Martin Voss

Martin Voss 2010

Martin Voss (born March 8, 1972 ) is a German social scientist . He is professor in the field of social science disaster research and head of the Disaster Research Center (KFS) at the Free University of Berlin .

Previously, he had been head of the disaster research center at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel since 2009 .

Education and career

Voss studied sociology at the University of Kiel (MA 2001, doctorate 2006). He did his doctorate under Lars Clausen , who introduced disaster sociology in Germany.

He volunteered for the non-profit association "Katastrophennetz eV", which he founded, and the international and interdisciplinary network "KatNet" operated by this association to strengthen the exchange between disaster research and applied disaster control. Voss has been a member of the board of the German Committee for Disaster Reduction ( DKKV ) since 2017 .

Interests

His work focuses on theoretical and applied risk, crisis and disaster research in the field of sustainability research and research on global environmental change (especially climate change), vulnerability and resilience research as well as science and technology research.

He sees disasters following Lars Clausen as a socio-cultural process. In the field of environmental anthropology , among other things, he is concerned with discourses, patterns of interpretation and practices.

For example, Voss works from a social science perspective on climate change. Among other things, in an anthology he refers to the early discovery of the fundamentals of anthropogenic climate change - according to this , Svante Arrhenius had already sketched very essential fundamentals in 1896, a notable human influence was foreseeable as early as the middle of the 20th century due to the industrial dynamics and the sudden increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The interpretation of long-standing knowledge as an alarm only came about at the beginning of the 21st century. Obviously, it takes more than well-founded theories and empirical evidence to turn measured values into an impulse for reflection and action . The volume is considered to be an important contribution to the social science positioning of climate research in Germany. This was initiated in England by Anthony Giddens The Politics of Climate Change (2009). The Sociological Review introduced in 2011 based on a review of various German sociological anthologies on climate change a great wealth of social science literature on climate change firmly. If they still complained about a lack of access to the social sciences, this has now been led ad adsurdum. Voss book contains some methodological weaknesses in the presentation of the scientific aspects and a multitude of individually very valuable but diverging perspectives in the respective contributions. Discourse theoretical, perceptual and normative perspectives and derived action perspectives would be presented and combined with the personal findings of the climber and climate activist Arved Fuchs . Voss sees the controversy over climate change as the current result of (symbolic) struggles over interpretative sovereignty. For the humanities and social sciences, climate change is therefore not only a challenge because of the extensive cultural consequences of climate change - climate change is also the product of a powerful discourse in the sociological sense.

Voss also considers the issue of disaster effects such as climate change with the involvement of the local and regional level. He worked in an advisory capacity at emBRACE “Building Resilience amongst Communities in Europe” and at “Atlas of Vulnerability and Resilience Research - Atlas-VRR”. In Guatemala, he also carried out expert interviews and media text analyzes on a GTZ project to strengthen local disaster control structures in Central America.

Research projects (selection)

"Population behavior and scenario development" in the BMBF network "Improved crisis management in urban areas through situation-related helper concepts and warning systems - ENablement of Urban Citizen SUpport for Crisis Response (ENSURE)" (2015 ff)
"Training and learning in" High-Reliability Organizations "(HRO), networks and critical infrastructures" in the BMBF network "Social determinants of security at the airport (soft parts)" * (2015)
ANDROID-Network (Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimize Educational Development), EU project 2014
"Human behavior in extreme situations" in the joint project "SecuRail: Safety in local public transport", ZiM-Mittelstandsförderung, BMWi 2014
Coordinator in the BMBF group “Alpine Natural Hazards in Climate Change - Interpretation Patterns and Practices for Action from 18.-21. Jh. ", Project leader sub-projects" Civil Society Actors in Climate Change "&" Development of a theoretical explanatory framework for understanding environmentally related negotiation processes following Pierre Bourdieu "
Project manager "RiskRaum" in the BMBF group "Security, perceptions, situation pictures, conditions and expectations - Monitoring on the topic of security in Germany"

Publications (selection)

as editor with Heike Egner and Marén Schorch (eds.): Learning and Calamities. Practices, Interpretations, Patterns (= Routledge Studies in Environment, Culture, and Society. 3). Routledge, New York NY et al. 2015, ISBN 978-0-415-70335-2 .
as editor: Climate change. Social science perspectives. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-15925-6 .
as editor with Birgit Peuker: Is nature disappearing? The actor-network theory in the environmental sociological discussion. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89942-528-6 .
Symbolic forms. Basics and elements of a sociology of catastrophe. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89942-547-2 ( PDF online version ).

Web links

katastrophennetz.de
Website at the Free University of Berlin
Georg Sturm: Disaster researcher on Corona: "We were blind" . In: The daily newspaper . April 13, 2020 (Interview with Martin Voss).; accessed on April 16, 2020

Individual evidence

^ Klaus Schröter, Martin Voss: Virtuoso free thinker, sociological writer and servant of science. In memoriam Lars Clausen (April 8, 1935 - May 20, 2010). In: Sociology. Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 378-383.
↑ ^a ^b Martin Voss (ed.): Der Klimawandel. Social science perspectives. 2010.
↑ ^a ^b Bernhard Gill, Cordula Kropp, Stefan Böschen, Katrin Vogel (eds.): Climate from below. Regional governance and social change. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-593-50093-5 .
^ Anthony Giddens : The Politics of Climate Change. Polity Press, Cambridge et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-7456-4692-3 .
^ ^A ^b ^c ^d Ortwin Renn, Annika Arnold, Viola Schetula, Pia-Johanna Schweizer: reviews of new literature. Collective meeting. The struggle of the social sciences for their role in the climate change debate. In: Sociological Review . Vol. 34, No. 4, 2011, pp. 463-472, doi : 10.1524 / srsr.2011.0027 .
↑ Martin Voss: Global environmental change and local resilience using the example of climate change. In: Karl-Siegbert Rehberg (Ed.): The nature of society. Negotiations of the 33rd Congress of the German Society for Sociology in Kassel 2006 (= Negotiations of the Congress of the German Society for Sociology. Vol. 33, 3). CD-ROM. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38440-5 , pp. 2860-2876.

personal data
SURNAME	Voss, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German social scientist
DATE OF BIRTH	March 8, 1972

[1] Klaus Schröter, Martin Voss: Virtuoso free thinker, sociological writer and servant of science. In memoriam Lars Clausen (April 8, 1935 - May 20, 2010). In: Sociology. Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 378-383.

[:0-2] Martin Voss (ed.): Der Klimawandel. Social science perspectives. 2010.

[:2-3] Bernhard Gill, Cordula Kropp, Stefan Böschen, Katrin Vogel (eds.): Climate from below. Regional governance and social change. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-593-50093-5 .

[4] Anthony Giddens : The Politics of Climate Change. Polity Press, Cambridge et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-7456-4692-3 .

[:1-5] A ^b ^c ^d Ortwin Renn, Annika Arnold, Viola Schetula, Pia-Johanna Schweizer: reviews of new literature. Collective meeting. The struggle of the social sciences for their role in the climate change debate. In: Sociological Review . Vol. 34, No. 4, 2011, pp. 463-472, doi : 10.1524 / srsr.2011.0027 .

[6] Martin Voss: Global environmental change and local resilience using the example of climate change. In: Karl-Siegbert Rehberg (Ed.): The nature of society. Negotiations of the 33rd Congress of the German Society for Sociology in Kassel 2006 (= Negotiations of the Congress of the German Society for Sociology. Vol. 33, 3). CD-ROM. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38440-5 , pp. 2860-2876.