Barbara Meier

• 10/2021-12/2021 & 03/2022-07/2022

Field research stays in Kyrgyzstan (funded by the DAAD)

• 10/2021–02/2023
  
  Associate Research Fellow at OSCE-Academy, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Funding via a state graduate scholarship)
  
  
• since 01/2021
  
  PhD student at the Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

• 10/2014–06/2018
  
  M. A. Social and Population Geography at Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg, studies abroad at Kaliningrad State Technical University
  Title of thesis: "Karten als Mittel politischer Macht: Suggestive Karten am Beispiel des Donbasskonfliktes."

• 09/2011–09/2014
  
  B. Sc. Geography at the University of Leipzig, studies abroad at the Belarusian State University, Minsk

• Post-soviet transformation
• Critical geopolitics
• Visual communication through maps
• Participatory & visual methods

PhD project

Everyday Geopolitics: Transnational Identifications and Aspirations in affective encounters with University Graduates in Bishkek and Osh

In the recent past, global spheres of power politics are shifting, of which China´s Belt & Road Initiative is a prominent example. These shifts can be retraced not only in economic contexts, but also in quotidian, consumptive ones. Against this background, it is particularly interesting to see where people in the peripheries of these geopolitical imaginaries orient themselves. Do such imaginaries influence the choice to learn a certain foreign language or a certain study programme? Do they also reflect in material environments of students? Such effects often reveal indirectly as sympathies, identifications or aspirations.

In my doctoral project I investigate which transnational aspirations and identifications students in Bishkek and Osh (Kyrgyzstan) negotiate for themselves. In order to trace the postulated global shifts, I try to make them palpable in affective moments of sympathy. To what extent are the discourses of structural institutions (e. g. the educational system or cultural-diplomatic institutions), of which students consume contents, reflected in such moments?

Inspired by critical geopolitics, I pursue an approach that critically illuminates and discusses the non-representative effects of geopolitics beyond classical elites.

Methodological, I want to implement a combination of ethnographic field research and visual methods in the spectrum of participatory methodology.

Ciax, K.; Kauer, D.; Meier, B. (2024): ExperiSpace: “Taking a shot at affective methodologies in the context of securitization and spatial structures of violence”. Research workshop #9 on Exploring affects and emotions in current spatially related research: established methods and new approaches at the Leibnitz-Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig. 

Meier, B.: “Tracing ‘Trajectories of Choice’ in the Geopolitical Everyday: Explorations in the Field of Mobile Aspirations with Students in Bishkek and Osh.” Vortrag, Aleksanteri Conference 2023: Decolonizing Space in the Global East. In Helsinki (Finnland) 25.-27.10.2023.

Meier, B.: “The Geopolitical Everyday: Retracing Mobile Aspirations of Students in Bishkek and Osh.” Public Lecture, OSCE Academy Bishkek, online, 31.05.2023.

Meier, B.: „A Geopolitics of the Everyday: Mobile Aspirations in Affective Encounters with University Students in Bishkek and Osh.” Vortrag, Scientific Workshop at Berlin – Bishkek Artweeks (https://bb-artweeks.comExternal link), Berlin, 14.05.2023.

Meier, B.: „Visuelles Material in „Sensory Ethnographies“. Einblicke von Studierenden in Kirgistan.“ Vortrag, Neue Kulturgeographie 2023: Geographies of Overlapping Crises. In Halle (Saale) 26.–28.01.2023.

Meier, B.: "Challenges in Applying an Emancipatory Feminist Approach to Fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan as a Western Perceived Researcher.” Vortrag, Knowledge Production in/on Central Asia. Forms, Purposes, Practices. in Fribourg (Switzerland), 25.-26.08.2022

Meier, B.: "Capturing Possible Futures and Aspirations of Students in Kyrgyzstan Applying an Emancipatory Methodological Approach", Vortrag (online), Social and Economic Geography in the XXI Century: New Realities and Applied Opportunities in Minsk (Belarus), 19.-20.11.2021.

Meier, B.: "Die bauliche Umgestaltung des Korolevskaja Gora in Kaliningrad - bürgerschaftliches Engagement bei Stadtplanungsprozessen in postsowjetischen Städten" Vortrag, Neue Kulturgeographie XII Graz: Integrative Geographien. Geograph_innen und Geographien in Bewegung, 28.01.–30.01.2016.

Meier, B. (2023): Photo Voice. Caputring everyday lifeworlds. https://visqual.leibniz-ifl-projekte.de/toolkit/2023/08/03/photo-voice/External link

Meier, B. (2022): Capturing Possible Futures and Aspirations of Students in Kyrgyzstan Applying an Emancipatory Methodological Approach (314-317); In: СОЦИАЛЬНО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ ГЕОГРАФИЯ В XXI ВЕКЕ: НОВЫЕ РЕАЛИИ И ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЕ ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ. Материалы международной научно-практической конференции; Minsk, Selbstverlag Belorusische Staatliche Universität Minsk (https://elib.bspu.by/bitstream/doc/55312/1/БГУ.pdf)External link

Research Summer School: Migration Regimes of Youth and the Role of Diaspora Networks in Kyrgyzstan. Funded by the DAAD programme go-east Summer Schools, 14-31.08.2023, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. https://researchsummerschoolkg.wordpress.com/External link

Winter term 2022/2023

Seminar: Einführung in die Humangeographie [GEOG 221]