Planned subprojects for the applied for third funding period (2026-2029)

Planned subprojects 2026-2029

• A02 Spatial Knowledge of Children: Hybrid Spatial Practices of Young People in Politics and Planning (Angela Million)

  In the third funding phase, subproject A02 investigates how children’s hybrid spatial knowledge develops under different political and planning frameworks. In the first funding phase, it became evident that traditional models of activity spaces represent the complex lifeworlds of young people only to a limited extent, as digital media overlay different spatial logics. The second funding phase described the resulting heterogeneity of young people’s lifeworlds and the emergence of hybrid spatial practices in which digital and physical uses of space are interconnected through mobile devices.
  In the third funding phase, the subproject analyzes how the use of digital media in childhood shapes spatial knowledge and which political and planning measures structure these hybrid practices. These include, among others, digital education programs, legal and regulatory frameworks, municipal action plans, and spatial planning initiatives. The research questions are: (1) In what ways do political and planning measures frame the digitally shaped everyday practices of young people, and to what extent do they take into account their current spatial constitutions? (2) How do children experience such frameworks, and how can their practices be described through the concept of spatial figures?
  Methodologically, the qualitative meta-analysis from the first funding phase will be supplemented by studies on young people’s spatial knowledge conducted after 2019 (post-Corona) and extended longitudinally. A case study on young people in Shanghai examines spatial practices in the context of local regulatory and planning frameworks. The project investigates political and planning measures that structure digitally shaped everyday practices, with a focus on child-friendly municipalities and relevant planning instruments in Germany and China. The aim is not a direct comparison but to reveal the spectrum of political and planning actions that shape the refiguration of children’s spatial knowledge. Findings on refiguration, as well as the web app Maprepublic, will be prepared for practical application through transfer activities and design models (see subproject D).

• A04 (formerly C08): Architectures of Asylum: Spatial Strategies for Coping with Displacement and Climate Stress (Philipp Misselwitz)

  In the first funding phase, subproject A04 studied the subjective socio-spatial appropriation practices and home-making processes of refugees and internally displaced persons in Berlin and Jordan, revealing them to be part of conflictual negotiations involving the hybridization of different bodies of knowledge. In the second funding phase, the project examined how refugees and internally displaced persons in Berlin, Amman, and Lagos co-create trans-scalar planning regimes, negotiating access to urban resources with municipal administrations, national governments, multilateral organizations, and local residents. It became evident that forced migration accelerates the refiguration of urban planning regimes as an external shock. During this process, socio-spatial polarization can intensify, but new spaces of opportunity may also emerge.
  In the third funding phase, the project concludes with an extension of the Lagos case study. The focus remains on the action strategies of displaced people, whose spatial knowledge is shaped by their place of origin, asylum, and displacement, as well as climate-related factors. In their spaces of retreat along the coastal zone of Lagos, they independently develop protection strategies against climate risks such as sea-level rise, flooding, and erosion. Examples include land reclamation strategies through the accumulation of waste material, which serve both to protect against water-related risks and expand settlement spaces, albeit under precarious conditions. The resulting critical zones form part of a dynamically changing and conflictual enclave landscape in which displaced people, fishing communities, and high-end real estate developments compete for land, resources, and protection.
  The project investigates refiguration as a process shaped by human and non-human actors, in which the planetary crises of migration and climate change decisively influence spatial knowledge. It continues to employ a multi-method approach, combining spatial ethnographies, document and visual analyses, and interviews.

