Dr. Benedikt Schmid

Broadly speaking my research engages with the question how societal trajectories can be shifted away from current patterns of unsustainability towards social and environmental justice. Within the complex and divergent processes of global change, I take a particular interest in community initiatives and social enterprises working towards alternative economies. My primary empirical focus, thereby, is on localized productive infrastructures and the concomitant practices of tinkering, making and repair in the Global North. Conceptually, I draw on practice-theoretical scholarship allowing for the consideration of both the performativity and materiality of social relations. Taking a participatory and transdisciplinary approach, my research aims to develop strategies and build coalitions with and between a variety of actors and participants.

• 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)

• 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 "Wohlstandsalternativen und Regionalentwicklung" (https://www.arl-net.de/de/projekte/wohlstandsalternativen-und-regionalentwicklung )
• Manager of the ARL working group on post-growth economies (http://www.arl-net.de/de/projekte/postwachstumsökonomien ) (2017-2020)
• Member of the Community Economies Research Network (http://www.communityeconomies.org/ )
• Member of DFG network on practice theories (2016-2019)
• Member of the association “Verein zur Verbreitung offener Werkstätten”

• 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