Karl Polanyi Research Center for Global Social Studies

Mission 

The Center promotes comparative and interdisciplinary studies with a global perspective at the intersection of economics, sociology and international relations, simultaneously analyzing global and local dynamics and their interconnectedness. Our aim is to scrutinize historically evolving transnational linkages, persistent inequalities and conflicts between social groups, communities and various regions of the world. We are committed to research and training, which avoids pitfalls of Eurocentrism or any other ways of essentializations widespread in social sciences and humanities. Our work takes a critical stance to uncover entrenched ideas that justify established regimes of global governance that perpetuate forms of redistribution and inequalities. We are also committed to future oriented studies, in the sense that we would like to reflect on possible alternatives to prevailing governmental practices both on the local and the global level.  

History  

Our Center has organized major events since its establishment in 2014 including the fifth Congress of the European Network of Universal and Global History in 2017, and an international Polányian conference in 2019. We have participated in 4 international projects. We have an active network of more than 220 critical scholars of all ages and academic ranks from all over the world, interpreting the work of Karl Polányi or use a Polányian critical framework in their analysis.