Interim Professorship, Empirical Macrosociology Dr. Léa Renard
Research Profile
Sociology of Knowledge | Historical Sociology | Sociology of Colonialism | Sociology of Work | Gender Sociology
Léa Renard is a habilitation candidate at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Heidelberg University, and an associated researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University of Berlin. In her habilitation thesis, she explores practices of knowledge mediation and inquiry in the 20th century. From January to August 2026, she was Early Career Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. Prior to that, she conducted her postdoctoral research at the Max Weber Institute of Sociology and with the DFG-funded project "Forced labour as a shifting global category" at the Institute for Latin American Studies, FU Berlin. She holds a binational PhD degree from the University of Potsdam and Université Grenoble Alpes (2019). Her research interests lie in the historical sociology of knowledge production and the sociology of colonialism.
She is currently co-investigator of the DFG-funded Scientific Network “Global Cultures of Enquête: Towards a Praxeology of Surveying (17th–21st Century)” (together with Martin Herrnstadt). DFG-Network Website
Selected Publications
Cissé, C., Lacroix, A., Mollard, B., Piguet, L., & Renard, L. (Eds.) (2025). Counting Work and Workers in Africa, International Labor and Working-Class History, 108.
Cissé, C., Lacroix, A., Mollard, B., Piguet, L., & Renard, L. (2025). Counting Work and Workers in Africa: Introduction to the Special Issue, International Labor and Working-Class History (FirstView)
Wobbe, T., Renard, L., & Braig, M. (Eds.). (2025). Sklaverei, Freiheit und Arbeit: Soziohistorische Beiträge zur Rekonfiguration von Zwangsarbeit. De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
Herrnstadt, M., & Renard, L. (Eds.). (2025). Cultures globales de l'enquête / Globale Enquêtenkulturen, A Propos. Deutsch-Französische Forschungen für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, 1.
Schalkowski, N., & Renard, L. (2023). Estimating forced labour: from a legal category to a statistical category for international political campaigns, International Review of Sociology, 33(3), 587-610.
Wobbe, T., Renard, L., Schalkowski, N., & Braig, M. (2023). Deutungsmodelle von Arbeit im Spiegel kolonialer und geschlechtlicher Dimensionen: Kategorisierungsprozesse von „Zwangsarbeit“ während der Zwischenkriegszeit, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 52(2), 172-190.
Renard, L., & Stricker, Y. (2023). A gathering of ‘technical theorists’? Situating the ISI within the field of international statistics through the prism of the migration debates (1887–1938), European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 30(1), 53-72.
Renard, L. (2021). Vergleichsverbot? Bevölkerungsstatistiken und die Frage der Vergleichbarkeit in den deutschen Kolonien (1885-1914), Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 73 (Suppl 1), 169-194.
Berrebi-Hoffmann, I., Giraud, O., Renard, L., & Wobbe, T. (Eds.) (2019). Categories in Context. Gender and Work in France and Germany, 1900-Present. Berghahn Books.
Renard, L. (2018). Mit den Augen der Statistiker: Deutsche Kategorisierungspraktiken von Migration im historischen Wandel, Zeithistorische Forschungen, 15(3), 431-451.
Wobbe, T, & Renard, L. (2017). The Category of ‘Family Workers’ in International Labour Organization Statistics (1930-1980s): A Contribution to the Study of Globalized Gendered Boundaries between Household and Market, Journal of Global History, 12, 340-360.
Current Research Projects
Curriculum Vitae
Table
| Year | Position / Degree |
|---|
| Year | Position / Degree |
|---|---|
Since 09/2026 | Interim Professorship, Empirical Macrosociology, Max Weber Institute of Sociology, Heidelberg University |
01/2026 – 08/2026 | Early Career Fellow, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies |
07/2025 – present | Habilitation candidate, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Heidelberg University |
2023 – 2025 | Postdoctoral researcher, Max-Weber-Institute of Sociology, Heidelberg University |
2020 – 2022 | Postdoctoral researcher, DFG-funded project „Forced Labour as a Shifting Global Category“, FU Berlin |
2019 | PhD in Sociology and Political Science, University of Potsdam & Université Grenoble Alpes |
2013 | Master in Political Science, Sciences Po Grenoble |
2011 | Bachelor in Sociology, Université Grenoble II |
2011 | Bachelor in Political Science, Sciences Po Grenoble |
External Functions
- Board Member, AK Historische Soziologie, Section Kultursoziologie (DGS)
- Editorial Board Member, Serendipities. Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences
- Editorial Board Member, A Propos. Deutsch-französische Forschungen für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften