https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213320 IRS 2026-09-14T01:51:52Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/336258 Title: Becoming “Platform Workers”: A Biographical Exploration of Temporary Visa and Worker Subjectivities in the Gig Economy Authors: Stingl, Isabella; Orth, Barbara Abstract: As studies worldwide have highlighted, place-based platform work is predominantly carried out by migrant and/or racialized workers. By tracing the migration trajectories of Chilean and Argentinian gig workers on Working Holiday Visas (WHV) in Germany, we shed light on how platform-mediated work fits into the larger life trajectories of these migrant workers. Applying a lens of time and temporalities, we conceptualize migration as a process of becoming that involves the temporalities of particular visa regimes, wider scales of institutional and social temporal ordering, and progression through an individual's life course. We find that the temporal horizons of the visa and the transient nature of platform work foster distinct worker subjectivities that make platform work acceptable despite its precarity. We therefore argue that the temporariness of the WHV is a crucial factor in explaining why highly educated young people engage in low-status and low-waged platform work. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/328343 Title: No islands of entrepreneurship—mapping the trans-local dimension of entrepreneurial ecosystems through networks of accelerator participation Authors: Kuebart, Andreas; Santini, Erica; Forrer, Valentina Abstract: This paper explores the geography of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) and provides a typology of how EEs are connected trans-locally. Although the literature has mainly focused on the place-specificities of EEs, there is limited research on the trans-local connections established by entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) that foster exogenous dynamics. Exploiting a longitudinal dataset of European startups participating in accelerator programs embedded within EEs, this study disentangles patterns of temporary relocation and maps the centrality of EEs through both network and cluster analysis. Our results support the notion of startups being locally embedded but also emphasize the flow of knowledge and resource exchange across different EEs. Eventually, the spatial network of temporary relocations highlights a mix of EE profiles, indicating that trans-local exchange through accelerator participation is the norm rather than the exception within EEs. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of EEs and the role of accelerators in facilitating and shaping trans-local entrepreneurial activities. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/329647 Title: Climate governance experiments: current practices and their meta-governance embedding in Berlin’s solar energy transition Authors: Gartlinger, Inès; Gualini, Enrico Abstract: Cities are elective sites for experimenting and testing-out new technologies, infrastructures, social practices and governance arrangements in search for policy change. The article explores the relevance of experimental governance practices in climate change policy. The experimental nature of involved practices entails allowing for degrees of flexibility and the inclusion of novel actors, and highlights the searching, adaptive and open-ended nature of climate governance. Based on existing literature in transition and governance studies, the article advances a conceptualization of different models of experimentation – policy, socio-technical, strategic governance and grassroots governance experiments – that is further refined through the sensitizing concepts of uncertainty and learning and through an analysis of factors of interdependency to account for the contextual embedding of experimental actions. Grounded in the empirical context of Berlin’s transition to solar energy provision, the research analyzes three governance initiatives that are representative of the variety and simultaneity of experiments: the governmental approach of Masterplan Solarcity, the civil society cooperative of BürgerEnergie Berlin and the grassroots neighbourhood initiative of Reichenberger Kiez für alle. This contributes to a grounded and nuanced understanding of experimental governance processes and provides insights into the need for embedding diverse governance experiments in an experimental meta-governance ecology. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/329643 Title: Climate capacity in medium-sized German cities: (how) do smaller municipalities implement mitigation and adaptation policies? Authors: Eckersley, Peter; Otto, Antje; Haupt, Wolfgang; Kern, Kristine Abstract: Although research has begun to examine local mitigation and adaptation approaches in parallel, it has tended to focus on leading cities and adopt large-N approaches that focus on published climate plans. We know little about whether smaller local governments are able to address these twin challenges simultaneously, or whether and howthey are implementing their planned policies. Drawing on analysis of 194 German cities, supplemented by fieldwork interviews in ten of these municipalities, we find that smaller cities are focusing increasingly on both mitigation and adaptation at the institutional level. However, concerns remain about implementation and the long-term development of infrastructure projects.Moreover, there is a risk that our knowledge of local climate policy, much ofwhich is based on climate planning documents, may be distorted because municipalities are incentivised to produce highly ambitious and unrealistic plans, and often rely heavily on external experts to draft these documents 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z