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Dr. Benedikt Schmid

Research Associate
E-Mail: benedikt.schmid[at]geographie.uni-freiburg.de
Phone: ++49(0)761 203-3566
Room: 110

 

Central research questions

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.

Research topics and projects

  • 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)

Memberships

Prices

  • 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

Vita

  • 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
  • Seminars on sustainability, social-ecological transformation, alternative economies, environmental justice, introduction to geography, qualitative methods
  • Thesis supervision in the following areas: post-growth, social-ecological transformation, sufficiency-oriented urban development, alternative economic models (in particular, Economy for the Common Good, Doughnut Economics)