SUPERVISION
CURRENT PHD PROPOSALS
These are my currently open PhD research lines at the Open University of Catalonia’s doctoral programmes (current standing: 2024-2025 academic year)
PhD in SOCIETY, TechnologY, AND CULTURE > Biopolitics and technoscience and society
i. Age-friendly environments: Late life urbanism and architectural innovations for ageing societies (together with Daniel López, CareNet-IN3)
Both due to ‘alarmist demography’ approaches and participatory governing processes and policies searching to combat different forms of ‘ageism’ (stereotyping or discrimination based on age), Welfare states and market actors worldwide have unfolded a wide range of age-friendly environments. Drawing on Critical Gerontology, Disability Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and the Anthropology of Ageing, this sub-research line welcomes PhD proposals that explore the design of age-friendly environments, with particular attention to late life urbanism and architecture, and the transformation of cities, housing and facilities in ageing societies. We are interested in ethnographies of urban equipment such as transportation systems or sidewalk and public space designs; new housing and communities such as cohousing and sheltered accommodations with services; assisted living environments such as home-like and open care homes; and leisure and wellness infrastructures ranging from cruise ships to thermal spas. We look for PhD candidates interested in exploring how urban and architectural designs inscribe specific notions of ageing, what role older people have in their management, or their capabilities to alter and change them.
ii. Ethnographies of urban heat mitigation and adaptation: Practices, infrastructures, and experiments with atmospheric care
Cities across the globe are grappling with the prospect of rising temperatures, which could make many urban arenas inhabitable, increase mortality and cause dangerous health effects. In places like Barcelona, heat has indeed become a major problem for the city’s urban governance and climatology. In recent years, a wide variety of urban actors and the local government – together with public health, meteorological and civil protection agencies – have begun to experiment with forms of atmospheric care: from urban interventions to mitigate heat waves or cool down the city (climate shelters, nature-based solutions, shade infrastructures) to risk prevention campaigns and warning systems targeted at “vulnerable groups” (e.g. children, older people and people with disabilities), also including everyday practices of relating with growing heat. In addition, social movements regularly seek to activate existing alternative knowledge to address the multiple challenges. We wish to explore the relevance of more-than-textual ethnographic approaches, drawing on contemporary research in urban and environmental anthropology, feminist technoscience and geo-humanities, PhD proposals are invited to study the practices, infrastructures and experiments tackling urban heat, making practicable care as an atmospheric matter.
If interested, the candidates could join an ongoing case study in the city of Barcelona, focusing on shading infrastructures and practices.
PhD in Humanities and Communication > Culture & Society
iii. Technoscientific activisms: Collective action with, against and beyond the burden of proof
From collectives of patients suffering from a rare illness to mobilisations against the disastrous effects of the implementation of particular infrastructures, the last decades have seen many groups and collectives irrupting in the once sacred spaces and activities of science and technology production: From participatory engagements of lay people in expert-driven processes – e.g. citizen science – to the articulation of counter-expertise and evidence-based activism – e.g. the work on affected communities, concerned groups, embodied health and environmental justice activisms to engage in conversations with experts –, many of these practices and activities are not only transforming the who and the how of technoscientific production, but also its spaces and outputs. Interestingly, the attention to these techno-scientific activist practices has led scholars in Science and Technology Studies and Actor-Network Theory approaches to develop interesting ethnographic and controversy mapping inquiries into how these accounts have created new grounds for alternative conceptualisations of collective action: (1) going beyond the all-too-human and usually male-dominated heroic narratives of political struggles: showing the variegated roles animals, devices, ecologies, atmospheres, the Earth, ancestors, and a range of other eventful beings play in different forms of political action; and (2) considering the conceptual challenges that the interesting ‘activations’ of science and technology these agents engage in might entail to received understandings of collective action. Following this trail of thought, we welcome PhD proposals interested in developing conceptual and ethnographic studies of different repertoires of ‘technoscientific activism’ (counter-expertise, translation, issue publics, cosmopolitics, and self-experimentation), paying minute attention not only to the complex distributions and attributions of agency they entail, but also to the particular relations these forms of collective action have with the burden of proof and different forms of ‘truth politics.’
GENERIC Interests
Beyond these concrete proposals, related to my current investigations, I regularly advise and am open to supervising thesis works (at all levels) touching upon my anthropological and STS interests (actor-network theory and related material semiotic approaches) in:
- urban infrastructures (do-it-yourself, market-driven, institutional or publicly-run; but also multispecies and atmospheric relations);
- design practices (ethnographic approaches of the professional cultures of architecture, urban planning, social design, and activist or critically and speculatively-informed approaches);
- different forms of techno-scientific activism, with a particular focus on care and the politics of bodily diversity (e.g. accessibility and disabled & ageing people’s struggles), as well as environmental urban health activism, from heat to toxicity/pollution issues; and
- anthropological experimentation (experimental collaborations in ethnography and pedagogy, multimodal work, social experimentation and the invention of relations).
