Welcome to the Homepage of the Research Platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe"!

The research platform aims to further strengthen the traditionally excellent profile of the University of Vienna as a center for the interdisciplinary study of Central and Eastern Europe. We will combine methodological approaches from history, cultural studies, historical sociolinguistics, social anthropology, sociology, economics and law in order to study and conceptualize processes of deep political, social and economic transformations affecting the region since the late 1980s and in earlier periods. Our overarching aim is to rethink transformation as: a) multi-dimensional processes, b) as processes characterized by the impact of different temporalities, including past experiences and future expectations, c) as processes entailing a combination of macro- and micro-levels of analysis, and d) as processes characterized by changes in material settings and by a reconfiguration of legal and institutional structures. A profound historicization of transformation processes will provide a better understanding of contemporary political and economic developments that have their roots in recent and earlier transformations. Conceptually, we can benefit from the innovative approaches that have been developed by members of our team within the framework of the Research Center for the History of Transformations and East Central Europe (RECET), such as the notion of "co-transformation" (Philipp Ther) and "counter-transformation" (János Kovács). We also intend to utilize the writings of Karl Polanyi to widen the cross-disciplinary cooperation and the regional scope of our research and to overcome the teleologies of the post 1989 transformation studies.