Cultural Institutions Studies

Cultural Institutions Studies focus on social transformation processes in the cultural sector from a multi-sited, global, discrimination- and power-critical perspective. Cultural Institutions Studies encompass both the complex interplay of structural practice patterns and repeating, ritualized norms (institutions) and values ​​that operate in the cultural sector, as well as the social actions of those involved, their relationships with one another and the ways in which these interactions and norms are organized and institutionalized. In a sociological understanding with a praxeological reading, institutions are understood as symbolic orders and practices that form a framework for how people communicate and interact with one another. Social institutions are individually linked to certain cultural meanings. If this subjective and dynamic understanding of the meaning of a cultural institution is imposed on someone else, this can, for example, lead to or justify discrimination, unequal power relations, ideologies and inequalities, which form the basis of research interests of Cultural Institutions Studies.