Dominique Kauer

• Since 05/2022

Research fellow in the Social Geography working group at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

• 12/2019-03/2022

Research assistant in the Social Geography working group at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

• 10/2019-04/2022

Master of Science at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena with focus on Migration, Demographic Change and Regional Development 

Master thesis: »Die Komplexität des Gewöhnlichen. Eine Untersuchung affektiver Geographien der Materialität Schusswaffe in Deutschland«

• 10/2015–09/2019

Bachelor of Arts Ethnology at the University of Leipzig, studies abroad at Université Paris-Nanterre 

Bachelor thesis: »Postkoloniale Diskurse in Textproduktionen von Freiwilligen im Rahmen des weltwärts-Programms«

• 05/2018-07/2019

Internship at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

• 2016-2017
  
  Student assistant at the Coordination Unit for the Promotion of Equal Opportunities at Universities and Higher Education Institutions of Saxony

• Geographical Gerontology
• Feminist Geographies
• Ethnographic Research, Sensory Ethnography
• Affective Geographies, Emotional Geographies
• Postcolonial Geographies

PhD project

Geographies of violence in home care for the elderly

The number of people in old age with care needs in Central Europe is increasing rapidly, creating a growing demand for home care services. The home thus becomes part of new landscapes of care, i.e. the spatial expression of the interplay between socio-structural processes and structures at the societal level, which shapes experiences and practices of care at the micro level. The spatial tension between the home as a protected space of intimacy and as a place of performance of care workflows, on the one hand, reinforces the permeability between the public and the private and, on the other hand, demands that the dynamic power dynamics in the home be recognised and deciphered. My doctoral project starts in the home as a field of tension between personal life and privacy and a place of the social and emotional.

I am interested in what behavioural or coping strategies the home offers or inhibits at the micro level. On the macro level, the influence of structural and socio-political factors on the spatial contexts of care will be identified. In addition, I would like to trace the economic focus of rationalisation and cost reduction of care services. In this way, power dynamics on financial, physical, emotional, spatial and other unimagined levels will be captured and analysed. What forms of violence and vulnerability ultimately emerge in all of this, and what spatial affiliations and meanings play a role here?

I will implement this in the form of a power-reflexive, multi-level sensory-ethnographic field research project. Based on visual methods as well as everyday accompaniment, expert interviews and focus group workshops, social hierarchies and normations will come to light in view of the naming and negotiation of different (body) perceptions and experiences in space.

Kauer, D. (2025, forthcoming): Rhythmic Rush: Everyday Outpatient Care within Microgeographies of Home and ‘Service Complex Systems’. In: Geographica Helvetica. 

Runkel, S., Kauer, D. & Everts, J. (Hg.) (2025, Planned): Die geosoziale Frage. Zur Gegenwart und Zukunft sozialgeographischer Forschung. Transcript, Bielefeld.

Kauer, D., Runkel, S. (2025): Microgeographies of the Care Crisis in a Nursing Home During the Pandemic. A Qualitative Case Study. In: Geographische Zeitschrift, 3, 163-183, doi: https://doi.org/10.25162/gz-2025-0005External link .

Kauer, D. (2023): Gebärende als Lösung globaler Herausforderungen für die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit am Beispiel der Narrative des Berlin-Institut für Bevölkerung und Entwicklung. In: Feministische Geo-RundMail, 95, 7-9.

Hobbs, M., Kauer, D. & L. Pasch (2023) (Hg.): Feministische Geographien des Alter(n)sExternal link. Feministische Geo-RundMail, 94.

Kauer, D. (2022): »Ich fühle mich nicht alt!« Othering von Alter(n) und dessen Übertragung auf die Heterotopie Altenheim. In: Feministische Geo-RundMail, 88, 16-20.

Kauer, D. (2025): Rhythms of Care: Temporalities in Home-Based Elderly Care and its Configurations of Ageing in the Homespace. SPAGE Conference: Crossing temporal and spatial Boundaries. 27.05.2025, Frankfurt am Main.

Kauer, D. (2025): Ambulante Pflege unter Zeitdruck: Wie Standardisierung den Alltag von Pflegekräften und Pflegebedürftigen beeinflusst. Regional Hospice and Palliative Care Quality Circle of the Diakonische Werk Delitzsch/Eilenburg e.V. 14.05.2025, Delitzsch.

Kauer, D. (2025): From Rhythms to Ruptures: The Impact of Standardization on Homespaces, Work Processes and Bodies in Elderly Home Care. Network Meeting Labour Geography. 14.02.2025, Graz

Kauer, D. (2024): Geographien der Gewalt in der häuslichen Altenpflege: Eine Charakterisierung des Pflegefachkräftemangels mittels einer Rhythmusanalyse. Network Meeting Neue Kulturgeographie. 25.05.2024, Münster

Kauer, D. (2024): Geographies of Violence in Elderly Home Care: Gendered Perspectives on Nursing Skills Shortage in Germany. AAG Annual Meeting, 16.04.2024, Honolulu.

Ciax, K.; Kauer, D.; Meier, B. (2024): ExperiSpace: Taking a shot at affective methodologies in the context of securitization and spatial structures of violence. Research workshop #9 on Exploring affects and emotions in current spatially related research: established methods and new approaches at the Leibnitz-Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig. 

Kauer, D. (2023): Herausforderungen feministischer Forschung im Arbeits-, Alterns- und Pflegeort Zuhause. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, 20.09.2023, Frankfurt am Main.

Kauer, D. (2023): Macht Alter räumlich sichtbar. Workshop at the nationwide Recht auf Stadt Forum, 03.06.2023, Oberhausen.

Isselstein, E.; Kauer D. (2023): Ko-Konstruktion von Zuhause und Geschlecht anhand des Spielfilms ›Meine glückliche Familie‹. Lecture at the nationwide Network Meeting Feministische Geographien, 18.05.2023, Heidelberg.

Kauer, D. (2022): Some Kind of Heaven? Eine kurze Einführung in die geographische Alternsforschung. Lecture FSR Geokino, 23.11.2022, FSU Jena.

Kauer, D. (2022): Koloniale Geographien: Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Lecture for Prospective Students, 20.06.2022, FSU Jena.

Hobbs, M.; Kauer, D. (2021): Abschlussarbeiten – Schreibwerkstatt. (online) Workshop, 18.06.2021, FSU Jena.

Summer term 2025

Seminar Lehramt: Neue Kulturgeographie: Geographien der Photographie [GEOG 226]

Winter term 2024/25

Seminar Lehramt: Unternehmen und Region [GEOG 221]
Seminar Master: Altern in Raum und Gesellschaft: Intersektionale Perspektiven auf den demographischen Wandel [GEOG 421/426]

Summer term 2023, 2024

Seminar Lehramt: Demographischer Wandel in räumlicher Perspektive [GEOG 226]

Winter term 2022/23, 2023/24

Seminar Master: Mikroperspektiven der geographischen Alternsforschung [GEOG 421/426]

Summer term 2022

Seminar Lehramt: Sozialgeographische Perspektiven auf Globalisierung und soziale Ungleichheit [GEOG 226]
(co-teaching with Ferdinand Stenglein, Marlene Hobbs)

Arbeitskreis Feministische GeographienExternal link

Arbeitskreis Labour GeographyExternal link