Georg-Simmel Center for Urban Studies

Research Projects

Research Projects

Here you will find current, as well as completed research projects of the GSZ

Current Research Projects

Completed Research Projects

 


Current Research Projects

Reimagining Urban Ecosystems through a Multispecies Justice Lens (Dr. Pouya Sepehr)
Description

This project, "Reimagining Urban Ecosystems through a Multispecies Justice Lens," aims to re:conceptualise urban environments through the lens of multispecies justice. Traditionally viewed as human-centric, cities are increasingly recognised as dynamic ecosystems where various forms of life—human, animal, plant, and microbial—interact and shape each other's existence. This research explores how urban planning and environmental governance can be reimagined to incorporate the rights and agency of non-human entities, promoting a more inclusive and more-than-human urban future.
Reflecting on the more-than-human interactions within urban spaces, this project considers how multispecies justice can be integrated into urban planning and policy-making. It engages with frameworks suggested by thinkers such as Ferne Edwards, Lucia Alexandra Popartan, and Ida Nilstad Pettersen, who emphasise the need to recognise and incorporate non-human perspectives in urban settings. This approach moves beyond the binaries of natural versus artificial environments, urging a reevaluation of urban spaces as inherently multispecies realms where justice, governance, and care for all forms of life are considered.

more here...

Project-funding

GSZ Seed Funding

Duration

2024

 

Urban Futures at Risk (Dr. Ulku Doganay, Dr. Olena Kononenko, Dr. Valeria Lazarenko, Dr. Oleg Pachenkov, Dr. Oksana Zaporozhetc, PI Prof. Blokland)
Description

Cities become more and more important in local and global challenges. From the ideal of citizens of the world, we have moved to define cities as sites of citizenship. This makes urban settings relevant to agency in new ways. Pandemic, war, autocratic developments and climate crisis compromise ideas of individual and collective futures which tended to be taken for granted in privileged urban settings. At moments of crises, war and oppression, however, such routinized ideas become irrelevant and need reconsideration. Cities provide a special context to define and develop various scenarios of futures; they also connect large-scale structures and everyday life in various ways, and expose the agency of future-making.

Working from individual projects, the Scholars of Urban Futures at Risk Scholars Group addresses the broader question of who, how, and at which scales urban citizens and their cities can contribute to sustainable, peaceful and just futures. The scholars of this group share disruptions of their own lives by war and oppression. This provides a shared lens on agency and future from below, especially for urban futures at risk – but also the urban scholarship at risk.

more here...

Project-funding

Einstein Guest Researchers to foster academic freedom (Einstein Foundation)

Duration

2023-2025

   
 
Surface for Urban Innovation: The Politics of Designing Poverty in Colombia and Czechia (Dr. Petr Vašát)
Description
Social innovation in architecture, art and design (AAD) is used by collectives to support marginalised communities in the global South and North by innovating their material environment. Social innovations play an increasingly important role alongside global and national social policies. However, they are often decontextualised and isolated from the urban and cultural policies that cause poverty. The EU-funded SURBANIN project will create a new understanding of how innovations emerge and move globally, how they are applied locally and what impact they have. The project will compare informal settlements in Colombia with homelessness in the Czech Republic, focusing on a range of heterogeneous social innovations such as macromurals in Colombia and design innovations in homeless camps in Czech cities.
 
https://www.petrvasat.com/surbanin
Project-funding

Marie Curie Global Fellowship (EU)

 

Duration

2021-2024

   

 

Infrastructuring Multispecies Encounters: An Ethnography of more-than-human urban assemblages in Berlin's Petting Zoos (Dr. Santiago Orrego)
Description

This project contributes to this interdisciplinary field, at the intersection of animal studies and urban anthropology, by paying particular attention to petting zoos as infrastructures of human-animal encounters in the city, the urban as a multispecies coproduction, as well as the ethical and political underpinnings of urban spaces designed for human-animal interactions. It hopes to analyze the presence of nonhuman animals as active elements participating in the assemblage and stabilization of a relatively new space of human-nonhuman relationships in European cities: the petting zoo. The project aims to describe how urban public spaces are reassembled and re-signified as infrastructures for encounters between humans and animals. Concretely, the project entails pursuing ethnographic research in two such multispecies locations in Berlin: the Kinderbauernhof at the Görlitzer Park and the Tierpark Neukölln.

Project-funding

DFG-Walter-Benjamin Postdoc Scholarship

Duration

2022-2024

 

 

Architectures of Caring Encounters with Street-Homelessness (Dr. Natalia Martini)
Description

In the last forty years the ascent of the neoliberal urban regime, marked by the impairment of formalized social security frameworks and privatization of risks, has fostered the subordination of urban social life to the rationalities of self-reliance and competition. As a result of this market-driven transformation, members of the urban populations have found themselves devoid of social protection assured by the state-based social solidarity and increasingly vulnerable to risks (associated with, i.a., economic crises, pandemics, climate change). Against this backdrop, the questions concerning informal means of social protection gain in importance. The proposed project considers urban care – which manifests itself through ordinary acts of support involving strangers in everyday urban spaces – as such a means of protection and examines the cultural-discursive, social-political, and material economic conditions which render it possible. It takes a practice-theoretical approach to study architectures of informal care for Polish homeless inhabitants of Berlin. Their lived circumstances, marked by both migration background and homeless situation, make a strong case for learning about care for urban others. The proposed project asks what creates the capacity (signaling both an ability and a desire) of ordinary people (clerks, cleaners, security guards, etc.) to support homeless urbanites in prosaic urban spaces (corner stores, shopping malls, train stations, etc.). By shifting the focus from care as a moral motivation for individual prosocial behavior to the host of interlocking factors that enable the enactment of care as a social practice, this project offers the prospect of a contextual explanation of the ‘happening-ness’ of urban care. The importance of questions raised by the proposed project, regarding informal care as a means of social protection and the conditions that make it possible, is strengthened by the universality of care needs and the incapacity of the state and its institutions to look after all members of society, revealed with the utmost acuity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through examining the sociomaterial constitution of caring capacity of urban dwellers, this project is expected to generate valuable insights into the conditions facilitating protective societal response to precarity and vulnerability in times of growing social insecurity.