• A07 Spaces of Nature: Conflicts over Botanical Knowledge in the Case of (Trans)Atlantic Rainforests (Brazil and Great Britain) (Jamie-Scott Baxter/Séverine Marguin)

  The new subproject A07 investigates conflicts surrounding knowledge about biodiversity conservation against the backdrop of the dramatic increase in the extinction of non-human life on Earth. As a paradigmatic modernist regime that has historically determined the spatial organization of humans and non-human entities, conservation has been massively destabilized since the 1960s by contemporary forces, changing climatic conditions, efforts to decolonize (knowledge) and developments in digitalized biotechnology.
  The subproject adopts a spatial perspective on this existential planetary problem, examining the refiguration of spaces in relation to the fragmented transatlantic forests stretching along the Atlantic Ocean coastline, which has been shaped by imperialism and colonial expansion, and examines the refiguration of spaces in this context. Using an interdisciplinary design research approach that bridges sociology and architecture and combines multi-sited ethnography with expert interviews and hybrid mapping, the subproject explores how transatlantic forests and the subjectivities of nature custodians (including park rangers, Indigenous Guaraní leaders, and IUCN staff) are co-constituted within spatial conflicts over conservation knowledge. Taking Brazil and the United Kingdom as case studies, this research project asks: Which knowledge conflicts challenge the stability of the modern conservation regime, and what effect do these conflicts have on the ongoing co-constitution of spaces of nature and the subjectivities of nature custodians in transatlantic forests?
  The problem of biodiversity loss not only raises the question of the significance of biological knowledge for conservation but also highlights a socio-political and spatial issue – namely, the struggle over who determines how human and non-human life on the planet is spatially ordered and reorganized. By investigating the spatialization of conflicts within conservation regimes, the subproject aims to reveal how botanical knowledge is materialized and reproduced within spaces of nature. Overall, the project intends to capture processes of spatial refiguration in which hegemonic epistemologies of the Global North are being challenged by more diverse forms of knowledge (e.g. local, traditional, subaltern, and artisanal forms).

• B01 Digital Planning and Working with AI: The Construction of Places (Vivien Sommer/Lech Suwala)

  Subproject B01 investigates the refiguration of spaces in the context of digital planning strategies, with a particular focus on the role of artificial intelligence. At the center of the third funding phase lies the systematic analysis of the spatial figure of place and the question of how AI-supported planning processes shape and transform place identities. The study foregrounds the spatialities of artificial intelligence, understood as the interplay between algorithmic procedures, planning practices, and social negotiation processes.
  Case studies in urban contexts such as New York and Lagos, as well as in rural regions of Chile, combine qualitative methods, including expert interviews and ethnographic observations, with secondary analyses from previous project phases and other subprojects. While the first and second funding phases established the foundations by examining urban and rural spaces amid digital transformation and revealing tensions in the construction of place identities, the third phase aims for a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of artificial intelligence as well as for a systematization of the construction of place identities within processes of spatial refiguration.

• B02 Outer Space: Satellite Constellations Challenging the Network Space (Silke Steets)

  Subproject B02 investigates the digital infrastructuring of outer space from a spatial-sociology perspective, with a particular focus on the rapidly growing number of satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The project explores how technologically mediated communicative action in space takes on spatial form, how such action is prefigured by outer space-related discourses and spatial imaginations, and what governance structures characterize the emerging field of “NewSpace.” In doing so, the project continues the empirical research conducted in the first two funding phases on the spatiality, governance, and control of spaces through digital infrastructures.
  Empirically, the subproject examines three levels. First, it investigates control practices in satellite control rooms through focused ethnographic studies and compares them with communicative practices in control rooms of urban infrastructures (findings from the first funding phase). Second, it conducts a governance analysis of the current large-scale expansion of satellite internet by governmental, supranational, and private actors, comparing the results with the governance structures of the terrestrial internet (findings from the second funding phase). Third, it reconstructs the spatial imaginations associated with the infrastructuring of outer space and compares them with those that accompanied the expansion of the internet since the 1990s (findings from the second funding phase).
  Alongside the general question of in the refiguration of digital infrastructures, the subproject pursues the overarching goal within the CRC of empirically and conceptually refining the spatial figure of the network space. To this end, it conducts secondary longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses of its own and other data collected within the CRC on the functioning of (digital) networks, integrating these with newly collected data. The project assumes that by extending the analytical focus to outer space, it will be possible to overcome the “surface bias” of previous spatial research and thereby arrive at a critical conceptualization of the network figure.

