During the first funding phase (2019–2025), the BCDSS successfully applied the concept of strong asymmetrical dependencies (SADs) to a large number of case studies from different periods and regions of the world. The concept of SADs provided a comprehensive analytical framework for understanding how exploitation and inequality have historically shaped societies worldwide.

During the second funding phase (2026–2032), the BCDSS investigates the underlying causes and mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of strong asymmetrical dependencies in historical and contemporary contexts. Given today’s global challenges – including forced migration, socioeconomic inequality, and environmental exploitation – this research provides important insights into the lasting legacies and continuities of dependencies.

The BCDSS aims to establish Historically Informed Dependency Studies as an important interdisciplinary field in the humanities by 2032, and to encourage humanities and social science scholars to systematically integrate the analysis of SADs into their study of social, economic, and cultural phenomena.

Five new Research Areas will contribute to our understanding of why and how SADs persist across the globe and over long periods of time. These new Research Areas will focus on:

1. Transitions and Transformations
2. Economies of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies
3. Power – Violence – Trauma
4. Cultural Heritage – Transitional Justice – Memory Cultures
5. Alternative Archives and Life Writing

The globally unique infrastructure established during the first funding phase provides ideal conditions for research and teaching in the field of Historically Informed Dependency Studies. Over the next seven years, the Cluster will continue to pursue its current path and train a rising generation of researchers in this field, above all through its BA and MA degree programs, and its PhD and postdoctoral programs. This will be uniquely facilitated by the methodological and theoretical repertoire, and the historical depth, geographical breadth, and global perspective of the Cluster’s research.

The BCDSS’ research community further comprises Cluster professorships, which are supplemented by a group of PIs from across the five faculties involved in the Cluster.

A number of fellowship programs offer scientists of different status groups from all over the world the chance to come to Bonn to pursue their research on SADs in an interdisciplinary environment for up to a year.

Close cooperation with relevant institutions not only in Europe and the Anglo-American world, but also in Africa, Latin America, and Asia has already led to the establishment of an international network of twenty-four cooperating universities and research institutions, which is to be further expanded and interconnected.

In addition to this global network and the international teaching programs, the Cluster ensures the flow of its findings into academia through its publications and its collaboration with the affiliated Bonn Center for Digital Humanities; while an intensive PR strategy takes the BCDSS’ new insights to the general public.

The BCDSS’ overarching research focus encourages a heightened awareness of the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a responsibility which the Cluster embraces with a specially developed framework for diversity, equality, and inclusion.

Involved Institution:

• Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) gGmbH
• German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
• Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie
• Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum – Museum für Völkerkunde
• Ruhr-Universität Bochum