Antonia Thies
Antonia studied Economics and Arabic Studies at the University of Applied Sciences of Bremen and at the Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. Afterwards, she completed her Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies with a focus on Political Science at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. She already participated in the research project „Wechselwirkungen“ of EZIRE as well as in the VW project „Global autocratic collaboration in times of COVID19“ under the direction of Thomas Demmelhuber. Antonia is fluent in English and Arabic.
Sentimentality and State-Society Relations: The Consolidation of Collective Identities in Gulf Monarchies
Antonia’s research project examines the forms and functions of sentimentality in the consolidation of collective identities using the example of selected Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait). The project analyzes the role of emotions and affects, as well as sentimentality as a relational code of communication that oscillates between the present and the past. It aims to examine the new negotiation processes of state-society relations in the Gulf in the course of the emerging post-oil era. Concurrently, it aims to fill the gaps in the current state of research regarding possible non-material aspects of the durability of political orders. Accordingly, an investigation will be conducted into the extent to which memory practices in the course of new heritage projects achieve an activation of emotional knowledge stocks, which take place through recourse to past repertoires. The project examines the loci of the sentimental in the arts and cultural sector as well as around national holidays. An investigation of the reciprocal character of the sentimental is therefore indispensable and thus places the focus of this study on bottom-up analyses of the perceptions and thus affective reactions of the population in the context of individual countries.
Talks
- 06/2023: with Thomas Demmelhuber: „Narratives of sentimentality and authoritarian regime survival in the Gulf monarchies.“ Sektionstagung der DVPW (Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft) Sektion – Internationale Beziehungen,“ 14. – 16. Juni 2023, Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen.
- 09/2022: with Thomas Demmelhuber: „Autocracies and the temptation of sentimentality: Nonmaterial means of “post-oil regime survival”.“ DOT (Deutscher Orientalistentag), 12. – 17. September 2022, Freie Universität Berlin, Panel: Authoritarian Power: Energy Systems & Scales of Authoritarianism in the MENA region ( N. Koch/B. Schütze).
- 09/2022: „Autocratic hedging in times of Covid-19: A race for China’s favor?“. DOT, 12. – 17. September 2022, Freie Universität Berlin, Panel: The Gulf monarchies in a post-pandemic era: Old rules, new Game (T. Demmelhuber/T. Zumbraegel, J. Gurol).
Publications
- Demmelhuber, Thomas and Antonia Thies. 2023. Autocracies and the temptation of sentimentality: repertoires of the past and contemporary meaning making in the Gulf monarchies. In Third World Quarterly. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2023.2171392
- Thies, Antonia, Mahmud Helmy, Jule Klopke and Jens Schönstedt. 2021. Quantitative Religionsforschung zu Migration und Religion. In Soziologie 50 (3). Tagungsbericht.
Teaching
- 12/2021: Methoden-Workshop „Computer-aided qualitative and mixed-methods data and text analysis with MaxQDA,“ 21. Dezember 2021. Research Project POP-DISC at Universität Freiburg (S. Destradi).
- 05/2021: Methoden-Workshop „Computergestützte Datenanalyse in den qualitativen und quantitativen Methoden mittels MaxQDA,“ 12. und 19. Mai 2021, internal workplace training at the Erlanger Zentrum für Islam und Recht in Europa e.V. (EZIRE).