Senior Researcher
Dr. phil. Anna Steigemann
Raum A 622
T + 49 – 30 – 314 – 21906
F + 49 – 30 – 314 – 21907
Curriculum Vitae
Anna Marie Steigemann works as a Senior Researcher at the Habitat Unit since November 2016. Anna's research focuses on critical urban studies, migration and the city – particularly refugee migration-, community and neighborhood studies, urban and social theory, governance from below, post-colonial urban theories, urban transformation towards sustainability as well as on ethnographic and qualitative social research methods.
At the Habitat Unit, she works as a coordinator and supervisor of the Wits-TUB Urban Lab, the interdisciplinary bilateral postgraduate studies program for sub-Saharan African cities. Anna also works in the special research track (SFB) "Re-figurations of Space" on "Architectures of Asylum" and coordinates the SFB and Habitat Unit's doctoral colloquia.
Before joining the Habitat Unit team, Anna worked as an assistant professor at the Chair for Urban Studies & Social Research at Bauhaus-University Weimar (2015-2017) and the Institutes for Sociology and Urban & Regional Planning at TU Berlin (2011-2015), as a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Urban & Regional Sociology at Humboldt University's Institute for Social Sciences (2009-2011). In 2018 and 2019, she also worked as a visiting professor for urban and migration studies at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC and as Acting Chair for the Department of International Planning Studies at TU Dortmund. She contributed to a wide arrange of empirical urban research projects, e.g. on public space and its social life, interaction in semi- public spaces, urban and refugee migration, urban and rural in- and exclusion processes, on urban renewal, residential and commercial gentrification, and on youth in the city. In addition, she taught and teaches across and in the fields of urban sociology, architecture, geography, urban and spatial planning, and urban design since 2009. Anna also works as a lecturer for TUB's Urban Management graduate program since 2011.
In 2016, she completed her doctoral dissertation, "Offering More? How Store Owners and their Businesses Build Neighborhood Social Life", an ethnography of a diverse shopping street, its commercial facilities, and the social interactions therein, at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at TU Berlin and the CUNY Graduate Center with a "summa cum laude." Before her doctoral research, Anna studied Social Sciences, Geography, Ethnology, and Gender Studies at Humboldt-University of Berlin and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
2012 – 2016
Doctorate of Sociology (Dr. phil.) with a summa cum laude, TU Berlin
(Thesis) Offering More? How Store Owners and Their Businesses Build Neighborhood Social Life (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Sybille Frank, Prof. Dr. John Mollenkopf, Prof. Dr. Dietrich Henckel)
2006 – 2009
Master of Arts in Social Sciences, Humboldt-University of Berlin
(Thesis) From Bakeries to Bars? Commercial Gentrification on Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Hartmut Häußermann, Prof. Dr. Talja Blokland)
2002 – 2006
Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, Humboldt-University of Berlin
(Thesis) Deprived Neighborhoods and Hip Hop. The affinity of deprived (migrant) youth for the culture of Hip Hop (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Hartmut Häußermann and Prof. Dr. Susanne Frank)
Since 2016
Senior Researcher
Habitat Unit, TU Berlin
April – October 2019
Acting Chair
International Planning Studies, Faculty of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund
2018 – 2019
ARC Distinguished Visiting Fellow/ Visiting Professor for Urban and Migration Studies
Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), CUNY Graduate Center
Since 2016
Lecturer and Advisor
International Urban Development Master Program, TU Berlin El Gouna Campus, Egypt
Since 2011
Lecturer
Urban Management Masters Program, TU Berlin
2015 – 2017
Assistant Professor
Chair for Urban Studies & Social Research, Bauhaus University- Weimar
2011 – 2012
Assistant Professor
Department for Urban and Regional Sociology, Institute for Sociology and Institute for Urban and Regional Planning, TU Berlin
2009 – 2011
Lecturer and Researcher
