Kathrin Hörschelmann’s research while affiliated with University of Bonn and other places

Research about the lived experiences of asylum-seeking and refugee youth can evoke powerful emotions for those involved. Young people who escaped perilous situations often bear strong emotions linked to their experiences of migration and displacement, as well as their encounters with disorientation, insecurity, isolation, discrimination and racism in unfamiliar contexts in the host society. Such emotions and emotionally charged places can be challenging to work with as researchers and require reflexive and situated methodological and ethical judgements. This paper investigates the emotional complexities of fieldwork with vulnerable young people by reflecting on (dis)comfort and discusses how to negotiate these issues with care and consideration. It draws from qualitative participatory and creative fieldwork experiences using story mapping, photovoice, walk-along and community theatre approaches in Amsterdam, Brussels, Leipzig and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. It reports on a range of critical ethical and methodological issues that arose in our work that address meaningful relationships, reciprocity and trust, understanding the field, positionality and reflexivity, and challenges around the co-production of knowledge and leaving the field. Throughout, the paper flags various complex and, at times, ambiguous ethical and methodological issues that emerged throughout the research process and argues for research approaches that are sensitive to the contextual and multi-faceted nature of investigating young refugees and asylum seekers in European cities.

Zusammenfassung Die kommunalen Bekenntnisse zur Klimaneutralität im Sinne einer nachhaltigen Stadtentwicklung werden in den vergangenen Jahren immer zahlreicher. Die Bürger:innenschaft ist dabei vielerorts eine wichtige Akteursgruppe, die Transformationsprozesse hin zur Klimaneutralität mitverhandelt. In Bonn hat sich der Stadtrat das Ziel der kommunalen Klimaneutralität bis zum Jahr 2035 gesetzt. Die Bonner Transition Town Initiative Bonn im Wandel e. V. hat mit Unterstützung eines breiten Bündnisses daraufhin das zweijährige Mitwirkungsverfahren „Bonn4Future – Wir fürs Klima“ beantragt, konzipiert und in Kooperation mit der Stadtverwaltung durchgeführt. Auf Basis eines Mixed Methods-Ansatzes der begleitenden wissenschaftlichen Evaluation wird analysiert, inwiefern das kooperative Beteiligungsverfahren zu einer breiten Partizipation und politischen Teilhabe beitragen konnte. Ausgehend von einer Einführung zu kommunalen Beteiligungsprozessen im Kontext von Klimaneutralität und möglichen Gütekriterien für die Prozessgestaltung analysieren wir die Umsetzung des Mitwirkungsverfahrens „Bonn4Future“ und zeigen Herausforderungen des Prozesses auf. Auf Basis der Ergebnisse lassen sich Handlungsempfehlungen ableiten, wie kommunale und zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure im Rahmen einer Kollaboration und breiten Mitwirkung der zentralen Aufgabe der urbanen Klimaanpassung begegnen können. Insgesamt kann ein breit angelegtes Partizipationsverfahren mit genügend Ressourcen einen möglichen Ausgangspunkt für einen längerfristig kooperativen Modus von organisierter Zivilgesellschaft, Verwaltung und Kommunalpolitik darstellen.

This introductory textbook with a global scope aims to train students of geography, sustainability, and urban and environmental studies to re-imagine and transform cities to meet climate, biodiversity, and sustainability challenges. A dedicated team of authors critically examine the relationships between nature and urban areas, sharing an inspiring account of how nature helps us re-think our cities and their futures. Prior to this textbook, literature for courses covering urban nature was written by and for practitioners, whereas this textbook is written by experienced course instructors specifically to be accessible to diverse students. The textbook is illustrated with numerous photos and figures which bring key topics, challenges, and opportunities to life. It contains focus boxes and case studies from every continent, offering students an international scope and multiple entry points into the field. Chapters conclude with thought-provoking follow-up questions and recommended reading. The authors provide an array of supplementary online resources.

Die Stadt Bonn beauftragte das Büro promediare und die Arbeitsgruppe Kulturgeographie des Geographischen Instituts der Universität Bonn, das Projekt „Bönnsche Viertel – Lebendige Räume für Menschen“ zu evaluieren. Ziel des Projekts war es, den öffentlichen Raum lebenswerter zu gestalten, unter anderem durch die Verlagerung des ruhenden und fließenden Autoverkehrs. Die Evaluation prüfte, ob die drei selbst gesetzten Ziele erreicht wurden: 1) Akteur:innen und Anliegen in den Quartieren sichtbar zu machen, 2) den gesellschaftlichen Dialog zu intensivieren und 3) Akzeptanz für die beschlossenen Ziele zu fördern. Dazu nutzte man einen Methodenmix aus quantitativen und qualitativen Forschungen.

