Abstract. Urban land and housing have become increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible for many in Switzerland – especially for people negatively affected by structures of discrimination. Urban commons have long been discussed as a means to address these challenges and as possible spaces of resistance amidst capitalist relations. However, prevailing power relations within the commons are rarely addressed in these debates, including within the fields of geography and urban studies. Using participatory observations in Swiss marginal urban commons, this brief intervention examines how attending to queer perspectives and practices of organizing space, time, and labor can provide a critical lens for exploring negotiations of intersectional power dynamics within commoning. This approach also contributes to broadening discussions on the potential of commoning to foster resistance against capitalist urban relations in Switzerland and beyond.

Abstract. In this intervention, we raise concerns about the latent authoritarian potential of academic bureaucracies to restrict or even prohibit spaces for critical exchange on highly politicized issues. We introduce the term “trapdoors” to describe how academic bureaucracies are able to silently limit free speech on controversial topics such as Palestine solidarity. Trapdoors are rules and regulations, such as fire safety measures, that normally do not impede academic activities but which can be activated to silence uncomfortable interventions. What defines them is their inconspicuousness: hidden in plain sight both within the academic bureaucracy and from the public eye. Based on various examples that received media attention, our own experiences, and some interviews with other affected people, we argue that these practices are currently being used to silence critical student and academic voices on the genocide of Palestinians. We see these practices as a potential threat to academic freedom, as they can easily be expanded upon for authoritarian ends.

Abstract. Mainstream discourses on urban climate adaptation leaders have focused on large and medium-sized cities. Drawing from the urban governance literature, we identify four leadership characteristics: (1) structural advantage, (2) high levels of institutionalised climate policy, (3) showcase projects, and (4) visibility of adaptation actions to the outside world (domestic and international). To develop a leadership typology for small towns, we systematically compare these characteristics with climate adaptation efforts in two small towns in Germany. The chosen municipalities developed adaptation approaches within the scope of a third-party-funded project. A mixed-methods design was developed to examine their adaptation activities. Our findings reveal that small towns, despite the lack of structural advantage, were successful in pioneering participatory adaptation action that is anchored in the everyday lives and lived experiences of residents. Some institutional mainstreaming did occur into existing administrative structures, whereas showcasing was not as important. Instead, exchanging knowledge with other small-town peers over challenges and how to develop hands-on solutions were considered more important. In this sense, small towns have proven highly creative in their efforts to implement adaptation action with few formal resources. Small towns take very different paths to tackle climate adaptation locally than mainstream adaptation leaders, who often follow a more institutionalised strategic path of adaptation planning. Given the growing need for mixed adaptation (a combination of planned and self-organized adaptation), small towns could serve as catalysts for initiating this process from the bottom up, anchoring it in everyday adaptation. In the context of imperfect conditions, small towns have the potential to significantly enhance our understanding of what constitutes “leadership”.

Abstract. This paper is a personal reflection on academic practices at a small state university, specifically the University of Luxembourg (UL). It was initially inspired by the thoughts on field methods in “closed contexts” of Koch (2013a), who discusses research conducted in authoritarian states and places. Although this setting does not fit the case presented here, the context of the small state and its young university (founded in 2003) is specific and ambivalent. The government has made significant efforts to establish knowledge, research, and higher education as pillars of Luxembourg's economy and society. On the other hand, the place of the university in society remains unclear at best. The problem discussed here is not that research is threatened by policing. Rather, the creation of independent, evidence-based, and critical knowledge conflicts with the overarching political interest in maintaining the country's political economy unquestioned; furthermore, scientific knowledge suffers from a lack of attentive interaction by the public. This results in the authorities' deliberate silence, which disregards critical scientific evidence without questioning it. Disregarding scientific evidence, however, would damage the academic ethos, limit the young university's aspirations, and call into question the small state's ambitions in the knowledge economy.

Abstract. Ice aprons are very small (generally < 0.1 km2) and thin (generally < 10 m) perennial ice bodies located on steep slopes with a quasi-stationary shear regime, frozen to steep permafrost rock slopes. They occupy – mainly above the glacier equilibrium line altitude – a very small fraction of the ice-covered surface but, with their quasi-stationary shear regime, contain ice that is multi-centennial to multi-millennial in age, making them a potentially important glacial heritage. In order to study these ice masses in their full thickness, a lightweight 10 m long ice corer was specially developed and successfully deployed on the northern face of Grandes Jorasses (4208 m a.s.l.) in July 2023. This article describes the technical characteristics of the ice corer and how it was used on a large ice apron of one of the largest rock faces in the Alps. It also presents the strategies we intend to use to analyse the extracted 8.8 and 6.0 m long ice cores.

Abstract. In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, class diagnostic narratives surrounding an emerging servant economy gained traction also in Europe. Especially grocery and food-delivery services in larger cities became emblematic for an urban middle class compensating spatio-temporally unbounded working days and unmet reproductive needs with an externalization of housework and risk. However, a conceptual gap can be observed between the macro-structural analysis of the crises of social reproduction as a result of activating labor market policies and insufficient public service provision and the empirically-observed forms of household-related logistics services. To address this gap, the contribution proposes to focus on the spatio-temporal arrangements of domestic reproductive models and applies this perspective using a case-reconstructive hermeneutic analysis of qualitative interviews. We conclude with a theoretical and research programmatic reflection on how such a geographic perspective on housework can contribute to a transversal labour geography in the field of delivery work.

Abstract. This article examines the deaths of migrants in the expansive natural landscapes of the Balkans, which are framed here as “weaponized landscapes” and, consequently, as integral components of border security. During the forced traversal of these landscapes, individuals seeking protection are exposed to great suffering, (re)traumatization, and even death. The discussion also considers the preconditions for such fatalities, primarily the precarious conditions in (in)formal camps across the Balkans and the illegal pushbacks carried out by border officials. Drawing upon the extant academic discourse surrounding camps and mobility studies, this article argues that these preconditions render migrants in the region hypermobilized. In a state of survival, these migrants often opt for increasingly risky routes, further driving their clandestine and illegalized escape across the borders of the European Union.

Abstract. Writing in June 2025, I reflect on Chowra Makaremi's proposal of “off-site ethnography” amid global instability and shifting geopolitics. Through distance, Makaremi shows how research can capture what lies beyond direct observation, inspiring a reflection on presumed norms around fieldwork, mobility, and academic research. Her approach resonates with diasporic experiences, crises of access, and the urgency of safeguarding counter-memories in uncertain times.