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Department of Spatial Planning
Aerial shot of a quarter in Ho Chi Minh City © Sophie Schramm

Dr. Raffael Beier

CV

Academic education:

  • 2019: PhD, Dissertation: “From the city to the desert – analysing shantytown resettlement from residents’ perspectives in Casablanca, Morocco”, International Institute of Social Science (ISS; Erasmus University Rotterdam), Den Haag, Netherlands und Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
  • 2012 – 2015: M.Sc. Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany and Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France
  • 2009 – 2012: B.Sc. Geography, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Work experience:

  • Since 2021: Postdoctoral Walter Benjamin research fellow, IPS, TU Dortmund, Germany
  • 2020 – 2021: Coordinator, PhD programme in International Development Studies (IDS), IEE, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
  • 2020: RUB Gateway Fellow, Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies (CUBES), School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 2019: Consultant, Ecorys UK, on behalf of the British Council (digital skills and platforms in refugee and host community relations)
  • 2014 – 2020: Research fellow and lecturer, IEE, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany & visiting lecturer, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2012 – 2013: Secondary school teacher (subject: geography), Carl-Friedrich-von-Weizsäcker-Gymnasium, Ratingen, Germany

Scholarships & awards:

  • 2020: Gateway Fellowship, RUB Research School PLUS
  • 2019: International Mobility Program for Postdocs, RUB Research School PLUS, Germany’s Excellence Initiative
  • 2014 – 2019: International Realization Budget, RUB Research School PLUS, Germany’s Excellence Initiative
  • 2014: ERASMUS scholarship
  • 2012 – 2013: “Deutschlandstipendium”, RUB Alumni Foundation
  • 2011 – 2012: “Deutschlandstipendium”, Ruth-and-Gert-Massenberg-Foundation

Language skills:

  • German: mother tongue
  • English: business fluent
  • French: competent language use
  • Arabic: basic knowledge
  • Dutch: basic knowledge
  • isiZulu: basic knowledge

Research

Research areas:

  • Housing programmes in the Global South
  • Dispacement, resettlement, and social inequality
  • Critical planning theories
  • Incremental and auto-constructed housing
  • Biographic and narrative methods in spatial sciences

Research projects (at IPS):

Publications:

