Key research themes
1. How do open-air markets function as socially embedded spaces influencing community dynamics and urban identity?
This theme investigates how open-air markets serve beyond their economic role as sites of social interaction, community building, and cultural identity formation. Research under this theme highlights the interplay between market actors, social relations, and urban space, emphasizing the markets’ role as public and community places that reflect and shape the social fabric of cities.
2. What roles do open-air markets and market halls play in urban food systems and city spatial development?
This theme focuses on the transformation and spatial integration of markets within urban food supply infrastructures and city planning. It covers how historic and contemporary market halls contribute to public health, urban regeneration, social accessibility to food, and socio-spatial identity, especially in relation to urban expansion and policy-driven redevelopment.
3. How do economic, institutional, and design processes shape open-air markets and their role in economic and ecological sustainability?
This theme explores market design principles, institutional influences, and adaptive governance affecting open-air and other marketplaces. Research here addresses markets as economically embedded social constructions, wicked opportunities responding to complex systemic challenges (like pandemics and climate change), and the use of market mechanisms for public goods and pollution control. It further considers the performativity of markets shaped by economists and policymakers.