In my research, I explore the interplay of digital capitalism, labor, and the built environment. Using an interdisciplinary methodology drawing on ethnography, visual research, theory, and story-telling, I investigate the impacts of the digital market economy on (sub)urban space and the way we organize life and work. The San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley (where I live) is my focus, but I’m interested in tech-led gentrification, data-driven urbanism, “new economy” company towns, digital and precarious labor, corporate co-working and co-living, the impacts of the gig economy, and urban activism everywhere.
I currently work on a dissertation titled Bubble Worlds: Silicon Valley Company Towns, Inflatable Architecture, and Everyday Life, in which I examine how technology companies imagine, appropriate, and (re)produce (sub)urban space in the Bay Area and beyond.
all photos by Katja Schwaller
Recent Work:
Verhärtungen unter der Oberfläche - Mike Davis im Plattform-Urbanismus. Invited essay for the German peer-reviewed journal sub/urban, Bd. 11 Nr. 3/4 (2023). (Mike Davis in platform urbanism – excavations in the (future) ruins of San Francisco’s tech booms)
Excavations in the (Future) Ruins of Platform Urbanism: Fieldnotes from San Francisco’s “Twitter Tax Break” Zone. Presentation at the June 2023 Zurich conference of INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action)
In the Entrepreneurial Garden: Nature, Cognitive Labor, and the Corporate Campus
Paper Presentation, Society for the History of Technology Annual Conference, New Orleans/virtual, November 2021
“Durch den Monat mit Katja Schwaller” (1, 2, 3). Interview series by Daniel Hackbart, in Die Wochenzeitung WOZ, Zurich, July 2021
Love Where You Work? Gamifizierte Arbeitswelten, digitale Arbeit, und ein urbaner “Dotcom-Korridor”
Invited Public Lecture and Panel with Swiss Artist Romy Rüegger, Salon IDA 2021: Dancing (With) Robots,
Luzern University of Applied Sciences and Arts (virtual), May 2021
“Becoming Twitterlandia.” Essay (accepted in 2018) in Counterpoints: A Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance, edited by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, published by PM Press in 2021
“Stadt und Pandemie: Silicon Valley Urbanismus, kritische Infrastruktur und “System-Relevanz.” 2-part essay in the Berliner Gazette, Jahresthema Silent Works, December 8, 2020
“Stadt und Pandemie: kritische Infrastruktur und prekäre Arbeit im Plattform-Kapitalismus”. Essay in the Berliner Gazette, part 2, Jahresthema Silent Works, December 15, 2020
“How Invisibalized Work is Made Visible During the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Interview by Magdalena Taube and Krystian Woznicki, in Invisible Hand(s) – Hidden Labor, AI-Driven Capitalism, and the Covid-19 Pandemic, Multimedijalni institute, Zagreb 2020
Originally published in German in March 2020 in the Berliner Gazette and in English on Mediapart.
“Big Tech, Precarious Labor, and Critical Infrastructure in the Covid-19 Pandemic”
Invited Keynote (video talk), Silent Works Conference 2020: Hidden Labor in AI-Capitalism, Berlin, November 2020
„1500 Block of Adeline Street.“ Short essay in A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area, edited by Rachel Brahinsky and Alexander Tarr, UC California Press, 2020
Technopolis – Urbane Kämpfe in der San Francisco Bay Area. Edited volume on Big Tech and urban struggles, published with the independent press Assoziation A in Berlin and academic publisher Seismo in Zurich in 2019
For this edited volume, I curated and translated a collection of essays by Bay Area scholars and writers, conducted long-form interviews with local activists, supplied dozens of photographs, and wrote and introduction as well as an essay on on digital labor, public space, and the Twitter Tax Break area. With Rebecca Solnit, Lori A. Flores, Adriana Camarena, Rachel Brahinsky, Kathleen Coll, Richard Walker, Ofelia Bello, Chris Herring, the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Gay Shame, Silicon Valley Rising, Romy Rüegger, Stefan Niedriglöhner, and Sarah Schulman.
Table of Content / Read the introduction here
Reviews and interviews in nd Die Woche, derive – Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung, comùn, Die Tageszeitung taz, Die Wochenzeitung WOZ, Estadão, Midnight Sun, Berliner Gazette, enorm magazin, Bizim Kiez, detector fm, jungle world, Berliner MieterEcho, Trust, Vorwärts, etc.
Book launch events in Berlin, Zurich, and Winterthur in June 2019
„San Francisco: Willkommen in der Hyper-Gentrifizierung!“ Article in Die Wochenzeitung WOZ No. 38/2018 from 20/08/2018
Reprinted in German as well as in French and Italian translation in a slightly shortened version as: “Der Google Bus fährt, aber nicht für alle.” In: SEV No. 14 from 10/11/2018
“Post-Public Spaces of Techno-Utopianism: Notes on the New ‘Commons' in San Francisco’s Mid-Market”
Paper Presentation, American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, New Orleans, April 2018
“San Francisco: ‘Die ganze Stadt ist dein Büro!’” Essay in Die Rosengartenstrasse. Beruhigt in die Gentrifizierung? Zwischenberichte 002, edited Rahel Nüssli, Monika Streule, and Florian Wegelin. A project published by the Chair of Sociology, Department of Architecture ETH Zurich, Mai 2018
”Welcome to Twitterlandia: Reshaping Work and Public Space in San Francisco’s Mid-Market”
Invited Public Talk and Panel with Ellen Ullman and Dennis Hayes, Shaping San Francisco, Speeding through the Unseen: from Coding to Commons, San Francisco, October 2017