Projects

The sub-project “Contestation over Property Regimes and Housing: (Un)doing Commodified Urban Land Ownership in India and Germany”, which forms part of the DFG Collaborative Research Centre “Structural Change in Property”, examines the legal and everyday forms of challenge to the logic of private property in India and Germany. Michael Schwind and Dr Lisa Vollmer are working on the German case study at the IRS, examining the increasing mobilisation of the law by civil society groups in their challenge to the prevailing private and commodified land ownership regime. more

Local governments are known to play an increasingly central role in climate change governance. The research of local climate responses has, however, been dominated by studies on larger and/or internationally prominent cities, while neglecting smaller and less-resourceful local governments, particularly those responsible for running structurally disadvantaged and ‘left behind’ places. This project will address this gap through a study of disadvantaged local council areas in the UK and Germany. more

Whether it is protests against large-scale projects such as Stuttgart 21, wind turbines or development plans in growing cities: Spatial planning is increasingly confronted with conflicts. In this context, the classic forms of citizen participation are reaching their limits. The aim of this project is to further develop existing planning theories by distinguishing between rational, communicative and agonistic - i.e. conflict-related - types of planning in dealing with conflicts and by examining planning conflicts using empirical case studies in practice. more