• B03 Multiple Encapsulations: Gated Communities, Artistic Enclaves and Child-free Spaces (Martina Löw/Jörg Stollmann)

  In the first funding phase of the CRC 1265, subproject B03 investigated the refiguration of spaces using the Korean smart city Songdo as a case study. It became evident that refiguration there results in homogeneous settlement forms and a digitalization concept geared towards the interests of the middle class. In the second funding phase, it was possible to show how the implementation of this urban apartment housing policy as a spatial form of refiguration also gives rise to protest movements and alternative, queer ways of living. In both funding phases, we observed strategies of encapsulation of the groups under study within digitally controlled special spaces, staged through thresholds. These encapsulations ostensibly aim to increase security and reduce complexity.
  In the third funding phase, we pursue the goal of synthesizing and generalizing our findings. We ask how built-spatial and social structures of encapsulation contribute both to processing refiguration and to driving it further in the form of social polarization. This also raises the question of the porosity of these capsules, first through digital networking and, second, through services. In addition to secondary analyses of existing data and cross-sectional analyses across various subprojects within the CRC, in-depth studies will be conducted in South Korea on two phenomena: the establishment of child-free public spaces in Korean cities, and the promotion of artist settlements in peripheral villages. The project’s long-term study of the development of gated communities in South Korea will also be continued during the third phase.
  By examining different as well as similar forms of encapsulation, we expect to gain insights into their conditions of emergence, the nature of their material-digital thresholds, and their relevance. Furthermore, relational studies are planned in Brazil and Switzerland. The subproject combines urban design and sociological methods, employing participant observation, hybrid mapping, and semi-structured interviews.

• B04 Locative Media: Google Maps as Spatial Infrastructure (Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer)

  Locative media connect location-based digital information with physical space to create new hybrid forms and thus act as drivers of the refiguration of spaces. In the third funding phase of the CRC 1265, subproject B04 focuses on locative media in their capactiy as space-related infrastructures. The empirical focus lies on Google Maps, one of the most impactful spatial digital information infrastructures worldwide. Google Maps serves as the foundation for a wide range of interrelated communicative practices and exerts significant influence on numerous spatial regimes, making it highly relevant to questions of spatial design. By determining which spatial information is made available, Google Maps and its users can shape the refiguration of spaces – for example, by altering the visibility of particular places, trajectory spaces, networks, or territorial spaces. At the same time, this information can be used in multiple ways for the planning and design of spaces.
  In exploring the potentials and risks of use-generated spatial content, the subproject builds on research from the previous funding phase, focusing on the (in)visibility of the queer community and its places, territorial spaces, and possibilities and limits of movement within urban space. In terms of planning and spatial design, the subproject centers on questions of safety and accessibility, examining how Google Maps data are used to produce or prevent conditions of accessibility or inaccessibility in urban space.
  The project follows a comparative approach. It contrasts an urban space with a tradition of publicly provided infrastructures as collective goods (Berlin and Hamburg) with a highly socially segregated urban space in which infrastructure services are largely provided by private actors (Cape Town). Methodologically, it combines semi-structured interviews, document analyses, and ethnographic site visits. By investigating Google Maps as a critical – in both senses of the word – information infrastructure the subproject makes an essential contribution to a better understanding of digital transformation and its implications for the spatial knowledge that guides actors’ practices.

