MY HOME, YOUR PROFIT?

This deep research seminar focuses on the connection between housing and the economy: housing widens the gap between the wealthy and people in financial need.

Existing home ownership conditions are largely associated with the decline in state investment in social housing and the increase in public subsidies for owner-occupied homes in recent decades - for people without assets, housing is hardly affordable anymore.

Conversely, housing has an influence on the wealth of those who live in it; housing (re)produces the gender and racial wealth gap. While the wealth gap has so far primarily been addressed in the discourse of poverty and wealth research, we would like to follow up with the perspective of critical housing research - because when it comes to wealth, it is about real estate ownership.

On the level of housing research, we are planning the architectural analysis and presentation of various housing typologies, the financial conditions of their residents, usage patterns as well as support and financing structures.

In the exercise part of the seminar, we will examine the relationship between home ownership and gender & racial wealth gaps from an architectural and sociological perspective using concrete examples of housing in Kassel and the surrounding area.

Seminar performance:

An important part of the seminar is the reading of selected literature and joint work on the texts in the block seminar dates as well as an own seminar text production.

Exercise task: Each participant is responsible for researching and analyzing a specific case study, including a description of the housing situation, analysis of socio-economic conditions, housing support structure, etc.

Literature, e.g.

Dolores Hayden (1980): What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like? Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work. Periodicals Archive Online.

Gabu Heindl (2021): Stadtkonflikte / Working Women Wohnen - Allerhand Dringliches für ein egalitäres Wohnrecht.

Julia Koepper, Dagmar Pelger, Martha Wegewitz (2022): fem*MAP Berlin 2049: Feminist spatial systems for a non-sexist city.

Nina Schuster, Stefan Höhne (2017): City of Reproduction. Journal for critical urban research.

Sarah Uhlmann (2023): Urban reproductive struggles: a materialist interpretation of housing and urban political movements.

Virginia Woolf ([1929] 2014): A Room of One's Own. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

The in-depth seminar will be offered as a block seminar on the following Fridays

Module 1: 19.04.2024 10-13:00

Module 2: 26.02.2024 10-13:00

Module 3: 10.05.2024 10-16:00

Module 4: 24.5.2024 10-16:00

Module 5: 7.6.2024 10-16:00

Module 6: 21.6.2024 10-16:00

Module 7: 12.7.2024 10:00 a.m.

ROOM: R 1102 A-B 10