Short Description
In the cultural anthropological toolbox, (self-)reflection is one of the central tools alongside observation and dialogue. In the field research process, it is important as a researcher to constantly reflect on the movement between proximity and distance to the research field and to use this as a source of knowledge. Dealing with one's own position – in the overall social context as well as in the respective research context – is the basis for reflecting on the relationships in the field, with the actors involved, their experiences and knowledge. Self-reflection is incorporated into the cultural analysis in order to present cultural phenomena in their complexity and to make the research results comprehensible in an inter-subject way.
Especially when it comes to reflecting on the conditions of learning and teaching – as was explicitly desired in our teaching-learning settings – the self-reflection method then takes on a further level, namely in relation to university didactics and the university as an institution. Here, possible processes of unlearning necessarily go hand in hand with self-reflection processes.

Experiences
Experience from the Graz project is mentioned here as an example. In Graz, we distributed small books to all participants – students and teachers at the beginning of the teaching project. This gift should – or could – be used as a logbook for two aspects: as a “research diary for research on upheaval in the urban space of Graz” and as a “book of reflection on the laboratory character of the teaching-learning format”.
We suggested using the booklet for the following activities:
(1) Chronological documentation of one's own explorations and findings (– in writing, in drawings, as well as auditory/visual supplements are possible); (2) Search for notation/language to convey and translate one's thoughts,; (3) To keep coming back to your own work and to distance yourself from your own thinking; (4) To be able to discern one's own development in retrospect.
We gave the following questions to the participants to reflect on the teaching-learning format: How do I experience the different classrooms? What way does my thinking change, depending on where I am: in town, at the university, etc.? What is different to other courses? What do I learn/unlearn in this teaching-learning setting?
The observed uses of these books varied greatly. While some did not use it at all or repurposed it to other ends, for some the “upheaval book” became a central part of their toolkit. The provision of a specific location in which such considerations mentioned above find a place strengthened the reflection process and was repeatedly made use of in discussions.
In the teaching team, the reflection processes on the teaching-learning format took place in a dialogic setting, especially in the preparatory and follow-up discussions. In doing so, we experienced how interdisciplinary ping-pong networked knowledge emerged, characterised by openness and mutual curiosity, which drove us forward in the choreography of the teaching-learning project.

Application
In interdisciplinary teaching-learning settings in particular, simple tools and specific instructions for practicing self-reflexivity can be helpful. Such processes do not arise by themselves and it therefore makes sense to consciously “pick up the thread” of self-reflection again and again. We therefore recommend clearly defined periods of time for reflection exercises and sufficient time to discuss them. This can make it easier for the students to learn to perceive themselves as their own “measuring device” not only in relation to the research field, but also in everyday actions.

Short Description
Cultural analysis (conjunctural analysis) is an interdisciplinary and complexity-oriented methodology [1]. It is based on the notion that culture (and thus society) is produced by human activity and at the same time represents the background of human activity (values, relationships, things, ideas, views). It determines the way in which people react to structural changes, reproduce structural changes themselves [2], and yet are also able to change them.

Experiences
Cultural analysis can be described as contextual thinking. It requires the ability to think in constellations. It interprets realities, i.e. situations, events, actions and discourses as complex and controversial structures. Their factors and dimensions are considered in their interaction, in their dependencies, paths and antagonisms. It is only from such a “complete reference” that “the individual cultural phenomenon derives its meaning” (Bude 1991: 107). The complete reference can indeed be located in the conditional field of the systemic structure, but it also escapes and slips away from it, because it is fundamentally transgressive – the practices always exceed the limits of the given social and scientific orders. Cultural analysis always takes place in a discontinuous field of experience: cultural analysis is interested in the contradictions and inconsistencies of a phenomenon and tries to deduce meaning from the subject by developing new and appropriate bundles of methods and to embed the subject in complex interpretative contexts.
The key to cultural analysis is to start with a contradiction. The contradiction of a border, for example. Its paradox lies in the fact that it closes and opens at the same time. It is both a limit and a possibility. Upheavals are the same: they auger promising new things, while at the same time they are frightening due to the impending loss of the familiar. Cultural analysis does not want to resolve these contradictions, but uses them as a key to understanding cultural meaning.

