© Michael Kretzschmar
The Chair
Microsociology deals with forms of communitization - Vergemeinschaftung - which, in contrast to the forms of socialization - Vergesellschaftung - (organizations, nationally constituted societies or world society), are characterized by the immediacy of social contacts.
This applies to interactions whose duration is tied to the presence of the actors in a situation, and also to continuous social relationships in the form of dyads or groups. Microsociology also includes research fields that deal with the genesis of the subject, as is the case in socialization and biography research. From a micro-sociological perspective actors in small social units and their actions, practices and meaning-making serve as the starting point for the search for answers to the question of how social order is created, perpetuated and reproduced. Micro-Sociology is interested in the formation of typical individual and collective patterns of action and interpretation. Our aim is to decipher the "social grammars" that apply in different social units, also and especially against the background of numerous tendencies towards change in social forms of life in the dynamic contemporary societies of (post-)modernity.