Chair for Urban and Regional Sociology, Institute for Social Sciences, Humboldt- University Berlin
2006
Radio Journalist Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich
Makerspace(s). Redesigning TU Berlin's Campus Charlottenburg as a citizen science laboratory. MA Design Studio (Architecture, Urban Design, Urban History), TU Berlin
Urban Planning and Governance. MA Seminar (Urban Management), TU Berlin
Introduction to Urban Planning, MA Block Lecture and Seminar Series (Urban Development), TU Berlin/ El Gouna, Egypt Campus
SS 2019
Die Stadt des 21. Jahrhunderts: Globale Prozesse, lokale Entwicklungen. BA Vorlesung/lecture, BA spatial planning, sociology, TU Dortmund
Studio "The Great Transformation" – the re-growing city (Die nachwachsende Stadt), MA Studio and Lecture Series, Architecture/ Urban Design/ Urban Planning/ Ethnology, TU Berlin
SS 2018
Workshop „Qualitative social science and spatial methods", PhD Urban Planning & Sociology, Bauhaus-University Weimar
SS 2018
WITS-TUB Urban Lab 2nd Bilateral Summer School, MA &PhD Architecture, Urban Planning, Sociology, Witwatersrand University Johannesburg, South Africa
Seminar: 'New diversities' and 'urban arrival infrastructures.' The socio-spatial appropriation and footprints of refugees in Berlin-Neukölln, MA Architecture/ Urban Design, TU Berlin
Seminar: Urban Governance and Planning
SS 2017
1st Joint Summer School, WITS-TUB Urban Lab Graduate School on Co-Production of Knowledge and Practice Orientation, TU Berlin, July 17 - 28, 2017
SS 2017
Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: Interviews and Observations. PhD Methods Seminar, WITS-TUB Summer School, July 2017
SS 2017
Seminar: Urban Governance and Sociology, MA Urban Development, Central Institute El Gouna/TU Berlin, Cairo
WS 2016/2017
Seminar: Urban Governance and Planning, MA Urban Management, TU Berlin
WS 2016/2017
Project: Jena Winzerla - Großwohnsiedlungen unter anderen Vorzeichen!?. BA Urbanism, Bauhaus-University Weimar
SS 2016
Seminar: Diversity and the City, MA European Urbanism/ Architecture, Bauhaus-University Weimar
WS 2015/2016
Project: Migration statt Schrumpfung!? Wohnen und Leben von Asylsuchenden und Flüchtlingen in Gera. BA Urbanism/Architecture, Bauhaus-University Weimar
WS 2015/2016
Seminar: Urban Governance & Planning, MA Urban Management, TU Berlin
SS 2015
Seminar: Werkstatt Sozialraum: Willkommensstädte, Urbanism & Architecture, Bauhaus-University Weimar
WS 2014/2015
Seminar: Local Partnerships, Social Planning and Participation, Urban Management, TU Berlin
SS 2014
Summer School: Social and Spatial Inequalities in Berlin, Talja Blokland/John Mollenkopf, HU Berlin
WS 2013/2014
Seminar: Local Partnerships, Social Planning and Participation, Urban Management, TU Berlin
SS 2012
Seminar: Forschungskommission, Urban and Regional Planning/Sociology/Urban Design, TU Berlin
WS 2012/2013
Seminar: Local Partnerships, Social Planning and Participation, Urban Management, TU Berlin
WS 2011/2012
Seminar: Kernseminar Stadtforschung, Urban and Regional Planning/ Sociology/Urban Design, TU Berlin
WS 2011/2012
Seminar: Local Partnerships, Social Planning and Participation, Urban Management, TU Berlin
SS 2011
Project: No Strings Attached?! Kontakte im öffentlichen Raum, Urban and Regional Planning/ Sociology, TU Berlin
SS 2011
Seminar: Sozialstruktur, Geschlechterverhältnisse und räumliche Differenzierung, Social Sciences, HU Berlin
SS 2010
Seminar: Sozialstruktur, Geschlechterverhältnisse und räumliche Differenzierung, Social Sciences, HU Berlin
SS 2010
Teaching Assistance Project Seminar: (In)Security and Public Space, Social Sciences, HU Berlin
WS 2009/2010
Teaching Assistance Project Seminar: (In)Security and Public Space, Social Sciences, HU Berlin
Book
(2019) The Places where Community is Practiced. How store owners and their businesses build neighborhood social life. Springer. 300 pages (revised version of dissertation)
(2017) Offering "More"? How store owners and their businesses build neighborhood social life, TU Berlin University Press, 330 pages. (dissertation)
Book Contributions
(2019/forthcoming) Participatory Research vs. Action Research: New Spatial Methods. With Philipp Misselwitz. In Heinrich, J., Marguin, S., Million, A. & Stollmann, J. (Eds.). Methods of Qualitative Spatial Research. An Interdisciplinary Handbook, transcript.