This article takes the concept of spatial imaginaries to explore how the post-Brexit negotiations shifted meanings of ‘Europe’ for Polish migrants residing in Scotland. A flourishing subfield of ‘Brexit geographies’ has explored the meaning and consequences of Brexit (as an event, process and affect) for wide-ranging communities on the move and in place. Yet, the question of how ‘Europe’, and in particular ‘EUrope’, is being re-imagined and re-constituted by EU migrants residing in uncertain political spaces remains understudied. In this article, we address this lacuna through analysis of biographical narrative interviews and spatial mapping exercises. In doing so, we conduct a multi-scalar analysis of Polish migrants’ discursive and visual representations of EUrope, defined both as a geographical and institutional space. The study is spatially and temporally situated at a particular time and place in the Brexit timeline – the summer of 2019 in rural and urban Scotland. At this time, Brexit negotiations were ongoing, there was widespread uncertainty about the consequences for migrants in the United Kingdom, and, in Scotland particularly, much resistance to leaving the European Union. The article argues that while Brexit might have not affected European identity among Polish migrants in Scotland, it has prompted them to reconsider their place in Europe and to reimagine both the geographical and conceptual parameters of EUrope.

This innovative edited volume is based on in-depth, qualitative research with young refugees and their perspectives on migration, social relations and cultural spaces. The chapters give voice to refugee youth from a wide variety of social backgrounds, including insights about their migration experiences, their negotiations of spatial justice and injustice, and the diverse ways in which they use urban space.

Waste is the visible outcome of socioeconomic processes such as urbanisation and industrialisation. Yet the negative impacts of waste mismanagement are often externalised and invisibilised in the metabolism of cities, in which informal waste labourers often assume the heaviest burden. In this paper, we approach cities as sociocultural arenas in which agents work within and around structural constraints to allow transformation to take place. Our paper analyses how grassroots activism, NGO-municipality collaboration, and women's empowerment led to realising transformative potential for both solid waste management and social inclusion in the Indian city of Pune. We analyse the case of SWaCH Pune Seva Sahakari Sanstha (SWaCH), a predominantly-female social cooperative of waste pickers, to show how supporting and enhancing informal labour can produce multiple positive outcomes. Our analysis also examines the role that the women waste pickers themselves played in bringing about change. We consider the structural constraints for achieving deeper and broader impact and assess what these indicate for the long-term success of this initiative. We also illustrate how power structures tend to constrain bottom-up transformation approaches, regardless of their transformative potential. Above all, SWaCH's story shows how working with informality rather than seeking to eradicate it can result favourably in moving towards the legitimisation and gradual institutionalisation of a pro-poor urban solid waste management system in which women's empowerment is expressed not only for their benefit but also for the states, the citizens and the environments.

The last half‐a‐century has seen a marked demand for authentic citizen participation in public policy‐and decision‐making, not least in the field of sustainability. The depth and forms of citizen engagement in nature‐based solutions (NBS), for example, and how such participation shapes their trajectories is gaining increasing attention. In this paper, we analyze current forms and implications of citizen participation in 58 NBS case studies conducted in 21 cities in the light of supporting wider sustainability goals. Our results show that while tokenistic forms dominate citizen participation across a variety of NBS contexts, collaborative multi‐stakeholder forms of engagement do not automatically lead to enhanced ecological functions. Deeper forms of engagement, however, strengthen and diversify both expected and unexpected social outcomes, including social learning, enhanced sense of belonging, environmental stewardship, and inclusiveness and equity, in general. Driven by neoliberal austerity logic governments often cede power to NBS promoters whose interests predefine an intervention's vision of nature. Deeper levels of participation are hence limited by inherent institutional structures, neoliberal regimes and the lack of trust among actors involved. These limitations can be partially bridged by strengthening relational and reflexive capacities of public institutions. Focusing on the process of citizen engagement and creating multiple arenas for discussion could bring out new voices and narratives and also transform the culture of participation.