• C01 The Borders of the World: Local Border Regimes in Conflicts over Deportation (Johanna Hoerning/Steffen Mau)

  Border demarcations and their transformations constitute a central element of societal spatial figurations. Subproject C01 has, in the previous funding phases, analyzed the macrostructural dimensions of borders and border conflicts. In the third funding phase, the focus shifts to border conflicts that are anchored in concrete individuals and the localisation of their bodies. These conflicts become particularly visible in disputes surrounding deportations, in which not only broader societal conflict lines and territorial exclusions take effect, but place-specific collective imaginaries and practices of removal from local contexts are also forged.
  Deportations can be understood as part of the phenomenon of flexibilized border control or shifting borders, in which practices of border control and selection are increasingly exercised beyond the physical border. The subproject investigates the local conflicts that arise from these spatially and temporally displaced practices of territorial “sorting”. Through historical and contemporary case analyses of local conflicts around deportations, the project examines the refiguration of internal border-making. It focuses on conflicts over deportations in both rural and urban contexts in Germany and Australia that follow temporary residence permits, thereby tracing the effects of border policies on individuals, local communities, and their interrelations. The research asks when and how conflicts over deportations become impactful at the local level, which criteria are negotiated in these conflicts, and how both have changed since the 1990s. The project adopts a systematically comparative and case-reconstructive perspective, examining historical and current deportation conflicts in Germany and Australia through a qualitative mix of methods. Territorial border infrastructures, regional border regimes, and the relocation of border situations into everyday spaces intersect, allowing in this final funding phase for a synthesizing comparison of border practices and conflicts across all three analytical levels. In doing so, the three funding phases together form a complementary structure that enables a comprehensive understanding of the spatial refiguration of border demarcations through the integration of macro- and micro-perspectives.

• C05 Urban Planning and Microclimate Regimes: The Urban Microclimate Regime: How Elementary Forces Shape Urban Climate Adaptation Policies (Ignacio Farías)

  Subproject C05, initiated in the second funding phase of the CRC 1265, examines the refiguration of urban spaces in the context of the implementation of climate adaptation measures, particularly through so-called nature-based solutions. The focus lies on the genealogical and qualitative analysis of the apprehension, mobilization, and politicization of material elements such as air, water, and solar radiation. The aim is to critically interrogate the current discourse on nature-based solutions and to elaborate the specific characteristics of what has been termed elemental urbanism (Farías & Kemmer, 2024). In the concluding funding phase, two case studies – Stuttgart and Fukuoka – have been used to investigate historical and contemporary forms of convective management of heat. The research explores how wind, fresh air, and ventilation are organized both at the urban scale (for example, cold air corridors in Stuttgart) and at the bodily scale (for example, high-tech textiles in Japan).
  In the final funding phase, this perspective will be expanded to include two further forms of elemental urbanism: climate adaptation through shading infrastructures and through the construction of so-called sponge cities. These policy assemblages will be studied in cities that are historically and currently key sites for their development. Data collection will include semi-structured interviews with actors, particularly from the environmental sciences, planning, and architecture, as well as an extensive document analysis. The research questions guiding the final phase are: In contemporary urbanism, how are elemental forces mobilized in approaches and techniques of climate adaptation and how are they integrated into urban infrastructures? How do “elemental solutions” refigure urban spaces, both conceptually and materially, by problematizing and transforming existing spatial configurations? And which genealogical orders and translocal circulations are associated with these “elemental solutions,” particularly regarding the interactions between environmental sciences and urban policy? The expected outcomes of the subproject include a differentiated analysis of the microclimatic regime in contemporary urbanism. Through the comparative study of the elements air, water, and shade, the project critically expands the discourse on nature-based solutions by examining in depth the specificities of the mobilized elements and the spatial figures associated with them. The project seeks close collaboration with urban policy actors – particularly in the fields of planning and architecture – to promote the practical relevance and applicability of its findings for urban climate adaptation and to provide practice-oriented impulses for future planning processes.

