1201-1231.