Sebastian holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. Grounded in phenomenology, hermeneutics and pragmatism, his thesis proposes a framework to account for crises and their transformative powers. In critical dialogue with different theories of practice, culture and time and with recourse to empirical findings in sociology, anthropology and social psychology, his doctoral research lays the theoretical foundations for a research programme to investigate how crises transform culture and institutions, as well as practical, biographical and historical self-understanding. In his thesis, he applied this framework to to the coronavirus crisis and the transformations of lifestyles and life plans, cultures of work and workplaces; to the climate crisis, the changing views of humanity and time associated with the notion of Anthropocene, and the emergence of practices of sustainability; and to migration crises (in the context of the Andes, in particular) and transformations on the notions and practices of belonging, boundaries of ethnicity and principles of citizenship. In the future, he aims to refine his framework through a comparative study of constituent moments and constitutional processes as collective mechanisms of crisis responses, and by applying it to the so-called masculinity crisis.
Sebastian is interested in social, political and sociological theory, phenomenology and its uses across the social sciences, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and in the intersections of philosophy and sociology on the concepts of experience, self, temporality, morality, and normativity.