Please contact me to discuss your proposal.
ONGOING PhD
Alonso, Pablo (finishing in 2028). Tentacular Territories: Octopus farming for food consumption and the coast as a matter of care. PhD Society, Culture and Technology, Open University of Catalonia.
Hermoso, Víctor (finishing in 2026). Dissensual matter. Bruno Latour’s political hought in light of Postmarxism. PhD Humanities and Communicaton, Open University of Catalonia.
Completed PhD
Rispoli, Micol (November 25, 2021). Architecture in Crisis: Experiments with Participation and the challenge of More than Human Worlds (published in 2024 as Architecture in crisis: Experiments with more-than-human participation). PhD programme in Philosophical Sciences, XXXIII cycle Curriculum of Philosophy of Interior Architecture, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (co-supervised with Paolo Giardello).
Cereceda Otárola, Marcos (October 22, 2018). Desplazamientos a ciegas: Un estudio etnográfico sobre los movimientos y movilizaciones urbanas de las personas con diversidad visual en Barcelona [Blind displacements: An Ethnographic Study of Urban Movements and Mobilisations of People with Visual Diversity in Barcelona]. Doctorat en Persona i Societat en el Món Contemporani, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Palà Nosàs, Guillem (May 3, 2018). La topología de los encuentros: Trayectorias híbridas en experiencias precarias de participación ciudadana [The topology of encounters: Hybrid trajectories in precarious experiences of citizen participation]. Doctorat en Persona i Societat en el Món Contemporani, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (co-supervised with Miquel Domènech).
COURSES
Since 2023 I am part of the teaching staff of the Máster universitario Online de Filosofía para los Retos Contemporáneos, UOC (coordinating one course and the MA supervision around environmental challenges: Reptes Ambientals)
Below you could find the Syllabi and references of the regular in-person and hybrid/blended courses I’ve taught between 2015 and 2022.
2021-2022
‘Devicing Ethnography: An introduction to the invention of modes of inquiry‘ (5 ECTS). PhD course in STS Methodologies at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo (co-taught with Adolfo Estalella). Syllabus: PDF.
‘Ageing Cities: The crisis of Welfare infrastructures I’ & ‘Ageing Cities: The crisis of Welfare infrastructures II’ (4 SWS / 6 ECTS per semester). Project course of the MA in Ethnographie: Theorie – Praxis – Kritik of the Department of European Ethnology & the MA in Gender Studies of the Zentrum für transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Audio description of the project before it started | Syllabus: PDF | Video presentation of the project upon its conclusion | Zine produced as part of the Studienprojekt
Academic coordinator of Erasmus+ Outgoings, Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2021 Summer Semester
** Parental leave **
2020-21 Winter Semester
‘Multimodal ethnography: A more than textual anthropological workshop’ (2SWS / 4 ECTS), MA in Ethnographie: Theorie – Praxis – Kritik, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin (co-taught with Maxime Le Calvé). Syllabus: PDF
‘Public Anthropology: Critique, collaboration, intervention and experimentation with publics’ (2SWS / 4 ECTS), BA in European Ethnology, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
Academic coordinator of the Erasmus+ office of the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2020 Summer Semester
‘Corona urbanism: Multi-species and multi-sensory ethnographic methods’ (2SWS / 6 ECTS), MA in Ethnographie: Theorie – Praxis – Kritik, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin (co-taught with Ignacio Farías). Syllabus: PDF
‘Critical disability studies: Cultural approaches to bodily diversity beyond ableism’ (2SWS / 4 ECTS), BA in European Ethnology, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
Academic coordinator of the Erasmus+ office of the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2019-2020 Winter Semester
‘Public Anthropology: Critique, collaboration, intervention and experimentation with publics’ (2SWS / 4 ECTS), BA in European Ethnology, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
‘Anthropology: From Technique to Design’ (2SWS / 6 ECTS), MA in Ethnographie: Theorie – Praxis – Kritik, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
Academic coordinator of the Erasmus+ office of the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2019 Summer Semester
‘The sentient city: Towards an anthropology of urban sensing practices’ (2SWS / 4 ECTS), BA in European Ethnology, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
‘Design Anthropology: Practicing Anthropology of / for / through / as Design’ (2SWS / 6 ECTS), MA in European Ethnology, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
Institutskolloquium: ‘The world/s at the ends of the city. Explorations in urban and environmental anthropology’, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin (co-organized with Ignacio Farías & Jörg Niewöhner). +info: here
Academic coordinator of the Erasmus+ office of the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2018-2019 Winter Semester
‘From Anthropologies of Technique to Design Anthropology’ (2 SWS / 4 ECTS). BA in European Ethnology, Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University, Berlin. Syllabus: PDF
‘The only game in town? Anthropology and the housing and real estate markets in Berlin II’ (4 SWS / 8 ECTS). Project course, MA in European Ethnology, Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University, Berlin (co-taught with Ignacio Farías)
Academic coordinator of the Erasmus+ office of the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
2018 Summer Semester
‘Techno-scientific Activisms: Collective action with, against and beyond the burden of proof’ (2 SWS / 4 ECTS). BA in European Ethnology, Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University, Berlin.