(2019) Home-making in non-homes. Dwelling in refugee accommodations in Berlin and Zaatari. With Amer Darweesh. In Niehaus, I. & Heinz, K. (Ed) Unbehaust Wohnen: Verheerende wie diskrete Desaster. Perspektiven auf gesellschaftliche Wohnorte und Aufenthalte im Alltäglichen. Springer, 30 pages.
(2018) First arrivals: The socio-material development of arrival infrastructures in Thuringia. In: Meeus, B., Van Heur, B., Arnaut, K. (Eds.) Arrival Infrastructures. Migration and Urban Social Mobility, Palgrave Macmillan. Cham, pp. 179 – 205. (attached in application)
(2018) Vom Schrumpfen zur Integration. Alltagsleben von Geflüchteten in Thüringens drittgrößter Stadt Gera. (From shrinking to integration. Everyday life of refugees in the city of Gera) With Franziska Werner. In Eckardt, F. (Eds.) Ungeliebte Nachbarn. Anti-Asyl-Proteste in Thüringen. Transcript Verlag, pp. 129 – 143.
(2017) Businesses as Neighborhood Contact Sites: Some policy implications. Anja Besecke; Josiane Meier; Ricarda Pätzold; Susanne Thomaier (Eds.). Stadtökonomie – Blickwinkel und Perspektiven, Berlin, Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin., pp. 128 – 132
(2017) Vom Schrumpfen zur Integration? Thüringens Willkommenskultur und die sozialräumliche Integration von Flüchtlingen in Gera. (From shrinking to integration. Thuringia's welcoming culture and the socio-spatial integration of refugees). With Franziska Werner, in: Lessenich, S. (Eds.) Geschlossene Gesellschaften. Verhandlungen des 38. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Bamberg 2016, Vol. 38, 11 pages.
(2016) Paradigmenwechsel vom Schrumpfen zur Integration? Thüringens 'Willkommenskultur' und die Stadtentwicklungspolitik. (Paradigm shift from shrinking to integration? Thuringia's 'welcoming culture' and urban development policies) Wüstenrot Stiftung: Tagungsband Wohnungsleerstände in Deutschland – Ausmaß – Wahrnehmung – Reaktionen, pp. 325 – 335.
Refereed Articles
(2019/forthcoming) Architectures of Asylum - Making Home in a State of Permanent Temporariness. With Philipp Misselwitz. In: Current Sociology. Special Issue: Researching Home: Choices, Challenges, Opportunities. 19 pages.
(2019/ forthcoming) "Multi-culti" vs. "another cell phone store"– local store owners' and urban renewal actors' framing and perception of ethnic diversity in Berlin-Neukölln. In Hillmann, F. (Ed.). Migration-led regeneration: der Beitrag der Migration zur Stadtentwicklungspraxis, Special Issue „Raumforschung und Raumordnung", 23 pages.
