People
© Marc Volk

Jona Schwerer

Associate Member

Technische Universität Berlin
BH 5-1
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 1
10587 Berlin

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j.schwerer@tu-berlin.de

CV

  • Since 11|2022

    Research Assistant in the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe) at the Department of Urban and Spatial Sociology, TU Darmstadt

  • Since 05|2022

    Associate Member of the CRC 1265 Re-Figuration of Spaces

  • 2018 - 2022

    Reseach Assistant at the CRC 1265 Re-Figuration of Spaces | Subproject A02: Education: The Spatial Knowledge of Children and Young Adults and its Application in Planning Contexts

  • 2012-2017

    Master of Arts Sociology and Technology Studies | TU Berlin

  • 2010-2016

    Student Assistant at the Department of Methods of Social Research (Prof. Dr. Nina Baur), Institute of Sociology, TU Berlin

  • 2009- 2013

    Bachelor of Arts Sociology and Technology Studies | TU Berlin

Research Focus

    • Urban Sociology and Sociology of Space

    • Qualitative Methods of Empirical Social Research

    • Heritage Studies

    • Urban Violence

Dissertation

Working title: The publicness of spaces – On the social construction of public spaces

The dissertation project deals with a main research topic and term of urban sociology – public space. To that end, two considerations serve as starting points for the research.

Firstly, various diagnoses state a transformation of public space and its relationship to private space. These studies indicate, on the one hand, that the relationship between public and private spaces is becoming increasingly ambiguous and, on the other, that different public and private spatial logics overlap. The dissertation aims to argue that, through an understanding of public space in accordance with a sociology of space (cf. Löw 2001), the overlapping and simultaneity of different constructions of space as public and the related negotiations between these constructions of space could be better examined.

Secondly, public space, despite the spatial turn in social sciences (and other disciplines), is often portrayed as a given in literature; for example, in the form of streets or urban parks. Consequently, various analytical dimensions – public spaces as social constructions of space as public, different subjective notions of what constitutes the publicness of spaces as well as the related contested social negotiations – remain underexposed and therewith underexplored.

The dissertation project thus aims to further develop the understanding of public spaces by means of a relational understanding of space as a social process (cf. Löw 2001), in order to investigate how spaces are constructed as public spaces by different social actors. The developed concept of public spaces will be illustrated and empirically reflected upon by using the example of young people in urban spaces. Further, it will be discussed what insights such a concept could, by and large, provide for the analysis of the relationship between public and private spaces.

Publications

  • Selected Presentations

    • Negotiating the Heritage of the 2017 Terrorist Attacks on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas | AMPS Conference „Urban Futures – Cultural Pasts”; Barcelona, Spain. 15.-17.07.2024 (with Sybille Frank).

    • The Heritage of Terrorist Attacks in Urban Public Space | Städte und Regionen im sozialen Wandel. Räumliche Muster, Ursachen und Folgen von Fragmentierung und Zusammenhalt. Conference of the Section Urban and Regional Sociology of the German Sociological Association; Bauhaus Universität Weimar; 26./27.10.2023 (with Sybille Frank).

    • Space, Public Space, and Public-ness as a Quality of Space | Joint Workshop of the Research Groups Practising Place & Re-Figuration of Spaces; KU Eichstätt; 12./13.10.2023.

    • Public space in urban research: an ambivalent and heterogeneous quality of space | Quality of Space. Different Meanings – Conflicts and Solidarity. Workshop des SFB 1265 Re-Figuration von Räumen & Department of Social and Economical Science, University of Rome „Sapienza“; TU Berlin, 25./26.5.2023.

    • The evolving spatial knowledge of children: Picturing a spatial phenomenon through a meta-analytical lens | 6th International Conference on the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families; University of Campinas, Brazil, 23.05.2019 (with Ignacio Castillo Ulloa and Angela Million)

    • „I Spy With My Little Eye…”: Children’s Appropriation and Re-Figuration of Public Space in Defiance of its intended Use | Re-Figuration of Spaces: Mediatization, Mobility, Globalization and Social Dislocation. First International Conference of the SFB 1265; TU Berlin, 21.02.2019 (with Ignacio Castillo Ulloa, Juliane Heinrich and Angela Million)

    • Negotiating German colonial heritage in Berlin’s Afrikanisches Viertel | Simulizi Mijini/ Urban heritage activism; TU Berlin, 16.03.2017 (with Susanne Förster und Georg Krajewsky)

  • Monographies

    • Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Heinrich, Anna Juliane/ Million, Angela/ Schwerer, Jona (2023): The Evolution of Young People’s Spatial Knowledge. Abingdon, New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003099727.