Application
The students were invited to investigate the question: Where and how do upheavals in urban space manifest themselves? Based on specific urban locations that were visited and experienced, the group raises questions to be discussed about their own observations and thoughts. Investigations into narratives, discourses, objects, images, forms, situations substantiate the questions that arise. Along the lines of biographical experiences, cognitive perceptions, attitudes or behaviour, but also on the basis of the materialities of built spaces, algorithms or goods, changes that always affect people, society and the material world become tangible. Such changes refer to social transformation processes on a meta-level or refer to specific events as their triggers. Through polyphonic evaluations and consolidation, the political, economic and social processes that are in the background of the symptoms which are tangible in everyday life become visible.

Further Literature
Bal Mieke. Kulturanalyse. Frankfurt/ Main, 2002.
Bude Heinz. Die Rekonstruktion kultureller Sinnsysteme. In: Uwe Flick et al. (Hg.), Handbuch Qualitative Sozialforschung. Munich 1991, p. 101-112.
Moritz Ege. Cultural Studies als Konjunktur- und Konstellationsanalyse. In: Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften: Kultur und Bildung – kulturelle Bildung? Volume 2, 2019, p. 101-104.

[1] Lindner Rolf. Vom Wesen der Kulturanalyse. In: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde II, 2003, p. 177-188.
[2] Katschnig-Fasch Elisabeth. Spätmoderne Lebenswelten. In: Siegfried Becker et al. (Hg.), Volkskundliche Tableaus. Festschrift für Martin Scharfe. Münster among others 2001, p. 457-470.

Short Description
The space triad illustrates dynamic interaction, the relationality of people, society and the built environment. In everyday action, individual experience under the influence of the social (structure, dispositive, representation) and its grammar of action are linked with the experience of physical space. Physical and social spaces are accessed by individuals acting and communicating. In this way they become spaces of experience that are produced in everyday life and develop their cultural effectiveness here.
This actor-centred, i.e. agency-oriented perspective of the social world unfolds its effect in research processes as well as in learning situations – for example when the classroom is questioned as a place of learning. As a conceptual model, the triad illustrates the complexity of social processes. In this model, the humanities, working on the theory of action, focus on the possibilities and constraints of individual action, such as normative coding, whereas engineering approaches this through access to physical structures, in order to develop the relationships and conditions of the social. The trialectical character of the model protects against dialectical, (too) short-reaching cause-and-effect conclusions. It illustrates the complexity and relationality of living, social and built spaces.

Experiences
The spatial triadic or trialectic notion influences the empirical environmental perception and the conceptualisation of a topic as a mindset. How is this represented using the example of the course topics of "border" or "upheaval"? Both topics become tangible as a conceived and as a concrete concept or phenomenon. Understanding borders as a specific topic in their broad range of connotations – in the sense of, among other things, national borders, social norms or built barriers – enable complexity-oriented thinking that can be associated and discussed individually and in the group. When thought about in a triad, boundaries appear as spaces for social action, as socially established norms and as concrete obstacles. Understanding upheavals as an abstract, elusive topic, as something that currently also affects the global pandemic, makes it easier to develop and concretise them: physical manifestations of upheavals in urban space, such as gentrification through demolition or new buildings, allow social metaprocesses of an economic or social nature to be deciphered and to relate them to the inquiring self as well as to the social individual in perception and action.

Application
By changing classrooms as well as by inspecting specific spaces in the built environment, a group begins to speak: in a collective. Dialogues and discussions arise. The exchange of individual perceptions and spatial conceptions illustrates their diversity and heterogeneity. From this arises the possibility of discussion as a democratic practice of knowledge in dealing with the environment. The exchange of space and the experience of space always reveals power relations that are linked to the creation, design, standardisation and functionality of spaces. The moment of movement reveals opportunities for action and thus possibilities for change and thereby becomes a practice of empowerment.

