MOBILIZING INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP – RESEARCH NETWORK

Mobilizing Intimate Relationship

The research network aims to establish an innovative research area on contemporary interpretations of intimate relationship. The network started an initiative of Kornelia Hahn and Mona Röhm and aims to bring international scholars together to exchange their research within the field of intimate relationships, develop innovative approaches, and work on joined projects. The research is based on processes of actively producing intimacy in globalized societies. It is relevant since the capability of (re-)establishing and sustaining intimate relationship is increasingly subject to a ‘normalizing’ order. At the same time, it is based on sophisticated challenges to create individual, unique, seemingly socially detached bonds with ‘intimate’ others. nn

The research field focuses on four dimensions of mobility:

• the social construction of ‘intimacy’ from the viewpoint of different and diverse interpreters (individuals, role expectations, collective agents, discourses etc.)
• the dynamic of signifying practices in the context of opportunities, resources, constraints, markets, media etc.
• transcultural experiences due to transcending social, geographical, discursive, or mediated boundaries while constructing intimate relationships
• (changing) normative and subjective concepts of intimacy

In respect to these dimensions, we develop an innovative methodology suited for the challenges of the research field:

• emphasis on the negotiation process of intimate relationships
• empirical interlinkages of diverse interpretations of intimacy
• research in various social and cultural contexts
• research which integrates perceived and/or imagined sexual, bodily, ethnic, and cultural belongings

Network Coordination: Mona Röhm,
New members are welcome! Please feel free to share your thoughts, call for paper, or other relevant information with us!

Members of the Mobilizing Intimate Relationship-Research Network

• Kornelia Hahn – Professor for Sociological Theory, Paris Lodron University Salzburg/ Austria
  Research interest: Theorising Media/Body, Intimate Relationship, Digitalisation, Public/Private
  

• Yener Bayramoğlu – PostDoc Researcher at the Alice Salomon University Berlin
  Research interest: Digital media, migration, intersectionality, affect theory, queer studies
  

• Daniel Cardoso – Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University / LUSÓFONA University
  Research interest: consensual non-monogamies, BDSM, social movements, new media, youngsters
  

• Christian Klesse – Reader in Sociology, Co-Lead of Research Groups CIGS  within RCASS, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
  Research interest: consensual non-monogamies, gender and sexual politics, bisexualities, LGBTQI+ transnational activism, queer film festivals
  

• Alison Lamont – University of Roehampton / Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology
  Research interest: Online intimacies, People’s Republic of China, family policy, decolonized intimacies, families
  

• Andrea Newerla – Research Assistant / Decentral Women’s and Equal Opportunities, Commissioner
  Research interest:  Intimacy & Dating-Apps, Emotions, Governmentality Studies, Aging Society
  

• Nilanjan Raghunath – Assistant Professor of Sociology, Singapore University of Technology and Design
  Research interest: Economic Sociology, Sociology of Family, Sociology of Technology
  

• Martin Stempfhuber – Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Würzburg
  Research interest: Privacy, Intimate Relationships, Media Sociology, Sociological Theory, Romantic Comedies
  

• Elene Svanidze – Student of Governance and Social Sciences at Free University of Georgia
  Research interest: Relationships; Sexuality; Modernity; Intimacy
  

• Bahira Trask – Professor & Chair, Department of Human Development & Family Sciences, University of Delaware
  Research interest: globalization and changes in families; intimate relationships and gender; work-life; intergenerational relationships
  

• Katherine Twamley – Associate Professor of Sociology, UCL
  Research interest: Love; inequalities; agency; relationality; gender
  

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• Jenny van Hooff – Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
  Research interest: Couples, friendship, intimacy, commitment, love