Name of the project: Insurgent Berlin-Belgrade
Project duration: oktober 2025 – steptember 2026
Donor: CircleU, COIL (Colaborative Online International Learning) programThis project is part of Humboldt4Europe, HU’s national project supporting the European Universities Initiative, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with resources from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Lead Partner: Department of Geography, Humboldt University of Berlin
Partner: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory
Researcher: dr Ana Vilenica, Branko Milošević, Dušanka Milosavljević, Marko Ristić, dr Sanja Iguman Glušac, dr Sara Nikolić (coordinator)
Project Aim
The aim of the Insurgent Berlin–Belgrade project is to develop a shared, international teaching framework that enables students from Berlin and researchers from Belgrade to engage in a comparative study of urban struggles, spatial conflicts, and social transformations. The project is particularly focused on issues of housing, urban transformation, extractivism, and practices of resistance, as well as everyday forms of political action that emerge “from below.”
The project is especially significant in its attempt to question and reverse entrenched power relations in knowledge production between the centre and the periphery. In this setup, students come from Humboldt University of Berlin, while the lecturers involved in the project are members of PerspectLab at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory (IFDT). This arrangement positions Belgrade not as a mere research “field,” but as an active site of theoretical and methodological production.
Main Activities
The project is implemented through the COIL methodology and includes:
- joint online teaching sessions and discussions
- collaborative work in mixed teams on shared assignments and case studies
- comparative analysis of urban processes in Berlin and Belgrade
- a field visit of Berlin-based students to Belgrade, during which teaching and research activities continue through meetings, site visits, and discussions in concrete urban contexts
- final presentations and collective reflection on the work produced
Role of IFDT
The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory (IFDT), through PerspectLab, plays a key role in the project as a partner institution and as the main carrier of teaching and research activities.
The IFDT team is responsible for:
- developing the conceptual and thematic framework of the project
- delivering teaching and providing mentorship to students
- linking teaching activities to ongoing PerspectLab research
- organising and implementing the fieldwork component in Belgrade
Through the Insurgent Berlin–Belgrade project, IFDT further strengthens its position within international academic networks and contributes to the development of critically oriented, experimental teaching formats that actively challenge knowledge hierarchies and ground teaching in concrete social and urban contexts.