• C07 Platform Economy: From Commercializing Places to Algorithms Regulating Airbnb (Stefan Kirchner)

  Subproject C07, initiated in the second funding phase of the CRC 1265, investigates the refiguration of spaces using the digital platform Airbnb as a case study. Scholarly debates situate Airbnb within the tension between participation enabled through sharing practices and overtourism driven by commercialization. Against this backdrop, the project analyzes the specific interrelation between place, territorial space, and network space that constitutes Airbnb’s digital marketplace. Empirical results from the concluding funding phase revealed locally varying degrees of commercialization and differing approaches to local containment. Airbnb is tolerated in some places and heavily restricted in others. Globally, there are increasing cases of stricter regulations aimed at defending territorial space against Airbnb’s network space. Alongside traditional approaches such as bans and controls, algorithmic regulation is gaining importance. This form of regulation uses platform data to reassert the territorial space as a domain, sometimes accompanied by local protests and initiatives. The findings so far highlight the interplay between network space, territorial space, and place, which is substantially transformed by access to platform data.
  In the next funding phase, the project systematically broadens the scope of its analyses to examine whether and to what extent the previous results apply to other tourism hotspots. To this end, it continues and expands (a) correspondence and contrast case studies, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to compare the various articulations and marketplace dynamics of Airbnb along a continuum from weakly to strongly regulated contexts. Through extensive (b) quantitative longitudinal analyses, the project traces Airbnb’s long-term developments, revealing spatial arrangements in the interaction between regulatory regimes and the commercialization of offerings. In a focused case study of (c) algorithmic regulation, the project examines how public authorities and local initiatives (such as neighborhood associations) gain access to platform data to deal with Airbnb at the local level. The project employs a mixed-methods design that combines large-scale quantitative analyses of historical platform data (reviews and listings from 2015 to the present) with contrasting case studies of administrative containment efforts and local initiatives. By expanding the case base, conducting long-term observations, and intensively analyzing algorithmic regulation, the project aims to empirically test the thesis of refiguration through the example of Airbnb as a regime of circulation and order. The Airbnb case thus provides theoretically grounded insights from the perspective of refiguration theory, enabling a conceptually informed modeling and explanation of phenomena of digitalization.

• C09/A03 Commodity Chains: Circulation and Order in Spaces of Route (Nina Baur)

  Across all funding phases, subproject C09 (running as A03 in the first two funding phases) examines how regimes, objectified infrastructures and knowledge influence circulation and order in commodity chains for food from an economic-sociological and economic-geographical perspective. Commodity chains are translocally organized, vertically and horizontally interwoven chains of interdependence that can be subdivided into three sub-contexts: the production context, the market withdrawal context (also: sales context) and the consumption context. Due to their complexity, commodity chains are difficult to analyze as a whole. Therefore, the subproject initially focused on the largest research gap: the role of (spatial) knowledge in retailer-consumer interactions in the context of market withdrawal. Using the example of Berlin, an empirically-grounded theory was developed (first funding phase), which was then tested using contrasting cities (Nairobi, Singapore) (second funding phase). The subproject showed that (a) spatial conflicts between spaces of route (goods transport) and territorial space (market demarcation) are inherent in commodity chains, and (b) that these conflicts are resolved through non-knowledge. (c) Objectified infrastructures and regimes make it possible to maintain the circulation of goods. In the third funding phase, the previous findings will be synthesized into a processual explanatory model of refiguration in different varieties of spaces of route (also referred to as trajectory spaces or spaces of pathways) using the example of the circulation order of commodity chains. The aim of the subproject is also to reconstruct the relevance and refiguration of spaces of route in and through economic processes in a longitudinal perspective, and to highlight the variance and variability of the characteristics of (re-)produced spaces of route. At the heart of the analysis are commodity chains for apples that have been subjected to different dynamics of change (2019-2029): a short stable one (Germany → Berlin), a stable long one (South Africa → Berlin), a new long one (Germany → Thailand) and a completely restructured long commodity chain (Chile → Berlin to Chile → Lima). These commodity chains are compared with three contrasting cases with different product characteristics: tilapia (Thailand → Bangkok), wool (South Africa → Berlin) and green hydrogen (Chile → Germany). Methodologically, the methods of value chain mapping and social pattern analysis are combined in a case study design. Building on the results of the previous funding phases, the subproject will contribute to the elaboration of the spatial figure of the space of route and will provide an example of how ideal-typical and process-oriented explanations can be combined methodologically. In collaboration with partners from the Global South, the project will refine the concepts developed in the first two funding phases to decolonize social-science methodology (such as decentering of case selection, collaborative research and ethnographic counterreading).

