Vita
Philipp Altmann, studied in sociology, cultural anthropology and Spanish philology at the University of Trier and the Autonomous University Madrid (2001-2007). Finished his doctorate in sociology at the Free University of Berlin in 2013 with a work on the decolonial aspects of the discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador. Since March 2015, he is Profesor Titular for Sociological Theory at the Universidad Central del Ecuador. He works on how ideas spread, on the intersection of discourse analysis, history of concepts, and sociology of knowledge. At the moment, he is doing so by studying the diffusion of the political concepts of the indigenous movement in Ecuador -Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay at the center- and the development of Ecuadorian sociology in relation to global sociology and other national/local traditions. Research interests are: indigenous and social movements, decoloniality, identity, social exclusion, systems theory, political sociology, sociology of science.
Projects at LCSS
A global sociology of universities needs to go beyond a general history of the university worldwide and must consider the tight relationship to both scientific research and higher education. To do so, this research focuses on relevant policies and regional or global discourses and their mutual influences from the 1950s until today. A central place of this research will be reserved for conceptions of research, science, and higher education discussed in the context of universities. The methodology will be based on the qualitative content analysis of texts related to the topic: speeches, manifestos, laws, meeting minutes, and influential interventions of any kind. This study will focus on two cases, Ecuador and Germany, including other existing case studies to offer a comparative perspective. It will approach its object on three levels: international influences and key actors, national politics, and selected relevant universities.
