We research culture, and we don't have to agree.
Our goal is to promote perspectives on how we think, feel and relate to the world, today.
We offer an account of the changing culture, with fresh knowledge and inspiration from diverse perspectives. Our goal is a more self-aware, fairer and healthier society.
Studying the spirit of times
The term Geist (German pronunciation: [ˈɡaɪst]) comes from the German language, and it means spirit.
Zeitgeist , commonly used in cultural studies, means the spirit (Geist) of times (Zeit), and refers to the unique set of cultural values of an era. This is our object of study: how, today, our culture is manifesting around us.
Geist translates to us as insights that aim to provide an in-depth understanding of ourselves today in the midst of many geo-political and socio-technological influences.
We have three main initiatives
Gather. Discuss. Share.
Community
Bringing together culture-sensitive
thinkers
Sustaining a community is a big part of our ambition. We increase our contributor's individual impact on society by bringing their work to the conversation, making their experiences visible, and exchange ideas in a new, uncompromising way.
We aim at generating exchange between individuals and institutions, such as inviting our contributors to share their points of view in University courses, company workshops, seminars and other venues, for example.
Geist Dialogues
The conversations we need to have, from radically diverse perspectives
Where there is dialogue, there is respect.
The key to a good dialogue is respect for the other, willingness to listen, and readiness to learn from them.
We don't want to converge into a single way of thinking. Rather, we want to expose differences, and learn from them and leave the room with more to think than when we entered it.
The Geist Report
A comparable deep-dive into cultural values, one country at a time
We aim to conduct yearly national investigations on cultural values. A comparable study with this scope is able to bring deep understanding from historical perspectives. Furthermore, a comparison between different societies also provides invaluable insight to understand who we are, and where we are at.
The study is conducted by our own method of collaboration, gathering local researchers from an array of disciplines to analyze open-data collected with qualitative and quantitative methods.