• D Understanding – Explaining – Designing: Theory and Practice of Refiguration (Martina Löw/Séverine Marguin/Silke Steets)

  The new subproject D, which is not assigned to any specific project area, will assume conceptual cross-sectional tasks for the CRC 1265. The subproject pursues a dual objective: (1) to develop, in close interaction with the CRC as a whole, a spatially grounded model of interpretive explanation, and (2) to connect this with a design model that makes the CRC’s findings accessible to planning practice.
  The model of interpretive explanation to be developed builds on the understanding of spatial relationships of meaning and action and follows the interpretive methodology that characterizes the CRC as a whole. It seeks to expand social-scientific forms of explanation – typically oriented toward the temporal sequence of events – by adding a spatial-theoretical perspective, thereby contributing to methodological innovation. Its point of departure and reference is the analysis of spatial figures (Raumfigurenanalyse). In parallel with the development of the explanatory model, a design model will be elaborated through shared work steps, likewise grounded in the analysis of spatial figures. This model is intended to enable actors in spatial practice to actively shape the refiguration of spaces through planning. To this end, specific instruments will be developed, building on the methodological foundations established within the CRC.
  Both models are designed to be mutually beneficial: the explanatory model provides theoretical insights that inform the design model, while the design model contributes to theory development by engaging early on with practitioners in planning and architecture, thereby generating feedback loops that can refine the CRC’s conceptual framework. In this way, social-scientific theory formation proceeds in close connection with practice, while planning, design, and construction become guided by (spatial) theory. The subproject thus capitalizes on the CRC’s distinctive interdisciplinarity between the social sciences and planning/architecture to synthesize its findings.

• WIKO (formerly Ö): Archiving Refiguration – Refiguring the Archive (Stefanie Bürkle/Silke Steets)

  The subproject Science Communication (WIKO project, previously known as the Ö project in the first two funding phases) aims to convey the work and findings of CRC 1265 through artistic practice. It follows the principles of self-reflexive science communication. Through the joint leadership of the WIKO project by a sociologist of knowledge and a visual artist, the collaboration between scientific and artistic methods – established in the first two funding phases – is further intensified. The main goal of this collaboration is to build a comprehensive multimodal archive of refiguration.
  Archives are not neutral representations of collected materials; they encode, sort, and transform what they contain in specific ways. They thus constitute sedimented orders of knowledge and, at the same time, provide the material foundation for current and future societal thought processes. Building on debates in critical archive studies, the multimodal Archive of Refiguration will organize the image, video, audio, and text materials gathered during the CRC’s runtime in cooperation with international partners in such a way that it both documents the CRC’s work in the long term and makes it accessible to a broader public. At the same time, it is intended to serve as a critical resource for future spatial research. Key components of the archive will include the images and materials produced in the artistic research conducted during previous phases of the WIKO project as well as a long-term photographic observation of Berlin by subproject leader Stefanie Bürkle. These will be re-analyzed, re-organized, and archived through the conceptual lens of refiguration, entering into a productive dialogue with the empirical findings of the CRC as a whole. A specially programmed website will present the archive in its multiple media formats, with its architecture reflecting the medial translation of central concepts of refiguration such as spatial figures, multiple spatialities, and polycontexturality.
  The archive will be accompanied by two publications: the English-language volume Exploring the Refiguration of Spaces (Silke Steets), which frames the archive through conceptual and methodological reflections and addresses an international academic audience, and Stadt als gebauter Wissensraum. Ein künstlerisches Archiv der Refiguration von Räumen (Stefanie Bürkle / doctoral researcher), which targets a broader audience interested in art and urban space.