Cooperations
- GHHG (Global Health Hub Germany)
– Community Climate Change and Health since 2022 community manager
– Community Global Urban Health managed by Dennis Schmiege (Bonn) and Timo Falkenberg (Bonn) - Working group: Climate crisis & societal transformation. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geographie (DGfG)
- Working group: Medical geography and geographical health reserach. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geographie (DGfG)
- Workin group: Subsahariam Africa. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geographie (DGfG)
- DFG-founded network: Bios – Technologien – Gesundheit
- DFG-founded network: Forschungsperspektiven nach dem „practice turn“ in den Sozialwissenschaften
Projects of PD Dr. Klaus Geiselhart
2023-2026:
Climate change – housing – health. Designing residential neighbourhoods with climate protection and health promotion in mind. Funded by the Gothaer Foundation.
up to fall 2025:
with Timo Falkenberg. Moderation of special focus on planetary health and socio-ecological research in the
Anthropocene: in GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society Herbst 2025.
2022:
Living environments in the neighbourhood. From social space analysis to the setting approach. In co-operation with Gesundheitsregionplus Erlangen-Höchstadt / Erlangen.
2022:
Evaluation of the citizen jury “Climate Departure” of the city of Erlangen
2019-2021:
Development of a concept for measuring environmental justice in the city. In co-operation with the Office for Statistics and Urban Research of the City of Erlangen.
2019–2021:
Neighbourhood and community building in the Büchenbach-Nord district. In cooperation with the City of Erlangen’s Office for Urban Planning and Bildung Evangelisch.
2016–2021:
Critique as mediaton. Theoretical research project on the self-understanding of various critical sciences and on the question of the relationship between critique and practice.
2018–2019:
Studies on environmental justice in Erlangen. In co-operation with the Gesundheitsregionplus Erlangen-Höchstadt / Erlangen.
2014–2015:
Study on the political ecology of health in Erlangen/Erlangen-Höchstadt. In co-operation with the Gesundheitsregionplus Erlangen-Höchstadt / Erlangen.
2009–2015:
Research on HIV drug adherence and local perceptions of disease and cure in Botswana, especially on the relationship between traditional and modern medicine (DfG project)
2009:
Study on comsumer behaviour
2004–2007:
Research on the social impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Botswana (DfG project)
Description of selected projects
Critique as mediation
Dispute and conflict are not a negative as long as reconciliation takes place. Disagreements are a way of making positions clear and so they can create mutual understanding. However, this can only be achieved if the opposing parties also close ranks again. If no approximation takes place, then conflicts lead to division and tension. In an individualised society, however, in which one can seemingly flexibly turn to new social contacts, the ability to reconcile threatens to dwindle. But with it, the role of critique changes significantly. Critique, as it is often claimed, is in crisis. Where it precisely names grievances, it is believed, it remains ineffective. Where it is abused, it fuels the discord of the new-right angry citizen and for capitalism, it is said, it has long since become the lubricant of its further development. Based on a diagnosis of the times, this work traces various concepts of critique and the development of critical approaches in the humanities and social sciences.
Critique is also always morally. But morality can no longer be regarded as the cement of society. Any attempt to declare a morality binding is justifiably suspected of concealing a hidden claim to power. In a liberal society, morality easily takes on the status of a (functionally) disturbing moment. A critic usually criticises an issue because he or she does not see the values which are personally important to them realised in this issue. This is the principle of critique as opposition. The critic follows his or her will to responsibility. She presents her critique as a truth or as a deconstruction of the competing truth. But ultimately all convictions and views are based on values. All persons (re-)produce truth claims on the basis of their attitudes and convictions acquired through experience. These experiences arise in a dialectic of the self, a lived tension between social adaptation and self-assertion. A person develops his or her personality through constant regulation of their own social behaviour. What can I change, what must I endure and what am I willing to accept? That’ s how an individual develops an idea of what is true and what is good. Convictions and evaluations are in constant flux and the idea of what is true cannot be separated from that of what is good.
Subject of all critique are thus basically always questions of value. But values cannot be negotiated in the same way as truths. People feel value ties that cannot simply be argued away. This insight calls on critics to use their critical view and expertise to achieve social understanding. Critique as mediation promotes mutual understanding, recognition, productive dispute or even reconciliation amongst different positions.
