Dr Friz M. Trzeciak

Dr Friz M. Trzeciak is a postdoctoral researcher at the Göttingen Diversity Research Institute. Prior to this position, they worked as a researcher at the Chair of Intercultural Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and at the Section Sociology of Diversity at the University of Kassel. Friz studied Politics, Sociology, and Romance Philology (M.A.) at RWTH Aachen, the Universitat de Barcelona, and the University of Münster.

In their Ph.D., friz focused on intersectional, indigenous, and decolonial perspectives on social worlds of migration, mobility, and transnationalization. The research centered on how indigenous communities in southern Mexico deal with different forms of mobility along communitarian governance practices. Friz’ study examined how transnationalization processes can exacerbate social inequalities. It also examined the significance of human mobilities for collective practices and concepts of lekil kuxlejal/buen vivir (“good life”). The research was conducted in close collaboration with social movements and human rights organizations, placing a particular emphasis on collaborative research processes and knowledge production.

In their current research, friz reconstructs various dimensions of the entanglement of postcolonial and post-socialist power orders. The current sub-project focuses on subjectification practices, concrete utopia, and Eigen-Sinn as well as alternative gender constructions in biographical narratives of individuals who identify with punk in the GDR.

Most recently, friz curated the exhibition "Foreign Friends. Friendship of Peoples, Between Ideals and Reality” (Duration: 26 April 2025 – 29 March 2026) together with the team of the Museum of Utopia and Everyday Life in Eisenhüttenstadt, Prof. Dr. Steffen Schuhmann, and students of the Weißensee School of Art. In Cottbus, they developed city tours on colonial heritage and the history of punk in the GDR together with colleagues, students, and civil society actors and led the Cottbus sub-project in the BMBF-funded research network “Ostdeutsche Migrationsgeschichte selbst erzählen” (MigOst).

Research interests:

• Gender studies (especially feminist approaches, queer theory, and critical masculinity research)
• Critical migration and mobility studies
• Post-, decolonial, post-socialist, and transnational studies
• Queer subculture
• Social movements, feminist movements, indigenous and social movements in Latin America (especially Mexico)
• Gender and far right studies
• Qualitative methodologies (especially participatory, dialogical, and feminist methodologies, ethnography, discourse analysis, and subjectification research, biographical research, grounded theory and situation analysis)