Short Description
With the aim of breaking up existing structures and habits in everyday academic life, we used irritation as a didactic instrument for unlearning processes. Irritation starts with ambivalences and often leads to detours, which in turn (can) open up rethinking and unexpected paths to knowledge. Walter Benjamin called this “method is detour” and in this sense irritations and detours can be understood as guiding research.
Working with irritation is also a well-known artistic strategy for manoeuvring your counterpart (or yourself?!) out of a comfort zone and initiating (self-)reflection processes. Similar to the situationists, who provoked a different view of the city with their situational interventions in everyday urban life, we worked in the teaching-learning seminars with ever-changing spatial settings in order to intervene in everyday academic life and initiate new ways of thinking about university studies.
Interdisciplinary access between ethnographic, artistic and architecture-based approaches as well as further inventive methods formed the basis of choreographed irritation.

Experiences
We used irritation specifically in relation to familiar university teaching-learning situations:
By means of an interdisciplinary, polyphonic group coming together and a continually changing location settings, familiar social and spatial environments were questioned or even broken up, in order, at best, to be able to develop new perspectives together.
Leaving the classroom at the universities and learning in other spaces became a central moment of reflection. In Vaduz, the students left the classroom to conduct ethnographic explorations in the surrounding area. In Hamburg, the teaching project took place in a one-week camp situation in an area of urban development. In Graz, the learning environment alternated between seminar rooms at the University of Graz, a former sports hall at the Technical University, the Forum Stadtpark exhibition room, a multi-purpose hall in the area around Graz and a place of resistance against the Nazi regime (the country house Landhaus Feuerlöscher). (Interdisciplinary) team teaching was another factor of irritation: the polyphony and different positions prevented a one-dimensional allocation of “right” and “wrong”, creating a gap in which the students were asked to find and formulate their own position through independent thinking. The substantive analysis of social tensions is a fundamental prerequisite for a changed approach to the university as an institution and in leaving one’s comfort zone through unfamiliar teaching-learning settings. Topics were chosen for the teaching projects that refer to social tensions: border in Vaduz, property in Hamburg and upheavals in Graz.

Application
As a didactic tool, purposely deployed irritation has the potential for unexpected twists and turns, but also for frustration and conflict. To ensure productive work, openness, determination and a well-choreographed framework with anchor points, together with recourse to familiar structures and elements, are important. For all those involved, it is crucial to endure uncertainties and gaps in the process in order to give space for initiative and independent thinking to explore new perspectives. Processes of irritation require careful planning of space and time, which also allows for detours and provides opportunities for a collective reflection of imponderables and insecurities that occur. We recommend allowing ambiguity to be part of the process and to turn it into something productive.

Further Literature
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1996): The Spivak Reader. Hg. von Donna Landry u. Gerald Maclean. New York/London: Routledge.
​Castro Varela, María do Mar: (Un-)Wissen. Verlernen als komplexer Lernprozess, in: Migrazine, 2017/1, http://www.migrazine.at/; http://www.migrazine.at/artikel/un-wissen-verlernen-als-komplexer-lernprozess (accessed on 09.04.2020)

Short Description
Working with objects, such as everyday things, supports the creation of a classroom collective. Things can be idiosyncratic. They trigger individual associations based on shared (and culturally prefigured) social experiences. There is an epistemic character inherent in them, i.e. a power to refer to something outside of themselves, of their meaning and attribution of meaning. This third aspect denotes a dimension beyond both the social function of an object and the individual level of experience. This function can be used to approach a topic with great openness.

Experiences
In Vaduz, the students and lecturers were asked to bring an object with them to the first seminar unit that made a personal reference to the course topic of borders. The objects were placed in the centre of the chairs arranged in a circle and discussed: a banknote, a passport, a stone, a map. Similarly, the participants in Graz were to bring objects with them to the second seminar unit related to the topic of upheaval: a tomato, a candle, cut-off jeans, a menstrual cup, a yellow ribbon and much more. A moderated discussion followed the presentation of these things in which the categories and first groups were formed.
In both cases, the context between object and subject is only established through the narrative. At the same time, everyone else experiences something personal about each individual who is initially a stranger. At the same time, the polyphony of possible thematic approaches becomes clear. The common discussion by everyone about the objects and stories leads to a first discussion on the facets and contradictions of the seminar topic. The students are invited not to ‘submit’ to given meanings, but to independently participate in the ‘production’ of meaning.