(2018) Planning the Ideal Refugee Camp? A Critical Interrogation of Recent Planning Innovations in Jordan and Germany. With Ayham Dalal, Amer Darweesh, and Philipp Misselwitz. In: Urban Planning, Special Issue: European Cities Planning for Asylum. Special Issue, Volume 3, Issue 4, 20 pages
(2017) Social practices in a café: community through consumption? Geographica Helvetica, 72(1), 45, pp. 45-54.
(2016) A Welcoming Policy in Post-Socialist East Germany. With Frank Eckardt, Franziska Werner, Forced Migration Review 51, pp. 67-69.
Other Articles and Publications
(2018) New Diversities and Urban Arrival Infrastructures on Sonnenallee in Berlin. With TU Berlin Students. Research Report, 41 pages
(2015) Willkommensstädte. Studienprojekt der Werkstatt Sozialraumanalyse. (Welcoming Cities. Research Report of the workshop socio-spatial analysis) With Frank Eckardt, Franziska Werner. Abschlussbericht für den Thüringer Minister für Migration, Justiz und Verbraucherschutz, 41 pages
(2013) Kommunikationskonzept Turmstraße - Bericht zur Stärkung der lokalen Identität. Bezirksamt Mitte/Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, 60 pages; short version with 12 pages
(2012) No Strings Attached?! Kontakte im öffentlichen Raum, Project Report with MA Students, ISR TU Berlin, 120 pages.
(2009) Book Review on Derek Hyra's The New Urban Renewal, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research IJURR, pp. 717 -719.
Conference Papers
(2019) Neighborhood Diversities and Arrival Cities. Session: Conflict and Coexistence, Conference: "We the City". Plurality and Resistance in Berlin and Istanbul. Humboldt-University of Berlin, May 23-25
(2019) Urban Migration and Urban Refugees. TU Darmstadt Methoden der ethnologischen Feldforschung. Berlin Summer School, Berlin, May 10
(2018) Architectures of Asylum. A glocal perspective from Zaatari, Jordan and Berlin, Germany. Session: Design for Asylum: Architecture, Urban Space and Forced Migration, International Association for Forced Migration (IASFM): Whither Refugees? Restrictionism, Crises and Precarity Writ Large, Thessaloniki, Greece, 24-28 July 2018
(2018) Spaces of belonging in architectures of asylum? Urban refugees' agency in the production of
space in Berlin, Germany and Zaatari, Jordan. With Philipp Misselwitz, Session: Cities for whom? Exploring urban issues and forced migration with innovative and participatory methods, International Association for Forced Migration (IASFM): Whither Refugees? Restrictionism, Crises and Precarity Writ Large, Thessaloniki, Greece, 24-28 July 2018
(2018) Architectures of Asylum – Making a Home in a State of Permanent Temporariness. With Philipp Misselwitz. Session: Researching Home: Choices, Challenges, Opportunities, RC43 Housing and Built Environment, XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology: Power, Violence and Justice: Reflections, Responses and Responsibilities, Toronto, Canada, July 15-21, 2018
(2018) Spaces of belonging in architectures of asylum? Urban refugees' agency in the production of space and place in Berlin, Germany and Zaatari, Jordan. Session: Creating welcoming communities: Local immigration and integration policies, AAG Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 8-14.
(2018) Urban refugees' agency in the production of space and place in Berlin, Germany and Zaatari, Jordan – a geography of (dis)integration? With Philipp Misselwitz. Session: Refugees and Immigrants in the City V, AAG Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 8 -14.
(2017) Architectures of Asylum – the intersection of technocratic planning and refugees’ agency, Session: Migration und Flucht in der Stadt – Dynamiken nach dem langen Sommer der Migration, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie 2017: Eine Welt in Bewegung • Erforschen - Verstehen - Gestalten, Tübingen, Sept 29- Oct 5 2017.
