Transformation and Participation

We create a greater understanding of the lived and experienced relationships of different actors to questions of transformation, justice and participation in the region.

JTC Team A1 Strukturwandel &<br />
Partizipation: Gruppenbild – Dr. Jan Winkler, Hermine Bär, Cheyenne Wolf, Pia Kahlfuß, nicht abgebildet: Felix Schiedlowski

The A1 innovation team develops practice-theoretical perspectives on transformation as a lived experience. Using qualitative, creative and participatory research methods, we shed light on the everyday, situated and emotional dimensions of regional transformation processes. In this way, we create a greater understanding of the lived and experienced relationships of different actors to questions of transformation, justice and participation in the region.

We understand transformation not as a fixed ‘program’, but as a contested, dynamic process that emerges out of spatially embedded relationships. Thus, we analyze the various practices through which different actors enter into a relation with matters of transformation, justice and participation in the region. We conceptualize this “relating” as multimodal: an everyday, socio-spatially differentiated, emotional experience of, and influence on, transformational dynamics. A praxeological transformation research will focus on the informal ways of dealing with transformation that take place ‘under the radar’ of dominant programs and discourses. In this way, it can (1) enlarge established understandings of transformation and participation, opening up alternative potentials for participation, (2) uncover tensions between different aspects of social change and (3) provide impetus for the social mediation of transformation.

Loss – A Perspective on Socio-Ecological Transformation in the City

Drawing on empirical research conducted among others in Halle (Saale), the project explores the significance of experiences, practices, and sites of loss within processes of socio-ecological transformation in cities.

Ambiguous Liminalities – Emotional Attachments and Socially Contested Potentials of Vacant Spaces in a Structural Change Region

What happens to buildings that are no longer in use—yet have not disappeared? In regions undergoing structural transformation, vacancy is more than mere dereliction or a promise of capital accumulation: it constitutes an emotional, social, and political in-between. This project explores the ambivalent potentials of such spaces, situated between memory, appropriation, and exclusion.

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We cordially invite you

Here you can find all the events where you can meet our research team. We look forward to your visit!

All Events

08 March 2026

Exhibition opening: “Women in structural change”

The exhibition combines regional practice and scientific perspective, portrays committed women from the region, and highlights belonging, scope for action, and equality.

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JTC Projektbüro, Große Steinstraße 79
Halle (Saale), Sachsen-Anhalt 06108 Germany

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