Application
The technique of speaking about a topic using an object opens up the topic in an unagitated way and presents it from multiple perspectives. Through the joint activity of laying down the objects, the resulting assemblage and the intercommunication about it, a social space is created in the classroom, which, if everyone – and this does not have to be in agreement – has their say, is something experienced and produced together. The objects offer the possibility of a non-binding approach to topics beyond what is plannable. These topics can be returned to or processed at a later stage.

Short Description
Based on the approaches of critical pedagogy (Hooks, Freire), dialogue and communication founded on mutual respect and openness are prerequisites for forming a community of teachers and learners. But what does it mean to create a community, a collective, in a short period of time in a teaching-learning format? And how can processes of group formation be promoted?

Experiences
The Hamburg case study was designed as an intensive camp and project situation outside of university “everyday life”. Group formation processes could be intensified spatially and temporally and take place “as if by themselves”. In Graz, the time together was spread over one semester, which is why the creation of an emancipatory teaching and learning community as a temporary research collective was a dedicated goal. We saw the social relationship both inside and outside of the courses as an integral factor for success.
One approach was interdisciplinary team teaching, which was based on equality and recognition. The aim was to create role awareness and to consciously use the interdisciplinary expertise in role play situations. It became clear that moderation and translation were the central tasks: choreographing polyphony, groups, individuals and motivations.
We designed the learning setting according to the following parameters: communication with mutual respect; personal responsibility in the organisation and implementation of the research projects; multi-sectoral input and expertise gained from experience in the field; Expertise in thinking together. Support offered by the lecturers had to be independently requested and there was an autonomous space for self-determined use.

Application
When creating a temporary teaching-learning community, we recommend planning sufficient space and time for group formation processes and their reflection.
Free spaces that encourage personal initiative and responsibility, as well as informal settings for exchange, whether as get-togethers, through cooking together after the teaching unit or through the provision of autonomous spaces, appear to be essential.

Further Literature
hooks, bell (1994): Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York/London: Routledge.
Paulo Freire: Pädagogik der Unterdrückten. Bildung als Praxis der Freiheit, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1973.
Paulo Freire & Ira Shor: What is the "Dialogical Method“ of teaching?, in: The Journal of Education, Vol. 169, No. 3, Critical Teaching and Liberatory Education (1987), p. 11-31.

Short Description
The overall project was designed as an interdisciplinary approach and thus all three sub-projects in Hamburg, Vaduz and Graz are based on interdisciplinary multilingualism. This required coming together for collaboration, thinking and rethinking as well as diverse translation services. The challenge of (inter-)disciplinary, cognitive and methodical multilingualism is the pivotal point of experiences of unlearning, which repeatedly requires the spontaneous invention of situational methods. In addition, thematic or experience-related levels of multilingualism were also a factor at all three project locations.

Experiences
Different forms of public sphere and linguistic habits came together in Hamburg – the interlinking nature of the project required, among other things, translations between academic, urban planning and civil society discourse.
In Vaduz, students of economics/entrepreneurship and architecture were urged to try out ethnographic methods and get to know the perspective of cultural analysis. On the part of the students, the change of perspective provoked by the interdisciplinary approach was described as a challenge and at the same time as a liberating aspect “of thinking outside the box”.
In Graz, due to the international composition and actual multilingualism of the students, we initiated a “new” form of interaction: SELT – Solidaric-Eye-Level-Translation. By means of this approach, everyone was encouraged to use their (imperfect) knowledge of English as a common language. This made it necessary to accept simplified forms of expression. A direct effect of this was the search for concise formulations for complex issues. At the same time, this meant an exercise in unlearning of the elaborate academic code, in which language and language skills are considered to be signs of intellectual ability (Bourdieu 2001). The diverse cultural/international backgrounds of the students were consciously used to approach the research topic from different perspectives while also establishing references to individual realms of experience.

Application
Applying multilingualism on different levels requires a fundamental openness to approach one another, to rethink, translate and to view detours as something that generates knowledge. It takes time to understand each other, to translate things into one's own professional context and language and to find or develop a common language.