Project-funding

DFG-Walter-Benjamin Postdoc Scholarship

Duration

2023-2025

 

 

Urban Political Podcast (Dr. Markus Kip & Dr. Ross Beveridge)
Description

Urban Political ist ein Podcast von Ross Beveridge und Markus Kip, der sich mit zeitgenössischen städtischen Themen befasst und mit Aktivist*innen, Wissenschaftler*innen und politischen Entscheidungsträger*innen aus der ganzen Welt spricht.

Weitere Informationen und alle Folgen finden Sie hier.

   

 

Urban Vibrations: How Physical Waves Come to Matter in Contemporary Urbanism (Prof. Farías)
Description

Cities are critical zones where the intermingling of environmental processes, infrastructural arrangements and human lives is increasingly apparent and disputed. Physical waves, particularly heat radiation, sound waves and radio frequencies, constitute major environmental disturbances that invisibly cross the urban built environment affecting bodies, human and nonhuman, in harmful and uncertain ways. By asking how they come to matter, this project explores how waves become associated to specific bodies and environments, as well as how they become matters of public concern and design intervention. To answer these questions, this project entails extended ethnographic fieldwork at key locations where urban projects aimed at mitigating the urban heat island effect, abating environmental noise and building 5th generation wireless communication networks are currently unfolding.

Project-funding ERC Consolidator Grant
Partner Prof. Dr. Tobias Kuemmerle, Geography HU Berlin
Duration

2021-2026

 

 

Geographical Imaginations: Ontological (In)Securities in Rural Areas (Prof. Helbrecht)
Description

The subproject “Geographic Imaginations II” adopts an international comparative perspective in order to examine the refiguration of rural spaces with regard to its effects on subjective geographical imaginations and related notions of security. We will empirically analyze how spatial conceptions of different population groups (especially in relation to age, gender, and social status) are undergoing significant changes due to processes of globalization, debordering, dis-embedding, re-embedding, and mediatization – leading to existential, subjective insecurities.

Project-funding DFG CRC 1265
Partner

TU Berlin, FU Berlin IRS Erkner

Duration

2022-2025

 

 

Urban Microclimate Planning Regimes: The Constitution of Spaces and Infrastructures of Heat (Prof. Farías)
Description

Starting from a conceptualization of the city as critical zone of the Anthropocene, the subproject investigates the refiguration of urban spaces associated with microclimatic adaptation strategies. The project’s empirical focus therefore lies on the current formation of a microclimate regime in urban development contexts aimed at mitigating negative effects of creeping thermal stress on human and non-human life in the city. Using the interrelated examples of two pioneering cities with respect to microclimatic adaption strategies – namely Stuttgart in Germany and Fukuoka in Japan – three moments of the regime forming process will be examined from the perspective of spatial sociology: a) the problematization of urban heat, which is linked to certain socio-spatial arrangements of heat and affectedness; b) the infrastructuring of heat-resilient spaces, which is characterized by material-political strategies and conflicts with existing practices and infrastructures; and c) the translocal circulation of the microclimatic regime, which reveals variations in the associated refiguration of spaces.

Project-funding DFG CRC 1265
Partner

TU Berlin, FU Berlin IRS Erkner

Duration

2022-2025

 

Stock Development through Public-Civic Partnerships. Forms of Cooperation, Controversies and Modelling Attempts of the Model Projects of Cooperative Urban Development in Berlin. (Haus der Statistik und Rathausblock Kreuzberg) (Prof. Farías)
Description

In 2016, the Berlin Senate designated two inner-city areas as model projects for community-oriented, cooperative urban development: the Haus der Statistik in Mitte and the Rathausblock Kreuzberg. Existing buildings are to be renovated and supplemented with new buildings to create affordable space for housing, administration and commerce. Newly created decision-making structures and mediating institutions have given rise to public-civic partnerships here, whose potential for public welfare-oriented building and urban development needs to be explored. Building on literature from organizational studies, social science technology and science studies, and cultural and social anthropology, we explore the idiosyncrasies and characteristics of the model projects studied.

Project-funding ZukunftBau Forschungsförderung, BMI
Duration

2021-2023

 

 
Dynamics of placemaking and digitization in Europe's cities (Dr. Shea & PD Dr. Oevermann)
Description

This action will explore how place-making activities such as public art, civic urban design, and local knowledge production reshape and reinvent public space and enhance citizen participation in urban planning and design. Placemaking implies the multiplication and fragmentation of actors that shape public space. The aim of the action is to enable citizens* to contribute to different ways of interpreting local identities in European cities through citizen knowledge, digitalization and placemaking.

Project-funding Cost Action
Partner EU (14 Partner)
Duration

2019-2023

 

 

 

Studie zur Bodycam-Evaluation (Prof Blokland)
Description

The aim of the evaluation is to examine the legality as well as the practical experience of the use of body cams in the police service and the fire brigade. With regard to questions of risk, (in)security and (mis)trust in authorities and street-level bureucrats, this project explores the question to what extent the use (or the visible possibility of use) of a bodycam contributes to the better protection of police officers, firefighters and/or rescue workers?
Against the background of this project, Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland and Dr. Nina Margies have been elected as chairs of the research area "Law and Risk" at the Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.d

Project-funding Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport
Partner  
Duration

2023-2024

 

 

Polizeipräsenz und subjective Sicherheit (Prof Blokland)
Description

 

Project-funding Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport
Partner  
Duration

2023-2024

 

 

HoPoFin (Dr Holm)
Description

The study is prompted by the ongoing and worsening housing supply crisis, changing market structures and limited effectiveness of policy programmes implemented to provide affordable housing which can be found in many European cities. The project focuses on three main questions: a) What is the influence institutional investors have on the supply of affordable housing? b) Which housing policies and measures are implemented and conceived to control, regulate and cooperate
with institutional investors? and c) What is the policy-making process regarding institutional investors? 
The research project is exploratory in nature. Its main thesis states that an advanced understanding
of the impact of financialisation on housing affordability can only be achieved by integrating the financialisation of housing with the highly variable and changing forms of public policy which are implemented in different contexts. In order to capture as many variations of housing policy and market dynamics as possible, the project uses a comparative case study design. It looks at cities that represent different housing systems. We have therefore selected a total of six cities (Athens, Berlin,
Brussels, London, Malmö, Milan) that represent different levels of institutional investors determining housing issues as well as a wide variety of housing policy pathways and instruments.

