The Polenmarkt is back – Multiple Border Spaces in Slubice and Berlin (2023): In a playful way, the artist Paula Kanieswka want to bring the Polish market back to Berlin as a pop art store. It will offer goods from the border market, reinterpreted and reworked through the material we collect during our research. In doing so, we pursue three goals: (a) by researching Polish markets, we assume that the concept of multiple spatialities can be applied to investigate spatial differences, variations and divergences in the refiguration of German-Polish border spaces (b) through the interplay of socio-spatial ethnographic investigation and artistic installation, we want to further reflect on how sociological methodology and arts-based research can mutually inspire each other to investigate spatial materialism (c) through the artistic interventions in Berlin and a selected Polish market, we want to expand science communication for a trans-local audience on both sides of the border

Knowledge in project- and process-oriented planning: IBA Basel as a planning laboratory (2020-2023)
Funding: DFG (427138525)
Under the lead of Martina Löw (TU Berlin), the research project uses the example of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Basel to investigate how new knowledge is determined and legitimised as such in project-based planning processes with heterogeneous actor settings. In order to investigate, from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the questions of when and how something is discussed as new planning knowledge by the actors and, if necessary, legitimised or questioned, we conduct a focused ethnography as a multi-stage qualitative procedure. Within the focused ethnography we use participant observation, expert interviews, group discussions and document analysis.

Institutional Barriers And Inequality in Higher Education (2022-2023): Funding: BMBF. Under the lead of  Prof. Dr. Florian Hertel (Europa Universität Flensburg) the project  tries to overcome the theoretical, methodological and empirical gap in inequality in higher education research by explaining the role admission testing plays in recreating inequality in Germany. It also aims at providing policy makers with knowledge about the degree to which different admission systems cause varying levels of diversity among students and develop best practice models to regulate access effectively and allow for higher levels of diversity.

Minerva School “Urban Lab on Divided Cities: From Jerusalem to Berlin (2022 – 2023). Funding: Minerva Stiftung Gesellschaft für die Forschung mbH. Co-Organized together with Merav Kaddar (TU Berlin,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Nufar Avni (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) this interdisciplinary Minerva School will bring together German and Israeli researchers from sociology, geography, planning, political sciences, law, history and architecture that share a joint interest in urban divices as manifested in Jerusalem and Berlin. Through different formats of exchange and visits, we will outline the contours of the concept of “divided cities”, in their past, present and future meaning. 

CRC 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces” (2018 – 2021). Funding: DFG. The research centre lead by Martina Löw (TU Berlin) and Hubert Knoblauch (TU Berlin) focuses on changes in the socio-spatial order since the late 1960s. It comprises three key project areas, fourteen individual projects, one public relations project and an integrated research training group for early-career researchers.While the centre is hosted by Technische Universität Berlin, partner institutions in the joint project are Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (til 2020) and the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS).

Sharing Memories? On the materiality of viral contemporary witnesses using the example of the Holocaust in digital memory cultures (2019 – 2022)
Together with Prof. Dr. Anja Peltzer (University of Trier), I am investigating a specific genre of mediatised memory. The focus is on the audiovisual form of remembering the Holocaust through contemporary witnesses in the new media. The biographical memory of the contemporary witness is presented in a web-specific format. The leading research question is what results from this tension for a transformation of the culture of remembrance of the Holocaust.

Working Group „Hybrid Mapping Methods“, SFB „Re-figuration of Spaces (2018-2027)
In collaboration with the methods lab of the SFB „Re-figuration of Spaces“ at the TU Berlin, we are developing a set of methods for hybrid mapping in this interdisciplinary working group. This is to be used both in analysis and in the visualisation of analysis results. Approaches from urban planning, architecture and qualitative social research form the conceptual framework, but are also to be used as fields of application in the development.

DE-RE-BORD- Social-spatial transformation in German-Polish „interstices“. Practices of debordering and rebordering (2018-2020) 
Funding: DFG (379602417)
The aim of the project was to investigate socio-spatial transformation processes in German-Polish border regions from the opening of the border in 2007 to the present. Which socio-spatial transformation processes can be observed and how can the dissolution of borders, new border demarcations and, if necessary, the construction of interspaces be systematised? Answers to these questions were developed through a focused investigation of local media discourses, spatial knowledge and practices of both residents and local actors. The project was led by Gabriela Christmann (IRS Erkner) and Jerzy Jerzy Kaczmarek (Adam Mickiewicz University).

International Memory of Nazi War Crimes: Media Framing of the Demjanjuk Trials in Israeli, German, U.S., Dutch and Russian Media Discourse (2015-2017)
This teaching-research project, in cooperation with Shani Horowitz-Rozen and Shlomo Shpiro (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan) and Christian Pentzold (University of Leipzig), reconstructed the various discourses surrounding the trials of former Nazi prisoner John Demjanjuk. In student sub-projects, Russian, American, Dutch and Israeli media coverage were examined within the framework of a qualitative frame analysis.

Media and Shelter Qualitative evaluation and conception of media offers for asylum seekers (2015-2016)
Funding: BMBF, Society of Friends of the TU Chemnitz e.V.
In the teaching-research project, solutions were developed together with Andreas Bischof (TU Chemnitz) to better cover the information and communication needs of refugees in Chemnitz. In the project, experts, students and refugees were involved in the participatory creation of concrete media products, which were then scientifically monitored.

Dissertation project: Memory practices in online discourses. The John Demjanjuk Case on the World Wide Web. (2010-2016)
The work focused on the question of how practices of memory change in the World Wide Web. The starting point was the assumption that digital media change has an influence on the constitution of memory cultures. Within the framework of the thesis, a discourse-analytical perspective was adopted. Based on the concrete analysis of the online discourse about John Demjanjuk, a supposed ‚Trawniki‘ of the Nazi regime, digital discourse practices in the memory culture were described and specified in the analysis.

Methodological instruments of data collection and analysis to determine online discourses as social practices of online communication. (2009-2011)
Funding: DFG (FR 1328/5-1)
The project aimed to develop and empirically test a set of methods for data collection, analysis and determination of online discourses that is suitable for online media. The aim is to expand the established methods of discourse research through new accesses to online data in order to determine discursively effective patterns of interpretation. The project was led by Claudia Fraas and Stefan Meier (TU Chemnitz).