1. You’ve completed your PhD – what does that mean for you personally?
It marks the end of a very instructive and intense phase of my life, and it signals the start of something new.
2. What is your thesis about?
I have researched the problematisation of a street in Cologne-Mülheim, Keupstraße, which is home to both businesses and residents with a migrant background, over a period of almost 50 years. Using a historical-genealogical, historical-materialist and ethnographic approach, I examined the negative connotations associated with this urban space from multiple perspectives. The migrant interviewees from the street were not regarded as research subjects, but as the starting point for the research, against which their situated knowledge was compared with the issues raised.
3. What was a highlight or a special experience in connection with your PhD?
‘Highlight’ is perhaps not the right word. Often, it is the concrete experience of a space, of people and of the practice of politics that gives rise to different situations which cannot be anticipated and which trigger unexpected outcomes. Practice is always two steps ahead of theory, as I have very often found.
4. What are your plans for your future career?
My next five-year plan is still in the making.
5. What advice can you give to future PhD students?
PhD programmes vary, but generally speaking I can say that you need to be persistent, disciplined and curious, and that giving up should not be an option.
LINKS
Doctoral Centre for the Social and Health Sciences Design of Transformation Processes