 
Project-funding  
Partner  
Duration

2023

 

 

Listening to the Archive: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of European Wildlife Sound Archives, 1950 to the present (Prof Jasper)
Description

This research project will do a comparative analysis of the two largest wildlife sound archives in Europe: The British Library’s Wildlife and Environmental Sounds collection, and the Animal Sound Archive at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, to explore how the archives were produced, how archived sound recordings are maintained, circulated, and consumed and how sound recording technologies, techniques, listening cultures, and ethics have shaped the objectives, functions, and uses of archived sound recordings

Project-funding Leverhulme Trust/British Academy
Partner  
Duration

2023-2024

 

 

Archäologie der Nachbarschaft. Eine dekoloniale Kooperation in Berlin Mitte (Prof Römhild, together with Dr. Michael Westrich)
Description

 

Project-funding Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis
Partner  
Duration

2023

 

 

Designing with the Planet. Connecting Riparian Zones of Struggle in São Paulo, Jakarta, and Berlin (Prof Jasper, in collaboration with Prof Farías)
Description

 

Project-funding Governing by Design, SNSF
Partner  

 

 

IRTG Transformative Religion as Situated Knowledge in Processes of Social Transformation (Chairperson/PI/SUpervisor Prof Römhild)
Description

The GermanSouth African International Research Training Group (IRTG) investigates the impact of religion on processes of social transformation and the impact of these transformations on religion in contemporary global societies. It seeks to contribute to recent academic research and public debates on the complex relationship between religion and society. Against the backdrop of the
discursive and hierarchical differences in perceiving and positioning religion in the field of knowledge between the Global North and Global South, this IRTG aims at a critical epistemology through which the situatedness of religious knowledge production and reception in processes of social transformation can be made the subject of research. It seeks to investigate religion as specifically situated knowledge functioning as a resource and as a site of social transformation. The Project engages scholars from two continents and a variety of disciplines to go beyond conventional research approaches. The IRTG’s studies are conducted within four thematic fields in which the relationship of religion and social transformation is approached empirically: national identity,
development, migration and healing. Transcontinental joint supervision and evaluation procedures as well as transdisciplinary theoretical, methodological and professional training, will be part of an overall strategy that promotes innovative research and excellent qualification of young researchers as well as equal opportunity at all levels

Project-funding DFG
Partner  
Duration

2022-2026

 

 

Governing through Design (Prof Mareis)
Description

Our project seeks to investigate how design methods and practices have contributed to changing politics throughout the 20th century and to analyze contemporary forms of governing through design. It is our goal to establish the interdisciplinary study of design as a new field of research in
the humanities and to provide an account of how design has since the mid-20th century become increasingly political. 
An interdisciplinary collective of researchers based at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts,
the University of Basel ,and Concordia University approaches these developments through studying the role of design methods and practices in the transformation of international institutions and decision making processes, in the infrastructural transformation of urban centers and rural spaces, and in the computational management of ecological and social processes. At the heart of the project sits a bottom-up perspective: we do not assume global and homogeneous politics of design, but combine archival research and fieldwork in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America to investigate locally specific mergers of design strategies, infrastructural planning, and politics. An important goal of the project is to contribute to current political debates. Governing through Design links perspectives and methods of design studies, urban studies, media studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, and science & technology studies to develop a
comprehensive understanding of how politics and design are interrelated today. The project therefore intervenes in contemporary debates about opportunities to act on the effects of the ‘anthropocene’ and seeks to confront global solutions with in-depth studies of local projects and
processes.

Project-funding SNF Schweizerischer Nationalfonds
Partner  
Duration

2021-2024

 

 

MAKE/SENSE International Graduate School of Art and Design (Prof Mareis)
Description

The DFG-funded RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms is located at the University of Potsdam. In cooperation with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin, the RTG offers doctorate researchers support by experts from various locations within global academia. To this aim, each PhD student is advised by a team of supervisors and local as well as international. In addition,
a range of qualification measures ensures the acquisition of academic and professional skills. 
The RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms wishes to establish new ways of studying and understanding the cosmopolitan project against and beyond its Eurocentric legacies with a fundamental interest in ‘doing cosmopolitanisms’, i.e. concrete critical, artistic as well as everyday practices that performatively bring cosmopolitanisms into being by virtue of their worldmaking capacities. For this purpose, the RTG draws on the expertise of postcolonial literary and cultural studies in particular, as well as on postcolonial sociology, history, Jewish studies, border studies and cultural anthropology to investigate the concrete aesthetic, translational, medial, and material dimensions of cosmopolitical practices. The dissertation projects assembled under the roof of Minor Cosmopolitanisms shall cluster around five major thematic fields, which demarcate pertinent aspects of the project: Minor Cosmopolitan Theory, Minor Cosmopolitan Justice, Minor Cosmopolitan Memory, Minor Cosmopolitan Bodies, and Minor Cosmopolitan Indigeneity.

Project-funding Swiss Universities
Partner  
Duration

2021-2024

 

 

RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms (PI/ SUpervisor Prof Römhild)
Description

 

Project-funding DFG Research Training Group
Partner  
Duration

2016-2025


 

Conference: Seeing like a City/ Seeing the City Through (Prof Blokland)
Beschreibung

Aims of the conference
• To bring together scholars from all over the world to develop innovative perspectives on the theme of ‚Seeing Like a City / Seeing the City Through’ for sociologically addressing the ‘City’ as a set of local state institutions that categorises and intervenes in the urban and shapes citizenship and belonging while practices and logics outside of the view of the state defy those standards and categories. This should result in a series of publications (edited collections, special issues in journals) as well as in international cooperation for new research initiatives between participants.
• To strengthen the network of urban scholars within the context of the Research Network 37 of the European Sociological Association and to involve junior scholars in this network.
• To strengthen the profile of excellence of Humboldt University, to strengthen the collaboration between universities within Berlin, and to generate and enhance visibility and networks of German urban scholars.
• To theoretically and empirically advance our understanding of the tension between ‚Seeing Like a City’ and ‘Seeing the City Through’ within the framework of comparative urbanism, and to contribute to the current debates on these in urban sociology and urban studies more generally.

