Hartmut-Häußermann-Prize "Soziale Stadt"
The Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies at Humboldt-Universität Berlin is awarding the Hartmut-Häußermann-Preis "Soziale Stadt" the 11th of April 2019 at the Senatssaal, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
The prize goes to outstanding monographs that realize an interdisciplinary, educational, and social oriented urban research. The prize, donated by Dr. Ruth Jacobs, is endowed with a 3.000 Euro prize and will be awarded every two years by the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies.
Hartmut Häußermann's research stands for an urban research commited to social reconnoitring. It is investigating classical questions of sociology about integration and societal change using the example of modern urban society and in doing so is bearing in mind its emancipatory as well as its destructive potentials. In Häußermann's work cities are not only discussed as expression and compression of social dynamics, but also as a politically constituted research-object and an independent space of design. Häußermann analyzed his main research-topic, the causes, manifestations, and consequences of social and cultural inequality in cities, from three different perspectives: as an expression of fundamental societal structures, as a result of current processes of urban development, and as fields of action in urban policy. For him the social city was his object of research as well as the aim of urban governance. His initiative for neighborhood management in Berlin as an instrument of urban policy with a focus on inhabitants provides a modell for research, that comes into effect in practical city life.
At the same time one of Hartmut Häußermann's major achievements is the international embedding of his educational and social oriented urban research and the organization of multifaceted research cooperations. Similarly another one of his achievements is his understanding of urban research as an interdisciplinary task. At the Humboldt Universität Berlin, at which he was head of the department of urban and regional sociology, he was a founding member of the interdisciplinary Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies.
Composition of the jury
For 2019 the jury is made up of:
- Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland, Executive Director, professor for urban sociology, Institute of Social Science, HU Berlin
- Prof. Dr. Ignacio Farías, professor for urban anthropology, Institute for European Ethnology, HU Berlin
- Prof. Dr. Martin Kronauer, retired professor for social siences, HWR Berlin
- Prof. Dr. Felicitas Hillmann, professor for urban transformations in international contexts, TU Berlin, IRS Erkner
- Prof. Dr. Jens Wurtzbacher, professor for social policy, KHS Berlin
- Prof. Dr. Regina Römhild, GSZ-Council, professor for anthropology Institute for European Ethnology, HU Berlin
Donation of the prize
The Hartmut-Häußermann-Preis "Soziale Stadt" is donated by Dr. Ruth Jacob.
The organizational handling is done by the Humboldt-Universitätsgesellschaft (HUG).