(2017) Urban planning and refugees' socio-spatial appropriation practices, Session: Lokale Aushandlungen und Praktiken von Asyl zwischen Inklusion und Exklusion, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie 2017: Eine Welt in Bewegung • Erforschen - Verstehen - Gestalten, Tübingen, Sept 29- Oct 5 2017.
(2017) Architectures of asylum – a glocal perspective from Berlin. With Philipp Misselwitz. Panel: Urban planning and migrants in the city: glocal and transnational perspectives, RC 21 Conference: Rethinking Urban Global Justice: An international academic conference for critical urban studies, Leeds, Great Britain, September 11-14, 2017.
(2017) Learning from Berlin. Introduction to Berlin as the site for new Urban Management with a focus on Co-Production of Knowledge. WITS-TUB Summer School, July 17, 2017.
(2017) 'Behind the curtain, it works' - Small Business Owners' Community Building Practices, 4th Special Session Retail aspects in Urban Geography and Urban Planning, AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA
(2017) Survival opportunities of “traditional” crafts in upgrading neighborhoods: some policy implications, Panel: Regeneration projects and gentrification processes and diversity in entrepreneurship, Divercities: Governing Urban Diversity Conference, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
(2016) Vom Schrumpfen zur Integration? Thüringens Willkommenskultur und die sozialräumliche Integration von Flüchtigen in Gera, with Franziska Werner, Sektion Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie: Sozial-räumliche Integration von Flüchtlingen, DGS Kongress, Bamberg, Germany.
(2016) Vom Schrumpfen zur Integration?! Thüringens 'Willkommenskultur' als Paradigmenwechsel in der lokalen Stadtentwicklungspolitik? Konferenz: Wohnungsleerstände in Deutschland – Ausmaß – Wahrnehmung, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
(2016) Introduction to Empirical Research Methods in Social Sciences, with Lisa Vollmer, IGK Methods Workshop, TU Berlin.
(2015) First arrivals in shrinkage. The physical, communication and social development of arrival infrastructures in Thuringia, East Germany, Urban Arrival Infrastructures. An International Workshop on Migration and Cities in the 19th and 21st Century, Brussels, Belgium.
(2015) Do I need to grow blond hair to become German? Place Making Practices of Business Owners on a "diverse" Berlin Shopping Street., Panel The Challenge of Diversity: Does Urban Diversity Contribute to the Ideal City?, RC21 conference, Urbino, Italy.
(2015) Place Making Practices of Business Owners in the course of a Berlin Urban Renewal Program., Panel Networks and encounters in contested spaces RC21 Conference, Urbino, Italy.
(2015) Do I need to grow blond hair to become German? Place Making Practices of Small Business Owners, 2nd Special Session Retail aspects in Urban Geography and Urban Planning. Immigrant retail geographies, AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA.
(2014) Local businesses as socially inclusive leisure spaces, Joint Session RC 23/RC 28, ISA 2014 Conference, Yokohama, Japan.
(2014) Shopping for Community? Place Making Practices of Small Business Owners, AAG Annual Meeting, Tampa.
(2014) Business Ballet. Ethnography of the Physical and Verbal Interactions in a Neukölln Café., Ethnography Workshop with Prof. Suzanne Hall, TU Berlin.
(2014) Shopping for Community?! Local businesses as main features of urban infrastructure and local social inclusion. Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie XI: Infrastrukturen der Stadt, Universität Bremen.
(2013) Walking for community?! Shopping for community?! How local businesses foster walking activity and related social networking for neighbourhood residents., Walk21International Conference on Walking and Liveable Communities, Munich.
(2013) Walking Tour Neighbourhood management and policies in Berlin-Wedding, RC 21 Conference 2013, Berlin.
(2012) Introduction to Qualitative Methods, IGK Workshop, TU Berlin.
(2012) Segregation and Housing Politics in Berlin, Auto-Construction Workshop Mexico/ Weimar/ Berlin.