Förderprogramm DFG Internationale Veranstaltungen
Laufzeit

2022-2023


Berlin University Alliance

Trash Games. Playing with the Circular Economy at Haus der Materialisierungen (Prof Farías, in Collaboration with TU Berlin)
Description

 

Project-funding BUA Experimentallabore für Wissenschaftskommunikation
Partner  
Duration

2016-2025

 


Completed Research Projects

 

"Märkte in Ghana und Infektionsschutz-Maßnahmen nach COVID-19" (Dr. Füller)
Description

In the current situation of the global Covid-19 pandemic, infection control measures in many African countries are particularly targeted at open markets, which are especially important for vulnerable
groups. These are thus a relevant arena for the negotiation of competing claims and interpretations of health. The unintended or unrecognised effects of the current security-oriented measures, which
are often imposed 'from above', are particularly drastic here. The research project aims at an acute assessment of the implications of the Covid-19 intervention on the two largest markets in Ghana
using qualitative methods. Based on a relational concept of health, which also takes social and location-related determinants into account, it is possible to determine more targeted measures of infection protection and health promotion in the acute situation. On the other hand, the example allows the conceptual sharpening of an urban geography of embodied inequalities.

Project-funding DFG Focus Covid-19 Global South
Partner  
Duration

2021-2022

 

 

Superdiversität und alternde Städte (Prof. Helbrecht
Description

The DFG project "Superdiversity and Ageing Cities? The Convergence of Growing Multiethnicity and an Ageing Population" is looking at the spatial interaction of demographic change and social diversity, using Berlin as an example. The aim of the project is to close two research gaps: firstly, to show how characteristics of diversity, e.g. educational background, gender, ethnicity, migration path, religion, health, sexuality or social class jointly shape the aging process and life in old age. To do justice to the complexity of current social diversity, we work with Stephen Vertovec's concept of superdiversity. Secondly, diversity and aging are made accessible to a spatial perspective with the help of the thematic complex of housing
and neighbourhood in old age. Furthermore the spatial perspectives are explored in a superdiverse-aging space of ideas of urban space, proximity and distance. 
The research project is interdisciplinary and is being worked on together with applied geoinformation processing (Prof. Dr. Tobia Lakes) and landscape ecology (Prof. Dr. Dagmar Haase). The combination of qualitative methods and quantitative modelling offers an innovative methodological approach to the development of future scenarios for the superdiverse, ageing city.

Project-funding DFG 
Partner  
Duration

2021-2022

 

 

"Kreuzberg-Studie" (Prof Blokland)
Description

On behalf of the Kreuzberg district office, Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland and Dr. Hannah Schilling, together with a research team from the Georg Simmel Centre for Metropolitan Research, interviewed 323 residents in 2019. The team rang doorbells around the "Kotti" and asked detailed questions. Unlike other surveys on this topic, the interviewees were able to justify their assessment of safety without any instructions from the researchers.
"With the survey of residents at Kottbusser Tor, we want gain an improved understanding of how people feel in their living environment, what particularly affects them and how the feeling of safety can be improved," says District Councillor Knut Mildner-Spindler. The cooperation of
administration and science is an important concern, and we are very happy about the cooperation with the Department of Urban and Regional Sociology and Prof. Blokland to gain scientific knowledge about social spaces. Based on the exciting results recommendations for action and
concrete measures will be developed by the administration and other local actors together and across disciplines." 
"Even around a place like Kottbusser Tor, where many people do not like circumstances like drug
dealing, littering and especially the unmanageable traffic situation," says study author Talja Blokland, "people can develop confidence through mutual recognition and live without fear in their neighbourhood. To improve the quality of life through crime prevention at Kottbusser Tor, creative concepts are needed to promote informal social control, all the more so since there is no majoritythat simply wants an increase in police presence

Project-funding  
Partner  
Duration

2018-2020

 

 

Trash Games. Playing with the Circular Economy at Haus der Materialisierung (Prof. Farías)
Description

The project brings together the Department of Circular Economy and Recycling Technologies (TU Berlin) and the Urban Laboratory for Multimodal Anthropology (HU Berlin) to develop and explore games and game design as formats of public engagement with the Circular Economy (CE). We are experimenting with games as a particular form of science communication that enable accessible, speculative, and interactive forms of participation by non-homogeneous publics in complex issues. In collaboration with actors from the civil society platform “Haus der Materialisierung” in the Berlin model project for community-oriented neighborhood development Haus der Statistik, we will develop a game that explores potentials and conflicts in the societal transition to a collaborative-driven circular economy.

Project-funding BUA Experimentallabore für Wissenschaftskommunikation
Partner TU Berlin
Duration

2021-2022

 

 

Urban Citizenship-Making at Times of Crisis. Building local-level resilience among migrants in Berlin, Copenhagen, and Tel-Aviv (Dr. Lebuhn)
Description

This project looks at the social and political consequences of the Corona crisis in the urban context. The focus will be on the role of neighborhood organizations in providing access to information and resources under pandemic conditions, especially for migrants. The project is comparative and works with case studies in Berlin, Copenhagen and Tel Aviv. In this way, different framework conditions for local action will be taken into account.

