Project description
Beyond capitalism: racialisation within socialist societies
While racialisation is typically associated with capitalism, historical records reveal it also existed within socialist societies – a phenomenon that remains poorly understood. The ERC-funded Racial Socialism project aims to resolve this contradiction by studying humanitarian work in historical socialist states such as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic and the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. By analysing national Red Cross societies, it will investigate how these organisations racialise different groups. The project will use an anthropology of value to explore how socialist societies hierarchically organised political and social worth. Ultimately, the project seeks to theorise racialisation beyond capitalist frameworks. This new approach will deepen understanding of how racial distinctions persist across political systems, offering fresh insights into global history and social theory.
Objective
Racial Socialism focuses on humanitarian work in socialist countries to generate new perspectives on racialization. Racialization is the process of constructing certain groups as fundamentally distinct from one another based on allegedly essential biological differences. The role that racialization has played in the historical emergence of capitalism is well understood, as the extraction of socio-economic value has often been justified by the framing of populations as ontologically different along racialized lines. Yet, historical sources also show that people in socialist societies were racialized, too, but little theoretical work has been done to clarify this apparent contradiction.
By studying national Red Cross societies in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic, and the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, I will examine the ways that racialization was deployed in socialist societies. I propose an anthropology of value as a groundbreaking way of analyzing the contradictions of racialization under socialism. I will approach socialist countries as societies with multiple forms of value that were organized internally according to a particular logic, or a set of competing logics, operating at multiple scales.
The key objectives of Racial Socialism are to:
1. undertake original empirical research on whether national Red Cross societies in socialist countries racialized different groups of people and, if so, how;
2. in the selected socialist countries, identify different registers and struggles over value, including political, economic, social, and cultural value, and their modes of hierarchical integration;
3. theorize racialization in socialism, which has typically been understood as part of capitalist social formations. By combining detailed historical research on socialist humanitarian organizations with anthropological theories of value and racialization, I will develop new perspectives on this contradiction.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
55122 Mainz
Germany
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