  • Edited Books

    • Löw, Martina/ Sayman, Volkan/ Schwerer, Jona/ Wolf, Hannah (eds.) (2021): Am Ende der Globalisierung. Über die Re-Figuration von Räumen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

  • Book Chapters

    • Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Schwerer, Jona (2024): Qualitative meta-analysis. In: Heinrich, Anna Juliane/ Marguin, Séverine/ Million, Angela/ Stollmann, Jörg (eds.): Handbook of Qualitative and Visual Methods in Spatial Research. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. 325–335.

    • Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Million, Angela/ Schwerer, Jona (2022): “I spy with my little eye”: Children’s actual use and experts intended design of public space. In: Million, Angela/ Haid, Christian/ Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Baur, Nina (eds.): Spatial Transformations. Kaleidoscopic Perspectives on the Refiguration of Spaces. Abingdon, New York: Routledge. 294–309.

    • Heinrich, Anna Julian/ Million, Angela/ Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Schwerer, Jona (2021): Raumwissen junger Menschen im Wandel. In: Hoerning, Johanna/ Misselwitz, Philipp (eds.): Räume in Veränderung – Ein visuelles Lesebuch. Berlin: Jovis. 74–87.

    • Löw, Martina/ Sayman, Volkan/ Schwerer, Jona/ Wolf, Hannah (2021): Am Ende der Globalisierung. Über die Refiguration von Räumen. In: Löw, Martina/ Sayman, Volkan/ Schwerer, Jona/ Wolf, Hannah (eds.) (2021): Am Ende der Globalisierung. Über die Refiguration von Räumen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. S. 9–24.

    • Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Schwerer, Jona (2021): Qualitative Meta-Analyse. In: Heinrich, Anna Julian/ Marguin, Séverine/ Million, Angela/ Stollmann, Jörg (eds.): Methoden der qualitativen Raumforschung. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch. Utb: Bd. 5582. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. S. 415—426.

    • Förster, Susanne/ Krajewsky, Georg/ Schwerer, Jona (2017): Activating German colonial heritage in Berlin’s Afrikanisches Viertel. In: Lee, Rachel/ Barbé, Diane/ Fenk, Anne-Kathrin/ Misselwitz, Philipp (eds.): Things Don’t Really Exist Until You Give Them a Name: Unpacking Urban Heritage. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota. S. 136–141.

  • Peer-reviewed Papers

    • Förster, Susanne/ Frank, Sybille/ Krajewsky, Georg/ Schwerer, Jona (2016): Negotiating German colonial heritage in Berlin’s Afrikanisches Viertel. In: International Journal of Heritage Studies. 2016, 7, S. 515 -529.

  • Other Publications

    • Buckley-Zistel, Susanne/ de Wolff, Kaya/ Erll, Astrid/ Frank, Sybille/ Hannig, Nicolai/ Mannitz, Sabine/ Reiss, Mariel/ Schwerer, Jona/ Spittler, Sara-Luise/ Wingender, Monika (2024): Memory before Violence. Frankfurt/Main. TraCe Working Paper No. 5, DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCeWP2405.

    • Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio/ Million, Angela/ Schwerer, Jona (2018). Distilling materially the immaterial: The variation of the (subjective) spatial knowledge of children and youngsters within the re-figuration of spaces. Paper presentation: V International Symposium Ethnographic Encounters with Children,Adolescents and Young Adults in Educational Contexts, Corrientes, Argentina. Onlineunter: http://encuentrosetnograficos.weebly.com/uploads/7/4/6/5/7465057/13-_ignacio_castillo-million-schwerer.pdf (last access: 01.03.2021).