Guiding principle

Interdisciplinary Commodity Studies (ICS) is a cross-departmental teaching and research focus that was founded at JKU Linz in 2017 and is coordinated at the Department of Social and Economic History. Its leitmotif is to “tollow the commodities”. ICS comprise a bundle of approaches that explore time- and space-specific pathways of goods and services from production to distribution to consumption in the context of society and the environment. They are related to research on globalization and related regionalizations. ICS do not understand the commodity form of goods and services as given, but as created in the course of commodification; consequently, they also include non-commodity goods and services (e.g., unpaid labor).

Characteristics

• Interdisciplinarity: ICS combine areas that established scientific disciplines often treat separately: production vs. consumption, internal vs. external economy, technology vs. nature, etc. Important contributions come from geography, history, sociology, economics and social and cultural anthropology.
• Plurality: ICS are characterized by plurality of theories and methods. They have pronounced different approaches (commodity chains, value chains, production networks, etc.). Their common empirical focus includes commodities in their multiple contexts.
• Complexity: ICS seek to capture the complexity of commodity flows by capturing multiple aspects: value creation, modes of regulation, technologies, attributions of meaning, labor relations, natural relations, and so on.

Goals

• Intra- and inter-university networking: Within the university, the ICSs promotes  cross-cutting networking, especially in the univerity’s focus areas of "Digitization" and "Sustainable Development". In addition, they cooperate with domestic and foreign partners (e.g. Commodity Frontiers Initiative: commodityfrontiers.com/), opens an external URL in a new window.
• Making teaching more attractive: The sustainable and responsible use of resources in globalization is gaining increasing attention in civil society. ICS-oriented courses and degree programs increase the attractiveness of the courses offered.
• Attracting research funding: Individuals and research groups make efforts to obtain research funding from Austrian and international funding agencies. In this way, they increase the university's research capacity.

Members

• Roland Atzmüller, opens in new window (Institut für Soziologie)
• Brigitte Aulenbacher, opens in new window (Institut für Soziologie)
• Karin Fischer, opens an external URL in a new window (Institut für Soziologie)
• Ernst Langthaler, opens in new window (Institut für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Sprecher)
• Sophie Parragh, opens in new window (Institut für Produktions- und Logistikmanagement)
• Susanne Pernicka, opens in new window (Institut für Soziologie)
• Heinz Karl Prammer, opens an external URL in a new window (Institut für Betriebliche und Regionale Umweltwirtschaft)
• Elke Schüssler, opens an external URL in a new window (Institut für Organisation, Sprecherin)

Activities