  • Beier, Raffael and Soufiane Chinig (2024) A biography of displacement: Living through Rabat-Salé’s postcolonial transformation. In Sonja Lakić, Patrícia Pereira, and Graça Índias Cordeiro (eds.) The Everydayness of Cities in Transition: Micro approaches to material and social dimensions of change. Springer, Cham, pp. 17-41. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-63414-7_2
  • Beier, R. (2024) 'The End of Inclusive Resettlement: Experiencing Unaffordability within State Housing Programmes in Salé, Morocco.' Urban Forum. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-024-09517-2
  • Spire, A. and Beier, R. (2024) 'Rester citadin malgré tout. Penser les citadinités à travers l’expérience des réinstallations urbaines, à partir de deux villes africaines.' Annales de géographie 755, pp. 75-98. https://doi.org/10.3917/ag.755.0075
  • Beier, R. (2023) 'Autoritäre Individualisierung. Zum Wandel von Konflikten im Zuge von Wohnungsbau- und Umsiedlungsprogrammen in Marokko', Psychosozial 46 (4), pp. 66-76
  • Beier, R. and Elmouelhi, H. (2023) 'Constructing Legitimacy through Pro-poor Housing? Branding Cities in Egypt and Morocco as “Slum-free”', in Steffen Wippel (eds.) Branding the Middle East: Communication Strategies and Image Building from Qom to Casablanca. Studies on Modern Orient, 38. De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 459-478. doi: 10.1515/9783110741100-027.
  • Beier, R. (2023) 'Housing Pathways of the "Missing People" of Public Housing and Resettlement Programs: Methodological Reflections', Urban Planing 8, (4). doi: 10.17645/up.v8i4.7058.
  • Beier, R. (2024) 'Displaced but happy? Making sense of shantytown dwellers’ divergent views and experiences of resettlement in Casablanca', City, 28(1-2), 207-225. doi: 10.1080/13604813.2023.2213462.
  • Beier, R. (2023) 'Why low-income people leave state housing in South Africa: progress, failure or temporary setback?', Environment and Urbanization, 35(1), pp. 111-130. doi: 10.1177/09562478221146395.
  • Beier, R. (2023) 'Ordinary neighbourhoods', Planning Theory, 22 (1), pp. 106-122. doi: 10.1177/14730952221076624.
  • Beier, R. (2022) 'Revisiting Stokes’ Theory of Slums: Towards Decolonised Housing Concepts from the Global South'. In Genet Alem Gebregiorgis, Stefan Greiving, Ally Hassan Namangaya and Wilbard Jackson Kombe (eds.) Planning Cities in Africa. Current Issues and Future Prospects of Urban Governance and Planning. Springer, Cham, pp. 53-68. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-06550-7.
  • Khurana, N. and Beier, R. (2022) 'Towering Aspirations and a Loss of Social Space? Dwellers’ Notions of (In)justice in Social Housing Redevelopment in Mumbai', TRIALOG, 139, pp. 24-31.
  • Beier, R., Spire, A. and Bridonneau, M. (eds.) (2022) Urban Resettlements in the Global South. Lived Experiences of Housing and Infrastructure between Displacement and Relocation. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
  • Beier, R., Spire, A., Bridonneau, M. and Chanet, C. (2022) ‘Introduction: Positioning “Urban Resettlement” in the Global Urban South’, in Beier, R., Spire, A. and Bridonneau, M. (eds.) Urban Resettlements in the Global South. Lived Experiences of Housing and Infrastructure between Displacement and Relocation. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp. 1-21.
  • Beier, R. (2022) ‘“The house is nice, but …”: Looking Beyond “Shelter” in Shantytown Resettlement in Casablanca, Morocco’, in Beier, R., Spire, A. and Bridonneau, M. (eds.) Urban Resettlements in the Global South. Lived Experiences of Housing and Infrastructure between Displacement and Relocation. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp. 107-126.
  • Beier, R.(2021) ‘Slums in Marokko: Gewöhnliche Viertel’, KATAPULT Magazin, 23, pp. 58-63
  • Beier, R. (2021) ‘From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities. Reflections on the Production of ‘Formality’ in a Moroccan Housing Programme’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 45(6), pp. 930-947.
  • Beier, R., Kienast, G., Moustanjidi, Y., and Nebel, S. (2020) ‘Housing and Urban Redevelopment in the Maghreb’, in Trialog Journal, 135.
  • Beier, R. (2020) ‘Resettlement and Persisting Informality in Casablanca’, in Trialog Journal, 135, pp. 27-33.
  • Beier, R. (2020) ‘Ganz gewöhnliche Viertel. Stigma und Realitäten in Casablancas Slum Er-Rhamna’, in sub\urban, 8(3), pp. 73-96.
  • Beier, R. and Nolte, A. (2020) ‘Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections. A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem’, in Political Geography, 78.
  • Beier, R. (2020) ‘The world-class city comes by tramway: Reframing Casablanca’s urban peripheries through public transport’, in Urban Studies, 57(9), pp. 1827-1844.
  • Beier, R. and Strava, C. (2020) ‘Losing or Gaining Home? Experiences of Resettlement from Casablanca’s Slums’, in Storey, A.D., Sheehan, M. and Bodoh-Creed, J. (eds.) The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality: Ethnographic Case Studies of Global Cities. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 3-22.
  • Beier, R. (2019) From the City to the Desert. Analysing Shantytown Resettlement in Casablanca, Morocco, from Residents’ Perspectives. UA Ruhr Studies on Development and Global Governance, 72. Berlin: Logos.
  • Beier, R. (2019) ‘Worlding cities in the Middle East and North Africa: Arguments for a conceptual turn’, in Middle East – Topics & Arguments, 12, pp. 28-34. doi: 10.17192/meta.2019.12.7828.
  • Beier, R. (2018) ‘Towards a New Perspective on the Role of the City in Social Movements. Urban Policy after the 'Arab Spring'’, in City, 22(2), pp. 220-235. doi: 10.1080/13604813.2018.1451135.
  • Beier, R. (2018) ‘Social Movements as Drivers of Urban Policy: The Case of the Arab Uprisings in North Africa’, in Schoch, A. and Bürgin, R. (eds.), Urbane Widerstände – Urban Resistance. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 63-78.
  • Beier, R. and Fritzsche-El Shewy, J. (2018) ‘UN-Habitat, the New Urban Agenda and Urban Refugees – A State of the Art’, in Z’Flucht – The German Journal for Refugee Studies, 2(1), pp. 128-142.
  • Beier, R. (2018) ‘Book review: Urban Informalities. Reflections on the Formal and Informal, by Colin McFarlane and Michael Waibel’, in Interdisciplinary Political Studies, 4(2): pp. 131-135.
  • Beier, R. (2018) ‘Zwischen Rebellion und Global City: Stadtentwicklung in Marokko’, in Welt-Sichten, Dossier 9-2018, pp. 16-17.
  • Beier, R. and Fritzsche, J. (2017) ‘Refugees and the City: UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda,’ in Forced Migration Review, 55, pp. 29-30.
  • Beier, R. (2017) ‘Tunis und Casablanca - Stadtentwicklungspolitiken zwischen "Worlding" und Sozialverträglichkeit’, in inamo – Informationsprojekt Naher und Mittlerer Osten, 23(89), pp. 24-28.
  • Beier, R. (2016) Shifting Urban Policies in North Africa after the "Arab Spring" - Urgent Reaction or Real Changes? Diskussionspapiere Volkswirtschaft des Vorderen Orients, 113. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.
  • Beier, R. (2016) ‘Workshop Report. First Workshop of the Working Group Stadt/Raum of the Institute for Social Movement Studies: What is the "Urban" in Urban Social Movements?’, in Moving the Social, 56, pp. 149-154.
  • Beier, R. und Vilmondes Alves, M.A. (2015) ‘Die Dominanz des Quantitativen - Das Dilemma des Rechts auf angemessenen Wohnraum in Brasilien, Marokko und Südafrika’, in RaumPlanung, 182, pp. 40-45.

Teaching

Thesis supervision:

I am available to supervise master theses in the field of International Planning Studies and I am happy to provide personal consultation regarding the choice of the topic. I am open to theses with an empirical focus (qualitative, quantitative, Mixed Methods) concerning mainly the following thematic areas:

  • Urban displacement and resettlement
  • Housing trajectories and biographies
  • Housing programmes
  • Gentrification in cities of the global South
  • Upgrading of informal settlements and incremental construction
  • Stigmatisation in cities of the global South

Current courses (WiSe 2024/25):

  • B.Sc. Spatial Planning: "WIR üben"
  • B.Sc. Spatial Planning: F03 "Migrantische Raumvorstellungen und Perspektiven auf Stadt" (supervision)

Selected past courses:

  • B.Sc. Spatial Planning: F03 "Planung und Dreck. Eine Untersuchung impliziter Annahmen von Planung" (supervision) (2024)
  • M.Sc. SPRING: M07 "Tenure (in)security in comparative perspective" (supervision) (2024)
  • M.Sc. SPRING: "Planning Theories and Models" (2024)
  • PhD Colloquium (2024)

 

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