Dr. Benedikt Schmid

My research engages with the question how societal trajectories can be shifted away from current patterns of unsustainability towards social and environmental justice. I pay particular attention to the interplay between place-based and translocal processes, including networking, dissemination, impact, learning, as well as exploitation and dependency. By drawing on practice-theoretical approaches and a relational understanding of space, I correlate (often abstract) power relations, crisis phenomena, and transformation processes with concrete patterns of action. In my empirical work, I employ established methods of qualitative social research, such as interviews and participant observation, alongside participatory and transdisciplinary methods (including action re-search, integrative workshops, and real-world laboratories). These methods assign a central role to the positions, voices, and challenges of practitioners and civil society actors in the research process.

• Alternative Economies / Diverse Economies
• Post-growth and social-ecological transformation
• Local and regional governance
• Global Change
• Political Geography
• Practice Theory and Materiality
• Community Initiatives and eco-social enterprises
• Transdisciplinary research (methods)
• Regional Focus: Europe (esp. Southern Europe, Northern Europe, Germany)

• Manager of the ARL working group "Wohlstandsalternativen und Regionalentwicklung" (https://www.arl-net.de/de/projekte/wohlstandsalternativen-und-regionalentwicklung )
• Member of the Community Economies Research Network (http://www.communityeconomies.org/ )
• Member of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initative (SCORAI) (https://scorai.net/)
• Member of the Environmental Justice Netzwerks (EnJust) (https://enjust.net/)
• Member of the "Verband für Geographie an deutschsprachigen Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen"
• Manager of the ARL working group on post-growth economies (http://www.arl-net.de/de/projekte/postwachstumsökonomien ) (2017-2020)
• Member of DFG network on practice theories (2016-2019)

• 2021 Price for Best dissertation thesis in human geography 2019-2021 by the Association of Geographers on German-speaking universities and research institutes
• 2020: FRU-Förderpreis: Just Spaces? Gerechtigkeit und Gemeinwohl in Stadt und Region

04/2023-09/2023		Substitute professorship, chair of cultural- and regional geography, University of Trier
Since 07/2019		Postdoctoral researcher, University of Freiburg, Germany
06/2019		Doctorate in geography "Making Transformative Geographies: Lessons from Stuttgart’s Community Economy"
2015-2019		Doctoral researcher, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
2016-2018		Teaching fellow at the Universities of Heidelberg & Freiburg, Germany
2013-2015		Research assistant, University of Freiburg, Germany