Looking Back with Postdoc Ignacio Castillo Ulloa

LolMyPaper. I’d summarize my latest paper on spatial conflicts experienced by young people in Lima and Berlin like this: To be sure, no one likes conflicts. But grappling with and accommodating them are a big chunk of what life is about.

It’s all about that space. Spatial knowledge has been at the core of the conceptual and empirical work I have carried out in conjunction with my colleagues. More specifically, we have traced and deconstructed different objectivations of young people’s spatial knowledge by looking into how they use and appropriate public space as well as produce spatial constitutions through digital practices that give way to hybrid spaces.

Looking back, the advice I would give to my past self who was just starting out in an academic career would be: Don’t take anything for granted and keep your options open in- and outside the academy.

A day in a life. On the one hand, an average working day as a postdoc can be pretty standard and filled with straightforward tasks: coming to the office, catching up with emails, meeting with team colleagues and research partners, systematizing and analyzing data, writing reports and manuscripts. On the other hand, every now and then, the work rhythm falls out of its usual tempo and becomes quite demanding and hectic: preparing and conducting fieldwork, organizing and delivering workshops, preparing for evaluations. Somewhere in between, I really appreciate the a-ha moments one stumbles upon while interpreting findings.

It’s all about the spatial arrangement. My ideal writing setting depends on the type of text and stage of the writing process I am at, which determines my preferences. Also, I have a somewhat erratic writing procedure: first, I outline ideas and thoughts in a concise yet unstructured manner, then I weave them together piece by piece. So, I scribble down ideas that suddenly pop up while I’m on the move or during a coffee break. Likewise, I am always sketching my thoughts in diagrammatic form to aid the interweaving process. At some point, I do need the tranquility and solitude of a library or office to put together the written pieces of the textual jigsaw I am dealing with.

When you know, you know. The most surprising thing about doing a PhD and a Postdoc? I would put it like this: pursuing my PhD was like having and raising my own kid, whereas conducting postdoctoral research has been like jointly raising noone’s child in particular. During my time as a doctoral candidate, I was the only one sitting at the driver’s seat. The experience as a postdoc researcher demanded that I share the steering wheel. Although the transition did come with hitches and insurmountable challenges, it has been very rewarding to be able to conduct research collectively as well as to have the opportunity to explore more personal research interests further.

Back to the future. The advice I would give to new researchers starting out in the next phase of the CRC is this: I know it’s hard and demanding to step onto a moving train, but don’t worry – you will find that sweet spot soon enough, where you can feel like that you have caught up with its rolling speed while still maintaining the external perspective you had before joining.

Author Bio:

Ignacio Castillo Ulloa is a researcher and lecturer at the Chair of Urban Design and Urban Development at Technische Universität Berlin. He is a member of the CRC 1265 subproject A02 “The Spatial Knowledge of Young Adults” and a scientific coordinator of the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS).