Moritz Kasper
Associate Member
CV
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Since 2021
PhD student, Department of International Planning Studies (IPS), Faculty of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund, Germany
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Since 2020
Research Associate, Department of International Planning Studies (IPS), Faculty of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund, Germany; teaching and research collaboration, including collaborative research project with the University of Nairobi on "Urban Waterscapes and the Pandemic" (2021/22)
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Since 2019
Freelance researcher & consultant in urban/development research for various clients (Africa Collect Textile, KHM, Samuel Hall, ...)
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2017 – 2018
Research Project Officer, Samuel Hall, Nairobi, Kenya; research projects in several African countries focusing on migration, children/youth, and ICT
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2014 – 2017
M.Sc. Urban Design, HafenCity Universität, Hamburg, Germany
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2014 – 2016
Back Office Coordinator, HafenCity Hamburg GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
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2012 – 2014
Project staff and online editor, Goethe-Institut, Nairobi, Kenya; various international and local cultural and exchange projects, e.g. "Ten Cities: Public Sphere, Urban Space, Club Culture"
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2011 – 2012
Freelance Scientist, GP Research Group, Munich, Germany
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2008 – 2011
B.Sc. Geography, Ludwig-Maxilimians-Universität, Munich, Germany
Dissertation
Water tanks, jerry cans, power banks: Artefacts and practices of storage as part of heterogeneous infrastructure configurations in Nairobi
Abstract
Despite the importance of infrastructures and basic services for urban lives and economies, many agglomerations across the globe struggle with the universal and centralized provision of water and electricity. Especially in southern cities, basic supply is less defined by the ideal of the ‘networked city’ but rather by heterogeneous infrastructure configurations involving diverse socio-technical sets of providers, sources, materialities, and practices. Amidst such configurations, urban residents – for example in Nairobi, Kenya – navigate infrastructural heterogeneity and its uncertainty caused by water rationings, blackouts and other interruptions. One of those key coping mechanisms is: Storage. Households of various backgrounds and sizes store water and electricity in water tanks, jerry cans, power banks, battery back-up systems, and more. However, storage is rarely discussed as part of the infrastructural functioning of southern cities, such as Nairobi, and elsewhere.
Embedded in current discourses of postcolonial urban studies and STS-inspired infrastructure studies, with my PhD project I will research and theorize on urban-infrastructural realities in Nairobi as an example of Southern urbanism in the early 21st century. Focusing on domestic storage of water and electricity, I thus hope to provide a view of storage as elemental part of everyday lives and heterogeneous infrastructure configurations. Ultimately, I explore how storage, its artefacts and practices cumulate in a ‘storage city’ that is not opposed to the ‘networked city’ but is entangled with it and, thus, constitutes a part of place-specific heterogeneous infrastructure configurations that defy interpretations as infrastructural failures only.
Given the lack of existing material and theory on private storage, its artifacts and practices, my PhD project follows a largely qualitative, explorative, and inductive research approach. My research process is defined by iterative, entangled cycles of questions and objectives, fieldwork and other data collection, and analysis and synthesis. For this, I conduct case study research on storage in Nairobi, with the city as only one of many cases where storage of water and/or electricity is ubiquitous yet understudied and with a variety of individual cases of individual storage situations, or dispositifs, in Nairobi. Geographically spread over four purposefully selected locations I draw from expert interviews, go-alongs and strolls, diverse qualitative interviews, home stays for participatory observations, and group discussions to answer my main question, “What roles and relevance do artefacts and practices of water and electricity storage hold within heterogeneous infrastructure configurations and everyday lives in Nairobi?”
Publications
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Publications (Selection)
Kasper, M. and Schramm, S. (2023) ‘Storage city: Water tanks, jerry cans, and batteries as infrastructure in Nairobi’, Urban Studies. EPub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1177/00420980221144575.
Kasper, M. (2022) ‘Trickling, humming, beeping: Infrastructural soundscapes and rhythms’, Sound of Nairobi (05 September 2022). https://soundofnairobi.net/trickling-humming-beeping-infrastructural-soundscapes-and-rhythms.
Kasper, M. und Stroomer, E. (2021) ‘Multiplying textile lives. Textile collection and recycling in urban Africa’, AGATHÓN, 9, pp. 224–231. doi: 10.19229/2464-9309/9222021.
Co-author – Samuel Hall (2019) Dropping Out? A Participatory Exploration of Adolescent School Journeys in Zambia. UNICEF Zambia.
Co-author – Samuel Hall (2017) Coming Together: A critical analysis of key issues, actors and tools in the current global landscape of Family Tracing & Reunification. IKEA Foundation.
Co-author – Samuel Hall (2017) Youth Employment in Kenya: Literature Review. British Council.
Co-authored – Samuel Hall (2017) Hope behind bars: the boys of the Kabul JRC. Children in Crisis.
Kasper, M. (2016) ‘The Yard: A space for everyone?’, ANZA (East African Architecture), 8.
Kasper, M., Kengyel, N., Colson, A. und Trianti, A. (2016) ‘Absence: Architectural reconfigurations in time and space’, PLAT Journal, 6.
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Talks (Selection)
‘Everyday storage of water and electricity in Nairobi: Reimagining infrastructures through storage artefacts and practices’, 4S/ESOCITE 2nd Joint Meeting, December 2022. Cholula (Mexico): ESOCITE; Society for Social Studies of Science; Ibero Puebla.
‘Everyday infrastructuring through storage: Domestic storage of water and electricity as part of infrastructural presents and futures in Nairobi’, African Infrastructure Futures, November 2022. Cape Town (South Africa): African Centre for Cities.
‘Turning to storage: Domestic electricity storage as infrastructure in Nairobi’, New Approaches to Mobility, Transport, and Infrastructure in Africa, September 2022. Accra (Ghana): University of Ghana; HU Berlin, Goethe-Universität FFM; Point Sud.
‘Jerry cans, super drums, water tanks: Domestic water storage as critical infrastructure in Nairobi’, Urban Circulations, June 2022. Darmstadt (Germany): KRITIS.
‘(Post-) pandemic urban waterscapes: The present and future of water supply and use in Nairobi’, CURA Conference 2022: Towards the Post-Pandemic City?, June 2022. Online: Centre for Urban Research on Austerity.
‘Storage City: Water tanks, jerry cans, and batteries as infrastructure in Nairobi’, Beyond Splintering Urbanism, March 2022. Autun (France): Université Gustave Eiffel.
‘Urban waterscapes and the pandemic: Changing water infrastructures and governance in Nairobi’, Development Days 2022: Infrastructures, technologies, and vulnerabilities in global development, February 2022. Online: Finnish Society for Development Research.