The research and teaching department "Environmental Sociology with a Focus on Transformation Research" deals with socio-ecological transformation processes. This includes both the analysis of the change of social relations to natural as well as the reflection of the possibilities and limits of a social transformation towards ecological sustainability. We understand the socio-ecological transformation of society as a complex and socially contested process that takes place, among other aspects, at the level of institutional regulation, discursive negotiation, and everyday social practices.

Empirically, a particular focus lies on the social dimensions of the climate crisis as well as the transformation of human-animal relations. We are particularly interested in the influence of social movements, social practices of (non)sustainability (such as consumer behavior), processes and mechanisms of externalization, causes and dynamics of transformation conflicts, and emotional-sociological aspects of social nature relations.

Other focus areas of the professorship are theories of social change, process and figurational sociology, environmental views of the radical right, transdisciplinary research, and qualitative social research.