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
• Degrowth and Transformation
• Global Change
• Political Geography
• Practice Theory and Materiality
• Community Initiatives and eco-social enterprises
• Transdisciplinary research (methods)

• Seminars on: alternative economies, neoliberalism, critical geography, qualitative methods

• 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 )
• Member of the Community Economies Research Network(http://www.communityeconomies.org/ )
• Member of DFG network on practice theories(http://www.praktikentheorie.de/ )
• Member of the association “Verein zur Verbreitung offener Werkstätten”

Since 07/2019		Member of the academic staff, University of Freiburg, Germany
2015-2019		Doctoral candidate and research assistant, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
2016-2018		Teaching fellow at the Universities of Heidelberg & Freiburg, Germany
2013-2015		Research assistant, University of Freiburg, Germany