Further Literature
Bourdieu, Pierre (2001): Die konservative Schule. Die soziale Chancenungleichheit gegenüber Schule und Kultur, in: Ders.: Wie die Kultur zum Bauern kommt. Über Bildung, Schule und Politik, hg. von Margareta Steinrücke, Hamburg.

Short Description
Originating from geography, cartography serves to measure territories, spaces or spatial structures in the broadest sense – a practice that can also be applied to spaces for thinking or other mental landscapes, especially in the concept of mapping. Critical geography (Harley) has taught us since the 1980s that an objective representation of spatial structures is not possible due to the entanglement of social space production, subjective experience and the materiality of spatial boundaries. The act of mapping itself creates space. Within collective mapping processes, the relationship between the object being investigated, the result and the investigator becomes more complicated. Who are the authors of the map? How can the interpretation of that which is mapped be argued scientifically and thus legitimised as a political or social basis for decision-making? When is a map complete and who owns the levels of knowledge it contains?

Experiences
In Hamburg, three mappings were created on-site during a one-week mapping camp at a former recycling centre – 13 students, four lecturers and two research assistants participated. After the later demolition of some parts of the building in the courtyard, the mappings on brick walls, steel doors and the barricade fence also disappeared. As narratives about a changing urban space, the three maps form specific snapshots of a research process based on three thematic focal points of spatial boundary measurement, appropriation rules and constellations of actors/actants. This gave students, teachers and research-assistants instructions for an interdisciplinary exchange on forms of property between urban design and architecture and cultural studies. The central point of discussion in establishing knowledge based on the three mappings was the interpretation of the drawing process as explorative self-assignment. Who or what belongs in the space and how are affiliation and accessibility negotiated?

Application
In preparing for a mapping camp, it is important to define a framework for action within which collective decision-making processes determine further work. In five working days: Warm-up, Action, Transfer, Consolidation and Performance, a mapping test set up can be structured in such a way that the group first finds its bearings on-site, then appropriates the space through various actions, followed by interconnecting different spaces of knowledge, and gains clarity regarding the central findings in order to ultimately convey these finding to the outside world. See also: Group formation.

Short Description
The empirical research in cultural studies contexts is characterised by a process-oriented way of working. Detours and crises are an integral part of the research setting. It should by no means be seen as a shortcoming that many projects are realised differently to how they were initially planned. It is of central importance to make adjustments in the research design understandable and to document them. The constant revision and adjustment of processes becomes a declared way of working.

Experiences
In the Hamburg “Micromappings” learning research project, the different working phases of the seminar were clearly structured in advance: a critical examination of theoretical literature (colloquium) was followed by a five-day camp week as a core component of the seminar in which data was collected and processed (field research). In the following documentation phase, the students were asked to visually prepare and archive the collected materials. The camp week itself also followed a previously defined dynamic (Day 1: Warm-up, Day 2: Action, Day 3: Transfer, Day 4: Consolidation and Day 5: Performance) and was geared towards the production of research results. Within this clear framework for action, regular meetings were held where critical reviews were carried out together and collective decisions were made about how to proceed. An essential instrument of the process was the format of self-assignment by the students: where do we stand in the research process? How do we want to proceed? What are we going to do? What isn't working right? Who is doing what? What are meaningful units of action?

Application
In research processes which is characterised by openness, flexibility is also required at a methodological level. The (methodical) approach should always be critically reflected upon and, if necessary, adapted, especially in research processes where investigation and evaluation phases overlap. A clear framework should exist, moments of critical revision should be used productively and step-by-step documentation of the procedure should be included.

Short Description
For the social dynamics of a teaching-learning process in the sense of creating a temporary collective, the question of spaces is of outstanding importance. In this regard, reference should not only be made to the seminar room as a classical space for conveying knowledge, but also especially to those learning spaces that are available outside of the regulated “contact hours” between students and teachers. From Bauhaus via Black Mountain College to the classrooms for drawing found in many architecture faculties, such informal spaces function as social catalysts in which social learning processes take place in an informal and peer-to-peer manner and content-related discussions and everyday life can be intertwined.

