Nora Kuettel

• Doctor of Philosophy
• PostDoc Position at University of Bremen

Poster on my ongoing PhD project: Detroit, the birthplace of Fordism and the city which was once thought of as the realization of the American Dream, is now mostly known for its vacancy with about one third of housing units being unoccupied as well as high rates in unemployment, poverty and crime. Recently though, there seems to be a process of cha...

The research project analyzes the interactions between visual artists and urban spaces in the city of Detroit. Based on ethnographic methodology, it studies how the presence and practices of artists influence urban spaces and how urban spaces are affecting and incorporated in artists‘ works. The presentation focuses on field work-experiences and th...

Motor City, Motown, The D – Detroit trägt nicht nur viele Namen, um die Stadt kursieren auch zahlreiche Narrative. Während die erste Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts vor allem vom wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg Detroits geprägt gewesen ist – Detroit als Synonym des American Dream, Detroit als Arsenal of Democracy –, nehmen in den darauffolgenden Jahren vor a...

It began with a conversation at the 2019 DKG in Kiel about how residues of unplanned encounters and 'failed' situations have significantly shaped our fieldwork and research practice, and how little this continues to be addressed in the scholarly literature. Our observations then evolved into an input at the 2020 AK Qualitative Methoden für Geograph...

Autoethnography can be described as a combination of autobiographical and ethnographic practices. It is a method that emphasizes the researcher’s emotions and experiences. For the most part, autoethnography comes in written form, based on introspection of one’s memory as well as on field notes, diary entries, drawings, or photographs. The visual ma...

This article presents a spatially sensitive approach to the narratives of transformation processes, employing oral history to explore the connection between loss, emotions, and memory in the context of changing shipyard work in East Germany since 1989. The former place of work, the shipyard, serves as a central place where loss, emotions and memory...

Decades of decline, disinvestment, and racism have left Detroit with an abundance of abandoned buildings, ruins, vacant lots, and illicit trash dumps. Though these structures and materials might have forfeited their previous purposes, they can act as catalysts, substances, and co-creators of artworks. The paper is thus interested in examining the i...

Kreativ-künstlerische Methoden schaffen Räume für Formen des Wissens, (Ver-)Lernens, Erinnerns und Handelns, die dominante und verräumlichte Machtverhältnisse hinterfragen. Kunst ist dabei nicht nur ein methodisches Werkzeug und Forschung kein bloßes Kunstprojekt: Stattdessen bringt die Schnittstelle dazwischen multiskalare Fragen und Antworten auf...

Based on the premise that art as well as space are part and product of social, political, and economic relations, the book analyzes the dialectic relationship of artistic practices and urban space in Detroit. The city of Detroit, with its massive population loss, abundance of vacant lots and buildings, and continuing racialization and marketization...

In diesem Beitrag widme ich mich dem Begriff des (Forschungs-)Feldes und seinen Implikationen und gehe der Frage nach, wie er permeabler gedacht werden könnte.

Since the 1990s, an increased interest in visuality and imagery can be observed within the social sciences, labeled by terms such as Pictorial Turn or Iconic Turn. They describe a mind shift towards including visuality in the thought process and knowledge acquisition while doing research. Associated with this is also a more critical and reflexive d...

In her book "Ethnography of Urban Territories," Monika STREULE offers useful ideas and advice for transdisciplinary studies that are concerned with the complex conditions most often found in cities. She develops a tool box containing ethnographic and cartographic methods that are used to analyze urbanization processes in the mega metropolis Mexico-...

Detroit, MI, once labeled as the realization of the American Dream, is now mostly known for its vacancy with about one third of housing units unoccupied as well as high rates in unemployment, poverty and crime. Recently though, another narrative is told as well: Even though Detroit is still shrinking and major challenges are to be taken up, stories...