(2012) Leopoldplatz – Schauplatz einer neuen Bürgerlichkeit? Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, TU Berlin.
(2012) Socially Inclusive Planning in Berlin, Urban Management Summer School, TU Berlin.
(2011) Social Housing Policies and Socially Integrative City for CUNY Summer School, HU Berlin.
Conference Panel Organization and Moderations
(2019) Plenary Session 1: Spatializing Contemporary Modernities and the Postcolonial Challenge. With Philipp Misselwitz, First International Conference of the SFB 1265: Re-Figuration of Spaces: Mediatization, Mobility, Globalization and Social Dislocation., TU Berlin, Feb 20-22
(2019) Session 7: Urbanity, Migration, Mobility. With Philipp Misselwitz, First International Conference of the SFB 1265: Re-Figuration of Spaces: Mediatization, Mobility, Globalization and Social Dislocation., TU Berlin, Feb 20-22
(2018) Cities for whom? Exploring urban issues and forced migration with innovative and participatory methods, with Franziska Werner, International Association for Forced Migration (IASFM): Whither Refugees? Restrictionism, Crises and Precarity Writ Large, Thessaloniki, Greece, 24-28 July 2018
(2016) City of Refuge - Refugee Accommodations and their Spatial and Social Consequences for the Urban, with Franziska Werner, International Association for Forced Migration Conference, Poznan, Poland.
(2015) Ambiguous Imaginaries – Public Space in the Ideal City. Representations, policies, contradictions and challenges for tomorrow's urban life, with Annika Levels and Christian Haid, RC21 Conference, Urbino, Italy.
(2014) Ambiguous Spaces: Moving beyond Dichotomies of Public Space, with Annika Levels and Christian Haid, RC21 session, ISA 2014 Conference, Yokohama, Japan.
(2013) Colonization and Space: On the Politics of Gentrification, Segregation and Pacification, Empire, City, Nature: 2nd Annual Conference IGK, Toronto, Canada.
(2013) Global Urban Luxury Industries and Metropolitanism, Grand Hotels at the Fin de Siècle: Global Dimensions, Local Experiences, TU Berlin, Germany.
(2012) Urban Renewal and Citizen Protest, Urban-Activism-Scholarship: Global Discourses in Local, Historical and Contemporary Contexts, 1st Annual Conference CMS, TU Berlin, Germany.
(2019) Urban Global Governance Futures. Invited Lecture and Expert Roundtable at Hertie School of Governance for the Robert Bosch Foundation Multilateral Dialogues program (GGF), Berlin, May 24
(2018) Everyday Diversities in Arrival Cities. Advanced Research Collaborative Seminar, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, Nov 29
(2018) The Future of Urban Studies. Urban Studies Workshop, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, Oct 15
(2017) Survival opportunities of "traditional" crafts in upgrading neighborhoods: some policy implications, Panel: Regeneration projects and gentrification processes and diversity in entrepreneurship, Divercities: Governing Urban Diversity Conference, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Feb 8-10
October 2017
September 2016
Stipend for the Promotion of Women
Travel Funds, Bauhaus-University Weimar
2012 – 2015
DFG Doctoral Scholarship / DFG-Fellowship
Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin
September – December 2013, April, September-November 2014
DFG Visiting Researcher Scholarship
Graduate Center of CUNY, New York
2011
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Doctoral Stipend
(declined due to TU position)
2007 – 2008
DAAD Graduate Stipend
For an academic year at the Center for Urban Research at CUNY, New York
DGS - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie
ISA - International Association for Sociology
RC21 - Research Council Urban Sociology
IASFM - International Association for Forced Migration
Netzwerk Soziale Praktiken
AAG - American Association of Geographers
GK Stadtpolitik - Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
GEW- Gewerkschaft für Erziehung und Wissenschaft
Alumni Networks:
DAAD, Institute for Social Sciences/ HU Berlin, Center for Metropolitan Studies/ TU Berlin