Starting Position
The relevance of research concerning old age, aging, and the reaction to demographic age distribution has been growing continuously during the last years and will continue to grow in the future. Research on this topic is of crucial importance and, although gerontology is a relatively novel field of research, an increase in research activities can be observed. The interdisciplinary nature of the topic is inherent and can be shown with the help of different concepts of age:
- age, as a process of aging, is an object of biological and medical research;
- the consequences of older age are relevant for research in social sciences concerning the social position of people and, e.g., the organization of social welfare;
- the changes in the images of age and in the contact with elderly people are of historical interest;
- linguistic particularities of or the bargaining around age as a dynamical value in interaction concerns linguistic questions;
- finally, the connection between said disciplines and psychology is obvious.
In this context, age is not considered a static value, but a fact that is linked to various processes and changes and that goes hand in hand with the thought of diversity of (old) age and the scientific need to describe and model this thought. It is therefore necessary to exchange ideas between different disciplines, in order to gain an understanding of this complex object of research.
At the University of Bern, we lack the possibility to exchange our ideas between different disciplines, to bundle existing programs and to promote the exchange between different researchers. This is especially true for humanities, where activities around this field of research have not yet been interconnected.
Goals of the Research Platform
The goal of the new research platform is to create a structure that allows the bundling of existing activities in humanities and social sciences. In a first step, an internal exchange inside the faculties of humanities and social sciences should be created, in order to facilitate new, interdisciplinary cooperations and to make the activities in their combination visible to people outside the concerned study programs.
This leads to the second step: Thanks to greater visibility and stronger networks, we can present ourselves as a more attractive partner for future interdepartmental, inter-university and transdisciplinary cooperations and, ideally, for joint research programs and applications for third-party funding.
Another goal of the project is involving students, PhD students and young academics, in order to sensitize young researchers for this interdisciplinary and socially relevant field of research. This will happen through activities in which they take part actively, e.g., the “UnVergessen” project, colloquiums, workshops, summer schools and conferences.
Planned Activities
The activities of the research platform are designed over a period of three years (2024-2026) and start with the networking of researchers of humanities interested in topics related to (old) age and aging.
Joint, interdisciplinary teaching and scientific activities are going to promote exchange of knowledge. This is based on the "UnVergessen" project, which already took place during the spring semester 2024 and which will become a recurring event. It is planned to take place every spring semester, followed by another event (workshop, summer school, conference) every fall semester. In a second step, these events will be expanded towards other disciplines.
Staff
University of Bern, Institute of Slavic Languages and Literatures:
Katrin B. Karl is a professor for Slavic Linguistics. Her research focuses on Slavic-German multilingualism, on multilingualism in old age and long-time care situations and on the significance of language(s) in social contexts. She is the founder of the “UnVergessen” project.
Aldona Rzitki is an assistant and PhD student in Slavic Linguistics. Her research focuses on the significance of lifelong multilingualism in old age. She is a participant of the PhD program “Studies in Language and Society” and a part of the scientific staff of the “UnVergessen” project.
Maria Chevrekouko works as a scientific collaborator and coordinator for the “UnVergessen” project. She is also a lecturer for Russian language at the University of Basel and is interested in cultural mediation, literary translation and intergenerational language-learning.
University of Bern, Institute of History:
Francesca Falk is a lecturer for migration history. Her research focuses on the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, migration, balance of power, gender history, protests, colonialism and its consequences, history as a transformational science and public, visual and oral history.
University of Bern, Institute of Germanic Languages and Literatures:
Adrian Leemann is a professor for German Sociolinguistics. His research focuses on a broad variety of linguistic topics, especially the combination of language and society and new methods of linguistic data acquisition and processing.
Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health:
Eva Soom Ammann is an associated researcher at the Institute of Social Anthropology and a habilitated in Medical Anthropology. She leads the research group for Psychosocial Health at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. She is responsible for various projects on age, diversity and inequality in the health care system.
Activities
Spring 2024:
first cycle of the "UnVergessen" project as a seminar for students of Slavic Studies, History, Linguistics, a.o.
Summer 2024:
LUMID-Workshop (Linguistic Understanding of Multilingualism in Dementia), hosting international researchers, with a focus on empirical research and networking.
Funded by SNF as part of the program Scientific Exchanges (Funding number: IZSEZ0_227298)
Fall 2024:
Exercise for the "UnVergessen" project: Age as an Inter- and Transdisciplinary Field of Research
Lecture: Sprache und Gesundheit [Language and Health]
Spring 2025:
Second cycle of the “UnVergessen” project.
Spring 2025: second cycle of the “UnVergessen” project
Summer 2025 (in planning stage):
interdisciplinary summer school “Stand, Herausforderungen und Perspektiven der inter- und transdisziplinären Forschung zu Diversität im Alter [Current State, Challenges and Prospects of Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research on Diversity in (Old) Age]”