‘The only game in town? Anthropology and the housing and real estate markets in Berlin I’ (4 SWS / 8 ECTS).Project course, MA in European Ethnology, Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University, Berlin (co-taught with Ignacio Farías) | Game developed as part of the Studienprojekt.
2017-2018 Winter Semester
‘Design in Crisis 3: Sensing like an animal’ (12 ECTS). MA in Architecture/Urban Planning, Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Department of Architecture, TU Munich (co-taught with Ignacio Farías and Felix Remter–Guest crits: Thomas Thwaites, Enrique Nieto Fernández). Programme: PDF | Course weekly progress: PDF | Final output: The students gathered documentation of the course and their project here, and this was their final presentation.
‘Technoscientific activisms: Collective action with, against, and beyond the burden of proof’ (5 ECTS), MA in STS course, Munich Centre for Technology in Society, TU Munich. PDF
2017 Summer Semester
‘Ethnography 2.0: ‘The digital’ and the recursive transformations in the fieldwork modes of relating, recording/archiving, and conceptualising’ (1 ECTS), Doctoral workshop, Munich Centre for Technology in Society, TU Munich. PDF
‘Design in Crisis 2: Coming to Our Senses’ (12 ECTS). MA in Architecture/Urban Planning, Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Department of Architecture, TU Munich (co-taught with Ignacio Farías–Guest crit: Ester Gisbert Alemany). Programme: PDF | Course weekly progress: PDF | Final output: The students gathered documentation of the course and their project here.
2016-2017 Winter Semester
‘Wild Research: Radical openings in technoscience and the transformations of STS’ (1 ECTS), Doctoral workshop, Munich Centre for Technology in Society, TU Munich. PDF
‘Design in Crisis 1: Redesigning emergency design’ (12 ECTS). MA in Architecture/Urban Planning Project. Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Department of Architecture, TU Munich (co-taught with Ignacio Farías). PDF
‘Pensar a través de objetos: Conversaciones cruzadas entre Diseño, Arquitectura y Ciencias Sociales‘ (0,5 ECTS). Workshop at the Escuela de Diseño, Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Estudios Urbanos, Pontificia Católica Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile, December 14th (invited lecturer).
‘Laboratorio de Experimentación de lo Urbano‘ (0,5 ECTS). Workshop at Instituto de Fundamentos y Métodos en Psicología, Facultad de Psicología – Universidad de La República, Montevideo, December 12th (invited lecturer, in collaboration with Gonzalo Correa & Isaac Marrero Guillamón)
‘Experimentos austeros: Los arreglos del cuidado en crisis’ (2 ECTS). MA in Social Psychology, Universidad de La República, Montevideo, Uruguay (invited lecturer)
2016 Summer Semester
‘Participatory devices: The problems of public engagement’ (3 ECTS). MA in Architecture/Urban Planning & MA in STS, Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Munich Centre for Technology in Society & Department of Architecture, TU Munich. (co-taught with Laurie Waller) PDF
‘Architecture & Society’ (3 ECTS). BA in Architecture course, Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Department of Architecture, TU Munich. (co-taught with Ignacio Farías). PDF
‘STS figures to think with’ (1 ECTS). Doctoral workshop, Munich Centre for Technology in Society, TU Munich. (co-taught with Ignacio Farías, Jan-Hendrik Passoth, and Laurie Waller). PDF
2015-2016 Winter Semester
‘Experimental Collaborations: Exploring forms of research between technical experts and citizens’ (6 ECTS). MA in STS & MA in Architecture course. Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Munich Centre for Technology in Society & Department of Architecture, TU Munich. PDF
‘Cañada Real Galiana – La ciudad lineal’ (2 ECTS). Masterprojekt Landschaftsarchitektur I, MA in Landscape Architecture, Integrated discipline: LAO + Professur für partizipative Technikgestaltung, Department of Architecture, TU Munich (co-taught with Ignacio Farías).