Project-funding Volkswagen Foundation (program focus „Corona Crisis and Beyond - Perspectives for Science, Scholarship and Society“)
Partner Dr. Nir Cohen (Tel Aviv) und Dr. Tatiana Fogelman (Copenhagen)
Duration

2021-2022

 

 

Open Heritage: Organizing, Promoting and Enabling Heritage Re-use through Inclusion, Technology, Access, Governance and Empowerment (PD Dr. Oevermann, Dr. Kip)
Description

Today, dealing with cultural heritage is a significant aspect of urban development. With many years of expertise in this research area, the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies is participating in the international research project “Open Heritage: Organizing, Promoting and Enabling Heritage Re-use through Inclusion, Technology, Access, Governance and Empowerment” from June 2018 to May 2022. The project promotes the re-use of neglected and non-touristy cultural heritage sites with the help of a transferable management model and the promotion of civil society engagement. The EU is supporting the European consortium consisting of 16 partner institutions through the Horizon2020 funding line.

Project-funding EU, Horizon 2020
Partner Coordinator: Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest
Duration

2018-2022

 

 

The World Down my Street (Prof. Blokland)
Description

The subproject investigates how increased spatial mobility affects social network relationships and their spatial arrangements, how spaces are constituted in social networks through a heterogenization of action references, and whether and how these spaces can be used as resources by residents. From the perspective of a sociology of social inequality, the project asks how, under conditions of increased mobility and translocal experiences, social networks are accessed, created and transformed, and how their resources are used to cope with or improve one’s own life situation. From a spatial sociological perspective, the project investigates whether and how the constitution and activation of networks make translocal use of locally bound preconditions, generate polycontextural references, and thus produce new spatial consolidations.

Project-funding DFG CRC 1265
Partner TU Berlin, FU Berlin IRS Erkner
Duration

2018-2022

 

 

Urban Paradoxes in Times of Crisis (Prof. Blokland)
Description

State interventions move between control & care, also in the current pandemic: (new) control measures are implemented for the protection of the population. Partners in São Paulo, Santiago, Abidjan, Barcelona & Berlin use their expertise on contexts of different authoritarian & democratic regimes to develop a research agenda that explores this tension. The focus is on the consequences for urban participation & inequality of health opportunities.

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner TU Berlin, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Université de Bouaké, Universidad Católica de Chile, Universitat de Barcelona
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Connecting Urbanity in and between North and South Africa from the Perspective of Justice and Accessibility. Reflections on Planning Practice & Theory from multiple case studies in Egypt and South Africa (Prof. Farías)
Description

In the last Urban Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Goals 4, 10 and 11 respectively addressed the issues of quality of education, reducing In-equality, and sustainable cities and communities. In this proposal we are addressing these goals in two African counties: Egypt and South Africa representing the Northern and Southern African contexts. Both countries share similar challenges in the urban planning practices that affect socio-spatial justice, equality and accessibility in the city. Accordingly, we propose investigating multiple local case studies in cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, Cape Town and Johannesburg in order to understand and reflect on the practices of planning in the different Global North and Global South contexts. The themes are: 1) Planning theory & education; 2) Planning politics & urban policy; 3) Planning practice, field & civil society.

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner Prof. Jörg Stollman, TU Berlin
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Converting historic textile-industry complexes in European cities: A typology of urban spatial structures of textile-industry complexes, and best conservation and enhancement practices for their conversion (PD Dr. Oevermann)
Description

Converting historic industrial complexes is a new and important task in many European cities. Architectural and planning practices show that historic industrial complexes are composed of urban spatial structures that might be conserved and enhanced during conversion to new uses. For research, the question arises, of what constitutes best practice for conservation and enhancement when converting historic industrial complexes. Best practice will be discussed and identified on basis of five criteria coming from debates in architecture and conservation.

Project-funding DFG - Module Temporary Positions for Principal Investigators
Partner TICCIH, Deutsches Technikmuseum
Duration

2018-2021

 

 
Geographical Imaginations: Security and Insecurity in Generational Comparison (Prof Helbrecht)
Description

The project “Geographical Imaginations: People’s Sense of Security and Insecurity in a Cross-Generational Comparison” focuses on the extent in which the increase in complexity and re-figuration of spaces is expressed in security-related geographical imaginations. Subjective spatial knowledge will be empirically examined by conducting group discussions and problem-oriented interviews (both based on photo-elicitation) at three different places (Vancouver, Berlin, Singapore). We will analyze the geographical imaginations of 15–30-year-olds, 35–50-year-olds and 55–70-year-olds. Using the visual methodology of photo-elicitation, we want to particularly shed light on the emotional and affective dimension of security-related spatial knowledge. It is for the first time that a research project investigates the subjective spatial knowledge of different age groups in a polycontextural way at three different study sites, thus allowing for a comprehensive analysis of the contours of a global re-figuration of spaces.

Project-funding DFG CRC 1265
Partner TU Berlin, FU Berlin IRS Erkner
Duration

2018-2021

 

 

RECIPES (Reconciling Science, Innovation and Precaution through the Engagement of Stakeholders), Subproject: “Precaution and Financial Risks in Implementing the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive: Cities Investing in Water Infrastructures” (Prof Mieg)
Description

Many European cities are facing the challenges of massively overhauling their urban water infrastructures. This is due both to the requirements of the European Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD), and the fact that most of their main water infrastructures were installed in the 19th century and now have an outdated structure (exacerbated by climate change, especially in coastal locations). We will focus on the specific role and risks of financial R&I in these city investments and conduct a case study involving two cities (London, Milan).

Project-funding Horizon2020/SwafS
Partner Universities of Maastricht (Netherlands) and Bergen (Norway); IASS Potsdam; Danish Board of Technology, Copenhagen; Dutch Academy of Sciences KNAW; Austrian Academy of Sciences; Applied Research and Communication Fund Bulgaria; Dialogik GmbH, Stuttgart; Ecologik GmbH, Berlin; Conoscenza e Innovazione, Rome
Duration

2019-2021

 

 

Vernetzte Daten Kompetenz (Dr. Holm, Dr. Schultze)
Description

The aim of the application is to develop strategies and establish working platforms for interdisciplinary media use and data archiving in the field of urban research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Project-funding Förderprogramm 2020 für digitale Medien in Forschung, Lehre und Studium
Partner CMS HU Berlin
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Workshop: Working/Class/City (Prof. Blokland)
Description

The aim of the workshop is to bring together anthropologists, sociologists and geographers from four CENTRAL-partners to develop a multi-disciplinary shared research perspective on the development of class as social science concept and as lived practice or ‘culture’ in the context of post-socialist de-industrialization and the development of service- and platform economy, and develop a collaborative research agenda. Starting from the idea that not only political systemic changes into post-socialist cities, but also the changing nature of work in neoliberal economies affect people’s lives in the last 30 years, it brings together scholars from Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and, as a contrasting case, the United Kingdom (where work disappeared and affected class-based communities and practices under capitalism) to explore possibilities for a shared research project, for which we will explore funding options, or graduate students’ group application (Graduiertenkolleg).

