Maria Pohn-Lauggas

Professor Maria Pohn-Lauggas is a sociologist specializing in qualitative methods and collective histories of violence. Since 2024, she holds the Heisenberg Professorship at Ruhr University Bochum. Prior to this, she served as Junior Professor at Georg August University of Göttingen (2018–2024) and as Senior Research Fellow at the University of Vienna (2017–2018).

• Education: Doctorate in Sociology (University of Vienna, 2012)
• Key Research Areas: Persecution under National Socialism, slavery and colonialism in Ghana/Brazil, taboo contexts in social research
• Methodologies: Biographical-narrative interviews, visual sociology, discourse analysis

Her Heisenberg project explores how qualitative and interpretative methods can address societies shaped by violence, power asymmetries, and taboos. She has received significant funding from the German Research Foundation (Heisenberg Program) and the Austrian Science Fund (Hertha Firnberg Fellowship).