URBAN SPACE is one of the most vibrant interdisciplinary research fields in the 21st century. How and in what kind of society we want to live is negotiated and decided in cities. For us, as urban dwellers, ethnographers, geographers, sociologists, artists, urban planners and designers, research for the future of our cities should navigate multiple scales of analysis and be paired with a committed study of various actors‘ lived experiences of urban changes.

COMPLEXITY of urban issues is adressed through an inter- and transdisciplinary approach. We are guided by an exploration for approaches and concepts that address “urban transformation” in unconventional ways and let us prioritize practice instead of grand theory as part of an engagement with everyday life and the needs of urban dwellers.

METHODS such as walking through, observing and archiving the city, enable us to capture its hidden symbolic logic, cultural, social and spatial codes in this exercise. What we bring together is strongly influenced by our own attitudes, perceptions and how we attribute meaning: the way we are socialized influences how we sense the city, collect and produce urban ethnographic data and representations.

QUESTIONS remain and drive the search for new ways of mapping that ​address ​the ​requirements ​of accessible design and include ​different ​genres ​of ​urban ​storytelling , which ​provide ​creative ​ways ​to ​capture ​and ​convey ​urban ​phenomena.
What are embodied experiences of the city, and what is the role of aesthetics and affect? How can we ​pursue ​a ​more ​dedicated engagement ​with ​communities, cities and everyday practices through our senses? What possibilities ​are ​to ​be ​explored ​beyond vision, smell, hearing, taste, or touch? And many more …

WOKRSHOPS & WALKS

• Ethnography in Urban Settings: Intersections, Methods, Visions, University of Toronto, Ethnography Lab, Canada, 2017.
• Beyond Urban Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Everyday Life, Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, in cooperation with the University of Toronto and Harvard University, funded by KOSMOS, Excellence Initiative, Berlin, 2018.
• Doing Urban Ethnography, RC21 Conference: In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges, and Hopeful Futures. Panel Convenor, Delhi, 2019.
• Engendering the City: Interdisciplinary Research on Intersectionality and Everyday Urban Practices, RC21 Conference: In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges, and Hopeful Futures. Panel Speaker, Delhi, 2019.
• Out of the Box: Crossing Boundaries, Interdisciplinary Methods, Visual Communication, Beyond Borders, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Berlin, 2019.
• Common Ethnography, Urban Commons – Cultural Anthropological Investigations of Urban Situations of Commoning, The Urban Laboratory II (Culture of the Metropolis), HafenCity University Hamburg, 2019.
  
• Gender and the City: Ethnographic Perspectives on Urban Research on Space and Gender, Undergraduate Seminar (B.A.), Department of Geography, Humboldt University of Berlin, WS 2019/20.
• Urban Co-Lab “Out of the Box 2.0” – Digital Collaboration on the Study of Urban Lifeworlds through Image-Based Urban Ethnographic Methods [UrbAn] [L19], 16th EASA Biennial Conference: New Anthropological Horizons in and Beyond Europe, Virtual Lisbon Conference, 2020.
• Entangled Commons: Shifting Infrastructures of Sociality toward Visionary Pragmatic Lifeworlds [UrbAn], Panel Convenor, 17th EASA Biennial Conference: EASA2022: Transformation, Hope and the Commons, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Politics, Queen’s University Belfast (online), 2022.
• UELab – Urban Ethnography Lab: Multimodal Fieldwork and Collaborative Research, Symposium “Transgressive Approaches in Art and Academia”, part of the exhibition TRANSGRESSIVE: Nonconformist Approaches to Art and the City, curated by Lukas Feireiss. Kühlhaus Berlin, 2022.
• Qualitative Methods in Urban and Spatial Planning, Keynote/Workshop at Jade University of Applied Sciences, Department of Architecture, Oldenburg, 2023.
• Mapping as a Research Tool: How to Empirically Grasp the Refiguration of Spaces?, PhD workshop in collaboration with the Hybrid Mapping Group, CRC Re-figuration of Spaces, Technische Universität Berlin, 2023.
• Urban Ethnography: Insights into Qualitative Methods for Researching Urban Transformation Processes, FH Potsdam, Master’s Program Urban Futures, Project Week, 2024.