janoschka_cv

Michael Janoschka

Critical Urban Studies and Social Theory
Contact: michael.janoschka@uni-leipzig.de

Since the winter 2019/20, I have been teaching and researching at the Institute of Geography, University of Leipzig. Additionally, I am also distinguished professor at the Department of Public Affairs of the Faculty of Latin American Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador (since 2015).

My research focuses on:

  1. Processes of gentrification, displacement and dispossession in the neoliberal city
  2. Mechanisms and effects of the financialization of housing markets
  3. Urban conflicts and collective action
  4. New urban governance approaches
  5. Migration, social exclusion and the role of civil society in the recent shift to the right

My regional expertise comprises Latin American and Southern European cities, with a special focus on Madrid, Barcelona and Athens. For nearly 20 years I have been developing  research in Latin American cities, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico. Moreover, I am also expanding my research on gentrification, displacement and housing financialisation to my new local environment in the city and region of Leipzig.

I am the scientific coordinator of the interdisciplinary research network CONTESTED_TERRITORIES, which has been funded from 2020-24 with a 2.46 M € grant from the European Commission. In this network with 20 European and Latin American partners, we aim developing from a comparative perspective alternative understandings of how people in Europe and Latin America conceptualise, design, negotiate and practically appropriate space and “territories” in unequal power relationships. I am also participating in the NOVA_VIDA research project, funded by the British Academy until November 2021 with a grant of approximately € 300,000. Previously, I was also the scientific coordinator of the Contested Cities network and principal investigator of the project Proto Local, which critically examines the local political change in Spain after the 2015 elections.

After graduating in Geography from the Humboldt-University in Berlin, I was awarded my PhD in Philosophy from the Goethe-University in Frankfurt, followed by a postdoctoral Marie-Curie Fellowship at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. From 2011 to 2016, I was holding a Ramón y Cajal research professorship at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Between autumn 2016 and 2019, I was employed as University Academic Fellow for Critical Urban Transformations at the School of Geography, University of Leeds.