Experiences
In Graz, an empty university room was made available to the students, which they could use at their own discretion during the research semester. Design tools and architectural advice were made available. To provide a structural framework, a voluntary “autonomous laboratory” was set up to alternate with the bi-monthly course. However, very specific obstacles (limited accessibility, interference from a neighbouring seminar room, etc.) prevented more extensive use and ultimately the room was hardly adapted in any way in terms of design. Nevertheless, the project groups used it again and again – also to allow the students to reflect independently and critically on the process of the course.
As part of the project week in Hamburg, the camp at the research location was of great importance as a self-determined space. Processes concerning group formation, collective organisation and logistics of everyday life as well as continuous reflection on the course merged. The extra-ordinary character of the project course was reinforced by this spatial framework and influenced the group dynamics and thus the success of the course.

Application
Learning is not only a temporal, but is also always a social and thus spatial process. Where and under what conditions this takes place limits and enables the learning process. In this sense, it also makes a big difference whether a course is conceived as the mere sum of the contact hours or whether the spaces between the units are spatially designed: which rooms are open to the students? Where can we learn, work and network together? What opportunities for encounters and in-depth activities exist?
In a spatial research setting, a learning process always takes place in friction with certain spatial experiences. In this context, an open provision of self-managed spaces for free use and design, in which it is possible, for example, to leave things, where people can get to know each other, where growth and consolidation can happen, this creates new possibilities for the development of collective (research) processes.

Short Description
In the humanities (as in qualitative urban research) walking is counted as a central tool of exploration. There are many references to this: thinking while walking, like in the gardens of the Akademos (of the renowned Dusseldorf Art Academy) and the artistic practice of the situationists. Walking involves the techniques and rhythms of strolling, wandering around, drifting off in the sense of a detour and perhaps stumbling. Regarding the significance of walking as an everyday practice and to sharpen our perception of the surrounding space, we understand walking primarily as a means of active and self-empowered local positioning and thus of (temporary) self-enrolment in the urban space. Accordingly, walking can be described as a collective experiment of activist interventions and subversive actions in public space. Walking itself becomes a tool for positioning and becoming visible, in the process of which new collectives and social practices can arise.

Experiences
The city is a space of experience whose potentials and characteristics only become perceptible through use. Moving around the space by walking always means appropriating the space as well as generally turning it into a (social) space.
In ValHuman's three practical projects, in each project we used different formats of walking in order to understand the complexity of urban spaces against the background of subjective experiences. In each project, the research began with its own type of inspection: in Vaduz, the students undertook ethnographic explorations of boundaries and transitions in urban space. In Hamburg, a first rapprochement to the site of the former recycling centre took place by means of a soundwalk, an auditory inspection of the space. In Graz, the students moved continuously in and between different physical and institutional spaces. This reconnaissance was carried out by means of a series of instructions that were reflected in walking alone or in pairs, in the dispersion throughout the space and in the collective gathering of subjective experiences.

Application
Walking marks a specific way of dealing with time: in a general state of hypermobility, movement and the body in the space act like slow motion, an alternative to efficiency, optimisation and the speed of social conditions. Walking takes place in the here and now, in situ. The evident presence, the perceptible presence, creates a specific relationship between the subject and the surrounding space. And ultimately, walking is an expression of a self-determined action. Action in the sense of Hannah Arendt is understood as a process of communication and political interaction that takes place in public space. Walking in the space can thus become an expression of a political stance.

Further Literature
Lisiak, Agata / Cox, Reece / Tienes, Flavia M. / Zbinovsky Braddel, Sophia (2019): A city coming into being. Walking in Berlin with Franz Hessel and Marshall Berman. In: CITY 22/5, 1-17.
Rolshoven, Johanna (2017): Gehen in der Stadt. In: Justin Winkler (Hg.), Gehen in der Stadt. Ein Lesebuch zur Poetik und Rhetorik des städtischen Gehens. Weimar: Jonas Verlag, 95-112.
Westerkamp, Hildegard (2007): Soundwalking. In Angus Carlyle (Hg.) Autumn Leaves, Sound and the Environment in Artistic Parctices. Paris: Double Entendre, CRISAP, 49-54