Project-funding Central European Network/ Central Workshop 2020
Partner Charles University, ELTE, University if Warsaw, University of Vienna
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Modern Heritage to Future Legacy: Conservation and Conversion of Modern Industrial Heritage Sites as an Integral Part of Urban Development in the Middle East: The Case of Iran and Egypt (PD Dr. Oevermann)
Description

This research project intends to contribute to the growing field of research on modern industrial heritage in the countries of Iran and Egypt and to build local capacities for successful participatory conversion and adaptive re-use through a series of workshops involving post-graduate students, junior and senior researchers and local experts.

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner Tarbiat Modares University, Architecture and Urban Planning, Iran, TU Berlin
Duration

2020-2021

 

Einkommen, Miete, Ungleichheit. Analyse der Wohnverhältnisse in deutschen Großstädten (2006-2018) (Dr. Holm)
Description

The research project “Income, Rent, and Inequality” is based on an updated and in-depth analysis of housing conditions as an effect and cause of social inequality. In former studies on housing provision we were able to show a fundamental lack of affordable housing for households with low income in mostly all large cities. In the course of this follow-up study, the key figures on housing conditions and supply situations will be refreshing with new data. Questions from the research project are directed at the (1) impact of income inequality on housing conditions, (2) the impact of housing costs on the structure of social inequality in the German cities, and (3) the provision with affordable housing in the large cities.

Project-funding Hans Böckler Stiftung
Duration

2020-2021

 

 


Berlin University Alliance

Re-Scaling Global Health. Human Health and Multispecies Cohabitation on an Urban Planet (in Collaboration with Prof Farías & TU Berlin, FU Berlin, Charité)
Description

 

Project-funding Berlin University Alliance/ Grand Challenge Global Health
Partner  
Duration

2021-2022

 

 

 COVID-19 Getting things done in a city on hold (Prof Blokland, in collaboration with TU Berlin)
Description

 

Project-funding Berlin University Alliance/ Grand Challenge Pandemie
Partner  
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Connecting Urbanity in and between North and South Africa from the
The perspective of Justice and Accessibility. Reflections on Planning Practice & Theory from multiple case studies in Egypt and South Africa (Prof Farías, in collaboration with TU Berlin)
Description

 

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner  
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Modern Heritage to Future Legacy: Conservation and Conversion of
Modern Industrial Heritage Sites as an Integral Part of Urban Development in the Middle East: The Case of Iran and Egypt (Dr Oevermann, in collaboration with Tarbiat Modares University, Architecture and Urban Planning, Iran, TU Berlin)
Description

 

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner  
Duration

2020-2021

 

 

Urban Paradoxes in Times of Crisis (Prof Blokland, in Collaboration with TU Berlin, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Université de Bouaké, Universidad Católica de Chile, Universitat de Barcelona)
Description

 

Project-funding Berlin Center for Global Engagement, BUA
Partner  
Duration

2020-2021

 

Urban Futures at Risk Research Group

The Urban Futures at Risk research group will explore different aspects of urban responses for crises: civil society engagement, agency of local activists, political participation, sustainable development, migration, and urban identities at risk. 

When basic societal and cultural frames seem to be steadfastly compromised by the pandemic, military conflicts, climate crisis, the ideas of both individual and collective futures, taken for granted in a stable routine life, suddenly become irrelevant and need reconsideration. Working on our individual projects, we aim to address the broader question of who, how, and at which scales are involved in developing and implementing urban futures today in different cities and political systems.

The role of the cities in bolstering and tackling local and global challenges has constantly been growing, which illuminates their special role in defining and developing various futures. In cities, the connection between large-scale structures and everyday life is enacted in various ways, and the agency of future-making becomes exposed. 

The positionalities which we share as a group – affected by disruptions of our own urban lives due to war and oppression – provide the lens for what we propose: we aim to discuss the role of agency and future from below, especially with regard to urban sites at risk – but also the urban scholarship at risk.

 

Research group participants:

 

Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland 

is Director of the Georg-Simmel-Centre and head of the Department of Urban and Regional Sociology at The Institute for Social Science (SoWi) at Humboldt University of Berlin. She is PI of the Urban Futures at Risk research group. Her most recent research projects were "Humboldt OPEN Freiraum" (2021) and "Städtisches Leben Während Corona im Dialog" ("Urban Life during Covid-19 in Dialogue") where she dedicated herself to scientific communication and the dialogue with experts - citizens and professionals - in order to feed back the results of her research project 'Städtisches Leben Während Corona' (www.corona.hu-berlin.de) to the city. 

Talja Blokland’s research interests are in social and relational theory, urban sociology, and social policy. In the broad field of urban studies, Blokland is especially interested in urban inequalities and marginalization processes, place-making, neighbourhood change and neighbourhood cohesion.

 

Dr. Valeria Lazarenko

PhD in Psychology. Former Philipp Schwarz research fellow at Leibniz-Insititute for Research on Society and Space (IRS).

Dr. Lazarenko studied social psychology at the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University and completed her PhD thesis (2020) at the Institute for Social and Political Psychology in Kyiv, Ukraine. In her doctoral thesis, she explored psychogeographic narratives and identities of internally displaced people in Ukraine. Former guest researcher at the Arctic University of Norway (2018) and the University of Bayreuth (2018–2019). In 2021–2022 she was associated with Kyiv-based independent think tank Cedos, where she led the project on the impact of full-scale war on the civilians in Ukraine.