This work is to be understood as a geographical contribution to the theory of critique. It calls for the observation of concrete and localized life contexts. Critique as mediation is localized critique. It is based on the assumption that appointing those who are responsible and attributing responsibility can never be appropriate, regardless of the particularities of the particular case at hand.
already published:
Geiselhart, Klaus (2021): Der Wille zur Verantwortung. Transaktionale Anthropologie und Kritik als Mediation. Weilerswist, Velbrück Wissenschaft. https://www.velbrueck.de/Programm/Der-Wille-zur-Verantwortung.html
Geiselhart, Klaus (2020): Truth and academia in times of fake news, alternative facts and filter bubbles: A pragmatist notion of critique as mediation. In: Lake, Robert und Jane Wills (Hrsg.): The power of pragmatism: Knowledge production and social inquiry. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Geiselhart, Klaus; Winkler, Jan und Florian Dünckmann (2019): Vom Wissen über das Tun – praxeologische Ansätze für die Geographie von der Analyse bis zur Kritik. In: Schäfer, Susann und Jonathan Everts (Hrsg.): Handbuch Praktiken und Raum. Humangeographie nach dem Practice Turn, Bielefeld, transcript, 21-75.
Already finished project of critique as mediation:
Between healing and witchcraft. Competing Medical Epistemes in Botswana
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), traditional healing methods should be integrated into the national health systems. The reasons why this is not successful in Botswana are manifold, complex and not always rationally justified. Often a cooperation between the two healing systems has been attempted, but it rarely works. In fact, there is not even a legal basis on which traditional healers could refer to. They are often accused of irrationality and are often suspected of witchcraft. They demand the right to practice their techniques and organise themselves with an emancipatory political claim, but they are hardly successful.
It can be shown that spiritual healing practices are by no means irrational, as representatives of modern medical administration and doctors often claim. The concept of “transrationality” can serve as a means of mediation. If traditional healing practices are described as “transrational”, it is possible to appreciate the specific character of spiritual practices and thus promote better cooperation between traditional healers and modern doctors.
The concept of transrationality was developed as a contribution to conceptual decolonization. It emerged from a critical examination of the competition between the two healing systems. The tracing of historical lines of development shows how Christian morality, the dualism between tradition and modernity and the introduction of a modern public health system are entangled with the belief in witchcraft. The spiritual character of traditional healing has been systematically suppressed, certainly because from a modern scientific point of view conclusions based on intuition and spirituality are not accepted. They cannot be considered equally valid because they are not based on rationality only. However, spiritual intuition is in line with abductive reasoning. Abduction is a core element of all systems of thought and is particularly important for the development of new hypotheses even in modern science.
Geiselhart, Klaus (2018): Reasoning matters: Transrational traits of healing in competing medical epistemes in Botswana. In: South African Journal of Philosophy, 37(2), 178-192, doi: 10.1080/02580136.2018.1443775.
Geiselhart, Klaus (2018): WHO guidelines challenged in Botswana: traditional medicine between healing, politics and witchcraft. In: Journal of Political Ecology 25: 169-185, http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/jpe.v25i1.
Pragmatism and geography
2020 chapter: Truth and academia in times of fake news, alternative facts and filter bubbles: A pragmatist notion of critique as mediation. In: Wills, Jane und Robert Lake (Hrsg.): The power of pragmatism: Knowledge production and social inquiry. Manchester, Manchester University Press: 139-156. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11vc913
2017 presentation: Social criticism? Sure, but how? Opposition and mediation as socio-political attitudes (Tagung: International Conference on Human Geography and the Pragmatic Tradition. Erlangen, 23.-24.05.2017)
2009 conference on: New epistemological ways of geographical thinking – potentials of pragmatism for geography
Special issue: Pragmatismus. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde. Bd. 86, H. 1, 2012
content:
Geiselhart, K.; Steiner, C. (2012): Pragmatistische Gedanken für die Geographie. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 5–16.
Steiner, C. (2012): Kreative Räume. Handlungstheorie, Pragmatismus und Geographie. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 17–30.
Geiselhart, K. (2012): “Erfahrung” wider die kulturtheoretische Weltvergessenheit. Über Performativität, Posthermeneutik, das Asemiotische und die Grenze der Differenztheorie. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 31–47.
Kersting, P. (2012): Geomorphologie, Pragmatismus und integrative Ansätze in der Geographie. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 49–65.
Berwing, S. (2012): Jenseits des Sprachkäfigs. Potenziale der Peirce’schen Semiotik für eine Foucault’sche Kulturgeographie. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 67–81.
Geiselhart, K.; Park, M.; Schlatter, F.; Orlowski, B. (2012): Die Grounded Theory in der Geographie. Ein möglicher Weg zu Empirie und Theoriebildung nach dem Cultural Turn. In: Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 86 (1), S. 83–95.