Residential Mobility and Everyday Life in a Postsocialist Context

• Název práce v češtině: Rezidenční mobilita a každodenní život v postsocialistickém kontextu
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Residential Mobility and Everyday Life in a Postsocialist Context
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2025/2026
• Typ práce: disertační práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Katedra sociální geografie a regionálního rozvoje (31-340)
• Vedoucí / školitel: RNDr. Petra Špačková, Ph.D.
• Konzultanti: RNDr. Lucie Pospíšilová, Ph.D.

Předběžná náplň práce

The PhD research examinesresidential mobility and its impacts on everyday life. It explores the decision-making processes surrounding residential mobility, including the factors, opportunities, and constraints influencing residential decisions, and the role of the place of residence in shaping everyday life, emphasizing lived experiences, subjective perceptions, and everyday negotiations at individual or household levels. This includes the exploration of practices, strategies, compromises, and “hidden” costs associated with residential choices.
This research is situated within the context of a postsocialist country (Czechia), characterised by a housing crisis, a super-homeownership structure, and an increasing prevalence of poverty. Residential preferences are shaped by cultural norms that prioritize homeownership, with a long-term emphasis on detached houses with gardens as the ideal. This dynamic is further complicated by polarized spatial development, wherein urban regions, especially the capital city of Prague, experience population growth and tight housing markets, while peripheral regions face depopulation and socio-economic decline.
The study’s locality or localities are yet to be discussed and determined but may encompass both urban and peripheral regions. While most existing research has centred on young and educated migrants, PhD research seeks to broaden this scope by capturing the experiences and strategies of individuals from diverse backgrounds (e.g., social, economic, or ethnic).
The PhD project allows flexibility in research design, encouraging candidates to focus on specific aspects of residential mobility through eitherquantitative(e.g., analysis of migration data, census data, questionnaire survey) orqualitative approaches(e.g., interviews, ethnography, case studies). Proposals incorporating comparative research with other relevant contexts are welcome.
A PhD candidate would participate in the research project within the consortium of Charles University, Masaryk University, and Academy of Science A Mobile Society: Opportunities and Risks of New Forms of Mobility for Czech Society and Economy.
The PhD study will be co-supervised by dr. Lucie Pospíšilová and dr. Petra Špačková.

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

The PhD research examinesresidential mobility and its impacts on everyday life. It explores the decision-making processes surrounding residential mobility, including the factors, opportunities, and constraints influencing residential decisions, and the role of the place of residence in shaping everyday life, emphasizing lived experiences, subjective perceptions, and everyday negotiations at individual or household levels. This includes the exploration of practices, strategies, compromises, and “hidden” costs associated with residential choices.
This research is situated within the context of a postsocialist country (Czechia), characterised by a housing crisis, a super-homeownership structure, and an increasing prevalence of poverty. Residential preferences are shaped by cultural norms that prioritize homeownership, with a long-term emphasis on detached houses with gardens as the ideal. This dynamic is further complicated by polarized spatial development, wherein urban regions, especially the capital city of Prague, experience population growth and tight housing markets, while peripheral regions face depopulation and socio-economic decline.
The study’s locality or localities are yet to be discussed and determined but may encompass both urban and peripheral regions. While most existing research has centred on young and educated migrants, PhD research seeks to broaden this scope by capturing the experiences and strategies of individuals from diverse backgrounds (e.g., social, economic, or ethnic).
The PhD project allows flexibility in research design, encouraging candidates to focus on specific aspects of residential mobility through eitherquantitative(e.g., analysis of migration data, census data, questionnaire survey) orqualitative approaches(e.g., interviews, ethnography, case studies). Proposals incorporating comparative research with other relevant contexts are welcome.
A PhD candidate would participate in the research project within the consortium of Charles University, Masaryk University, and Academy of Science A Mobile Society: Opportunities and Risks of New Forms of Mobility for Czech Society and Economy.
The PhD study will be co-supervised by dr. Lucie Pospíšilová and dr. Petra Špačková.