Events and Activities
Referenzrahmen des Helfens

2nd Workshop on Historical Network Research at the KWI Essen

The 2nd Workshop on Historical Network Research took place at the KWI during 29 and 30 May 2010. Historians of all disciplines discussed the challenges of transforming historical sources into relational data and network visualizations. Fragmentary sources, misleading and contradictive information easily blur the outcomes of the analysis. These problems require special attention during the coding and interpretation of relational data. Secondly, the participants discussed the actual contributions that network theories and methodologies make for historical research. The participants agreed, that both can not produce knowlededge per se, but are rather to be considered as mighty tools to support the historical analysis. They provide researchers with new perspectives on the respective subject of research and generate new questions. The workshop was organized by Marten Düring, a follow-up workshop will be held in autumn 2010 in Vienna. 

Workshop on prosocial behaviour in interdisciplinary perspective at the Ruhruniversität Bochum

Why do people help each other? This question was at the heart of a workshop organized by the project and the Lehrstuhl für Sozialtheorie und Sozialpsychologie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum on 14 and 15 January. Past research in the social sciences has looked at psychological dispositions of a suspected "helper personality". The workshop aimed to add a set of different perspectives to this view and considered situational and social factors that would describe the context and the situation in which helping behaviour takes place.

The participants came from a wide range of disciplines including Game Theory, Evolutionary Anthropology, Theory of Action and Demographic Statistics. In addition, members of the police and and a refugee aid organization contributed their experiences with helping behaviour in every day life.