Valeria’s current research interests include studies of affect and emotion associated with experiences of forced migration, integration, and transnational relations. Her current research project, ‘Spatialized Decision-Making of Ukrainian Refugees in Germany’, explores how German policies for supporting Ukrainian refugees impact their decision-making, and how refugees’ experience of going through bureaucratic procedures and housing challenges contribute to the feeling of (non-)belonging and permanent temporality.

 

Dr. Olena Kononenko

PhD in economics, was an associate professor at the Department of Economic and Social Geography, Faculty of Geography, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv until 2023.

Dr. Kononenko defended her doctoral thesis on "Development of Potentially Dangerous Industries on the Example of the Eastern Region of Ukraine" at the Council on Problems of Productive Forces in Ukraine of the NAS of Ukraine (2001). She headed the scientific laboratory of regional economic and political problems at the Geographical Faculty of TSNUK (2003 - 2012). During this period, the laboratory was involved in the implementation of a number of projects related to the creation and development of national natural parks, as well as regional security and nature management studies. Olena has been a visiting researcher at CRC 1265 "Re-Figuration of Spaces", TU Berlin (2022). She is the author of publications on sustainable urban development, green economy, environmental behaviour of the population, resilience of cities to social and environmental challenges.

Dr. Olena Kononenko's research project is dedicated to post-war/post-disaster urban reconstruction. It focuses on strategies for adapting to post-crisis conditions, as well as the agency of communities and local residents in the process of rebuilding cities. As a geographer, Olena is interested in investigating how residents perceive changes in the urban landscape and their participation in its transformation.

 

Dr. Oleg Pachenkov

is a sociologist specialised in urban studies. He received his Doctor degree (Candidate of Science in sociology) at the sociology department of Saint Petersburg State University in 2009. Since 1996 he has been working as a leading researcher and a project coordinator at the Center for Independent Social Research (CISR) in St.-Petersburg, Russia. In 2015 CISR in Russia got an official status of a “foreign agent” organisation; in 2016 Dr. Pachenkov started to work as a consultant and researcher in the projects of CISR e.V. Berlin. In 2012-2021 he has been leading the Center for Applied Research (CeAR) at European University at Saint Petersburg (EUSP), and since 2020 worked as a Project leader at the Center “UP” for Urbanism and Participation at EUSP.

In 2006 Dr. Pachenkov received prestigious German Chancellor scholarship by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (BUKA). In 2010 Oleg Pachenkov co-established an interdisciplinary expert & activist platform Open Urban Lab (OUL) in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. In 2013 he edited a collection of chapters “Urban Public Space. Facing Challenges of Mobility and Aestheticization'' (published in English at Peter Lang Verlag). In 2014 Oleg Pachenkov co-edited a handbook (in Russian) “SAGABOOK” for the applied pre-planning social research written in close collaboration with OUL and “Gehl Architect”'. 

Since 2012 he is a chief editor of the series of books titled Studia Urbanica at the NLO Publishing House in Russia. In 2021 he established an interdisciplinary educational program CO-URBANISM based at EUSP.

Dr. Pachenkov is an author and co-author of several dozens of publications on the themes such as migration and ethnic business, urban public space, urban activism, informal economy and street level economy (see some at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oleg-Pachenkov-2/research). Currently he is mainly working in the fields of urban studies and interdisciplinary art / social science projects, informal education as well as consulting for urban activists. More at: https://www.pachenkovivoronkova.com/ (in Russian).

 

Dr. Oksana Zaporozhets

She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Ural State University. Until March 2022 she worked as Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Urban Sociology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Dr Zaporozhets joined the Sociology Department of the University of Kansas as a Fullbright Scholar in 2000-2001. She was also a visiting professor at European Humanities University (Vilnius), teaching a course on urban sociology in 2007-2013. 

She has a wide range of research interests, including studies of the digitization of urban life (including the digitization of neighbourhood and digital citizen media); studies of public transport, especially the metro in Russian cities; studies of urban imagery such as street art and graffiti in Moscow and Berlin. These research areas are united by Dr Zaporozhets' interest in urban citizens as creators who shape and transform urban life. She has co-edited two monographs, "Nets of the City: Citizens. Technologies. Governance" (2021, in Russian) and "Microurbanism. City in Details" (2014, in Russian). She has participated in many international projects, including "The layered cake of Russian-Finnish neighbourness: everyday interactions at different scales" (2017-2021) and "The Marshrutka Project: Fluid mobilities for cities in transition: spatial dynamics of marshrutkas in Central Asia and the Caucasus" (2015-2018).

Her current research focuses on online social networks created and used by newcomers in Berlin to navigate urban life, deal with multiple institutions and a variety of everyday situations. These networks, which have been in operation for many years and unite thousands of newcomers, shape the city's complex digital environment.

 

Dr. Ülkü Doğanay 

After receiving her BA from Ankara University Faculty of Communication, Ulku Doganay received master's degree in Political Science from the Middle East Technical University and a PhD from Ankara University, Department of Political Science. During her Ph.D. studies, upon gaining a scholarship from Turkish Academy of Sciences she studied at the French Press Institute of Paris II University. In 2009, she became Associate Professor in the field of Political Life and Institutions, and in 2014 she was appointed as a full professor at the Faculty of Communication of Ankara University where she worked between 1994 and 2017. In February 2017, she was purged with an emergency decree of law and banned from public service, for signing the “Academics for Peace Petition”.

Beside several papers on political communication, democracy and discrimination she is the author of the book Rethinking Democratic Procedures (2003, in Turkish), and among the co-authors of the books “I am not a Racist but: Discourses of Racism and Discrimination in the Press” (2011, in Turkish), Elective Democracy (2017, in Turkish), Faces of Discrimination (editor, 2018, in Turkish).

After her purge from Ankara University, she taught courses at Ankara Solidarity Academy, School of Human Rights and OFF University. Between 2019-2023 she was affiliated as a “remote scholar” at the Department of Public Policy of University of Connecticut. The legal process regarding her reinstatement at Ankara University is still ongoing.

