People/Associated Members

Short CV

  • Carolin Genz is an urban researcher whose interdisciplinary expertise connects geography, anthropology, and urban design. Her current research focuses on the critical analysis of urban transformation processes, with an emphasis on socio-spatial practices in the fields of housing, protest, gender, and aging, as well as the development of qualitative and visual methods.
  • From 2012 to 2022, she held positions at the Department of Geography at Humboldt University Berlin, University of Toronto (Canada), the Georg Simmel Centre for Metropolitan Studies, and the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1265 “Re-figuration of Spaces” at Technische Universität Berlin.
  • From 2022 to 2025, she was a senior researcher leading the research cluster “Wohnen in der Stadtentwicklung” at vhw – Bundesverband für Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung e.V. (Federal Association for Housing and Urban Development).
  • She is currently an associate postdoctoral researcher in the DFG Research Training Group “Societal transformation and spatial materialization of housing” at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main and a guest lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology in the research area of housing construction and design.
  • Since 2017 she has been Co-Director of the “UEL – Urban Ethnography Lab: Multimodal Fieldwork and Collaborative Research” (Georg Simmel Center For Urban Studies, HU Berlin & Institute of Contemporary Design Practices (ICDP), Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

Research focus

  • Critical urban and spatial research
  • Housing research and housing provision
  • Protest and movement research
  • Feminist urban development policy
  • Qualitative and visual methods in spatial and urban research

Recent projects

  • „Ontologische (Un)Sicherheiten des Wohnens: Psychoanalytische und feministische Perspektiven auf subjektive Wohnerfahrungen in urbanen Transformationsprozessen“ (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Institut for Human Geography, PostDoc, 2024–2026)
  • „Geographische Imaginationen: Sicherheit und Unsicherheit im Generationenvergleich“ (CRC1265 „Re-figuration of Spaces“, guided by Prof. Dr. Ilse Helbrecht, PostDoc, 2019–2022)
  • „Protest als soziale Praxis. Eine Ethnographie städtischer Protest- und Netzwerkpraktiken von Senior:innen“ (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geographical Institute, funded by Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, 2015–2019)