Short Vita
I’m an associate researcher at the RGT “Fixing Futures” based at the Department of Geography at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz. I’ve studied human geography at the universities of Frankfurt/Main (Bachelor of Arts) and Bonn (Master of Science). In addition, I spent two study stays abroad at universities in Växjö (Sweden) and Toronto (Canada). During my studies, I gained working experience in different research institutions, such as two Leibniz Institutes (IfL/IRS), the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies (BICC) and the Fraunhofer Center for Responsible Research and Innovation (CeRRI).
Project Description
Designed geographies: Disentangling designs’ epistemologies in anticipation of uncertain futures (working title). From the 1960’s onwards, design became advertised as a generic approach to problem-solving, heavily influenced by planning and engineering. However, in the present design is not only a means of technocratic solution-finding but oscillates between a certain methodological structuredness and individual creativity depicting a complex practice of world-making and epistemology. Geographers have only recently begun to turn their attention to the political implications of design methodology as epistemology in projects of resilience adaptation. From this, questions emerge such as to what extent the turn to various design methodologies can be seen as indicative for how uncertain futures become anticipated, coped, and aligned. What does it mean to approach future uncertainty in a designing manner? The dissertation project takes these questions as a starting point to further develop a project scrutinizing the epistemologies and subsequent governmental implications of design.