Dr. Doganay’s research project is dedicated to the analysis of the discourses of prominent political actors in Turkey during the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections with a specific focus on the analysis of the discourses of urban democracy, representation and the citizen’s right to city.

 

Project coordinator: Dr. Henrik Schultze

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Georg-Simmel Center for Urban Studies | Research Projects | Reimagining Urban Ecosystems through a Multispecies Justice Lens (Dr. Pouya Sepehr)

Reimagining Urban Ecosystems through a Multispecies Justice Lens (Dr. Pouya Sepehr)

This project, "Reimagining Urban Ecosystems through a Multispecies Justice Lens," aims to re:conceptualise urban environments through the lens of multispecies justice. Traditionally viewed as human-centric, cities are increasingly recognised as dynamic ecosystems where various forms of life—human, animal, plant, and microbial—interact and shape each other's existence. This research explores how urban planning and environmental governance can be reimagined to incorporate the rights and agency of non-human entities, promoting a more inclusive and more-than-human urban future. Reflecting on the more-than-human interactions within urban spaces, this project considers how multispecies justice can be integrated into urban planning and policy-making. It engages with frameworks suggested by thinkers such as Ferne Edwards, Lucia Alexandra Popartan, and Ida Nilstad Pettersen, who emphasise the need to recognise and incorporate non-human perspectives in urban settings. This approach moves beyond the binaries of natural versus artificial environments, urging a reevaluation of urban spaces as inherently multispecies realms where justice, governance, and care for all forms of life are considered.

Research Questions and Objectives:


This research employs a grounded, interdisciplinary urban nature ethnography to study spatial phenomena as they interface with social and cultural dimensions, offering new insights into how urban lifeworlds can be reimagined and practiced. This approach not only questions "Cui bono?" (Who benefits?)—a concept many multispecies scholars have followed from Susan Leigh Star—but also promotes urban governance that reflects multispecies justice, fostering vibrant, sustainable urban habitats.


By doing so, it endeavours to redefine urban spaces as centers of human and non-human activity, entangled in both material and immaterial networks, challenging and extending beyond human-centric environmental frameworks. Thus, this project unpacks the usual assumptions of an anthropology of urban life and what this means for understanding past, present, and possible urban futures. It promotes urban ethnography as a situated ethnographic methodology to study spatial phenomena, offering ways to understand, interpret, create, and practice urban lifeworlds.
In addressing these complex challenges, the project underscores the historical and ongoing struggles against environmental discrimination in the context of Austria, with a focus on Vienna. It highlights the critical need for frameworks that support the cohabitation and flourishing of diverse urban communities. Through this lens, the project explores pivotal questions such as who benefits from multispecies justice in the city, how it matters in an urban context, and how these considerations reshape our understanding and implementation of urban justice in a changing world.

 

 

Key Objectives:

 

  • Developing a nuanced understanding of multispecies justice that considers the diverse needs of all urban inhabitants.
  • Analyzing the efficacy and limitations of current urban policies and citizen-led initiatives through a multispecies lens.
  • Enhancing ethical research practices that respect, care for, and represent the diversity of urban life forms.

Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches, the project merges theoretical insights from multispecies studies with empirical methodologies such as ethnographic fieldwork, legal analysis, and participatory citizen science. By investigating urban environments as multispecies habitats, the study aims to develop a nuanced understanding of how diverse species coexist and influence urban ecosystems. Key objectives include analyzing current urban policies through a multispecies lens, enhancing ethical research practices, and fostering community involvement in urban governance.

 

Research Sites and Empirical Approach:


The project will focus on three primary research sites in Vienna, Austria:

  1. Legal Paradigms and Urban Ecosystems: Examining how legal frameworks, such as the Rights of Nature laws, influence urban ecosystems and support multispecies justice.
  2. Intersectional Injustices in Environmental Conflict Zones: Conducting ethnographic studies in conflict zones like the Lobau region to understand the overlapping oppressions affecting both human and non-human entities.
  3. Citizen-Led Initiatives in Urban Environments: Reflecting on citizen science projects that promote public engagement and advocate for multispecies justice in urban planning.

This research seeks to challenge traditional urban development paradigms and aims to provide transformative insights for policymakers and urban scholars. It positions itself at the forefront of debates on multispecies urbanism and more-than-human space-making practices.
As this project is still in the design phase, the researcher is looking forward to developing it into a full proposal in collaboration with the George Simmel Centre for Urban Studies. The intention is to refine and expand the research framework and methodology through this partnership, aiming for submission to various funding schemes in the future.

 

 

Dr. Pouya Sepehr is a postdoctoral research fellow at the George Simmel Centre for Urban Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, and the recipient of the 2024 GSZ Postdoc Seed Funding Fellowship. Specializing in the intersection of science, technology, environmental, and urban studies, Pouya’s research focuses on the societal impacts of technological infrastructures and urban spaces, with a particular emphasis on more-than-human urban contexts.
Pouya holds a PhD in Science-Technology-Society (STS) from the University of Vienna, where his doctoral research explored the sociotechnical reconfigurations of the Smart City Vienna program. His academic journey includes a Master’s degree in STS from the University of Vienna and a Master’s in Development and Emergency Practice from Oxford Brooks University.
With extensive experience in project management and consulting in urban planning, Pouya has significantly contributed to large-scale urban upgrading and community empowerment programs, particularly in the Global South.
His work often focuses on environmental preservation practices, collaborating with nomadic and indigenous communities to promote sustainable development and participatory governance, emphasizing the role of community involvement in urban and environmental planning.
Pouya’s interdisciplinary research deeply engages with urban governance, power relations, and epistemological practices, examining the role of technology and innovation. His work aims to advance multimodal and multispecies urbanism, promoting inclusivity and resilience in urban environments.
As an active member of core STS societies, including serving as an elected council member of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Pouya continues to contribute to the academic community through publications, teaching, and conferences. His work on "Multispecies Justice in Urban Environment" at the George Simmel Centre challenges traditional notions of urban planning, advocating for a justice system inclusive of all urban inhabitants, both human and non-human.