My research is located at the intersection of feminist,  labour and urban geography.

Currently, my overarching research interest focuses on the socio-spatial transformations of paid and unpaid care work within shifting care regimes, welfare arrangements, gender relations, and migration trajectories, particularly in urban contexts. I examine how the struggles of those who provide and depend on care are embedded within—and shaped by—these interrelated regimes, and how they unfold across different spatial scales.

Conceptually, my work is grounded in labour and feminist geographies and informed by an intersectional and multi-scalar perspective. Methodologically, I draw on a broad range of qualitative approaches to analyse socio-spatial processes, intersectional inequalities, everyday practices and discourses.

Situating digital care platforms within current transformations of domestic care work in Switzerland: between workers’ experiences and companies’ narratives

The aim of my PhD project is to shed light on digital labour platforms that mediate domestic childcare and seniorcare work in German-speaking Switzerland. In times of an acute crisis of care, where many people do not receive the support they need, while those providing paid and unpaid care often struggle to work under decent conditions, market actors such as digital labour platforms promise solutions to these challenges.

Research on digital labour platforms and the gig economy has clearly highlighted the negative impacts of such forms of work mediation on workers, particularly through the precarisation of labour. However, since domestic care work is a sector traditionally marked by informality, invisibility and precarity, the specific impact of platform companies on working conditions and visibility in the care sector remains less clear. As care work is a highly feminised and often migrantised and racialised, it is crucial to understand the ways in which digital labour platforms, as relatively new actors in the mediation of care work, bring improvements to the sector or rather contribute to the reproduction of intersectional inequalities.

To examine how these companies shape care work and affect care workers, and to assess their potential and limitations in the context of the care crisis and working conditions in domestic care, I use a twofold research approach. Overall, my research is embedded in a labour geographical as well as a critical feminist geographical perspective.

First, I analyse the discourses used by digital care platforms in their narrative strategies and advertising campaigns to understand how they legitimise their activities and how this, in turn, shapes current understandings and the visibility of care work and care workers. Conceptually, this part draws on social reproduction theory and approaches to moralising markets. Methodologically, it is based on a discourse analysis of interviews with founders and CEOs of childcare and senior care platforms operating in German-speaking Switzerland, as well as materials from their websites and social media accounts.

Second, I investigate the lived experiences of intersecting inequalities among domestic childcare and senior care workers using digital care platforms. I situate their perceptions of the digital platforms and their work in the broader context of their everyday lives and work realities. To capture the social, emotional and spatial dimensions of these experiences, I combine qualitative interviews with the method of Relief Maps.

This PhD project is part of the trinational collaborative WEAVE project Urban Platform Economies: Transformations of labour and intersectional inequalities in care services (TICS). TICS ran from 2022 to 2025 and was carried out by three research teams at the University of Graz (Austria), Europa-Universität Flensburg (Germany) and University of Zurich (Switzerland). It was funded by the German Research Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund and the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 206161). See more: https://www.uni-flensburg.de/integrative-geographie/arbeitsgruppe-politische-oekologie/forschung/tics

Since 2022   University of Zurich, Ph.D. candidate in Labour Geography

2021   University of Freiburg, MSc in Geography of Global Change

2018   University of Münster, BSc in Geography (Major) and Public Law (Minor)

2016-2017 University of Salamanca (Spain), exchange semester 

2026

Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Mittmasser, C. (2026). Gemeinsam frustriert. Ein verschriftliches Gespräch zwischen zwei Geographinnen in befristeten Anstellungsverhältnissen. Feministische Geo-RundMail, 103, 13-17.

2025

Meyer-Habighorst, C., Mittmasser, C. & Schwiter, K. (2025). ‘This big shadow that we need to turn into light’ – How labour intermediaries moralise commodified domestic care work. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. doi.org/10.1177/0308518X251377078

Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Bůžek, R. (2025). Reflektieren, kritisieren und transformieren. Zwischen Anspruch und Kapazität während der Promotion. BGL Berichte Geographie und Landeskunde 98(2-3), 290-298. 

Korsbrekke, M., Gram-Hanssen, I., Beitnes, S., Holm, T., Meyer-Habighorst, C., Dudzińska-Jarmolińska, A., Łatała, K. & Jasińska, K. (2025). Thinking with co-creation: meaningful engagement. MISCELLANEA GEOGRAPHICA 29(2). 

Lentz, J.M., Meyer-Habighorst, C., Riemann, M. L., Strüver, A., Baumgartner, S., Staubli, S., Techel, N., Bauriedl, S. & Schwiter, K. (2025). From Exceptionalism to Normalisation: How Narratives of Platform Companies Legitimise Precarious Work and Commodified Care. Critical Sociology, doi.org/10.1177/08969205241306300.

2024

Hobbs, M., Lentz, J.M., Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Pasch, L. (2024). Warum wir mit einer Care-Perspektive auf Technologien und Digitalisierung schauen sollten. Feministische Geo-RundMail, 97, 4-10.

Wittmann, M., Mano, R., Meyer-Habighorst, C., André, D., & Fünfgeld, H. (2024). Klimawandelbedingte psychosoziale Belastungen und wahrgenommene Anpassungskapazitäten bei Landwirtinnen und Landwirten. Standort, 1-8.

2023

Aall, C., Meyer-Habighorst, C., Gram-Hanssen, I., Hanssen Korsbrekke, M. & Hovelsrud. G (2023). “I’m Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets in, and Stops My Mind from Wandering”: Approaching Sustainable Climate Change Adaptations. Weather, Climate, and Society, 15(2), 349-364.

2021

Gössling, S., Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Humpe, A. (2021). A global review of marine air pollution policies, their scope, and effectiveness. Ocean and Coastal Management, 212, 105824.

2026

Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Schwiter, K. (2026). Care-Arbeit in der Plattform-Ökonomie. Lecture series at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies “Transforming Care: Sorgearbeit zwischen Krise und Aufbruch”, Bern, 16.04.2026.

2025

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2025). Relief Maps as a Tool to Study the Geographies of Intersectionality: Methodological Insights from Platformised Care Labour, Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie, Session: Geographies of Intersectionality: Methodological Approaches to SocioSpatial Inequalities, Augsburg, 01.10.2025.

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2025). Exploring the Spatial Relationality of Intersectional Inequalities: The Experiences of Care Workers using Digital Labor Platforms. RGS Annual International Conference, Session: Creative Geographies of Platform Work, Birmingham, 29.08.2025

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2025). Exploring the Spatial Relationality of Intersectional Inequalities: The Experiences of Care Workers using Digital Labor Platforms. Feminist perspectives on the platformization of care work in European cities, Session: Who cares? Addressing intersectional inequalities and the promise of automatisation, Flensburg, 04.07.2025.

2024

Meyer-Habighorst, C., Mittmasser, C. & Schwiter, K. (2024). This big shadow we need to turn into light' - How labour intermediaries moralise commodified domestic care work. Work and Social Justice in the Digital Age, Session: Implications of Platformisation in Domestic and Care Work, Zürich, 13.12.2024.

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2024). 'This big shadow we need to turn into light': How moral entrepreneurs sell commodified care. Nordic Geographers Meeting, Session: Geographies on the axes of (in)equality and (in)justice, open session 4, Copenhagen, 27.06.2024.

Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Schwiter, K. (2024). Zur Normalisierung von Plattformarbeit. Wie die Narrative von Plattformunternehmen prekäre Arbeit und kommodifizierte Sorgedienstleistungen legitimieren. Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie, Session: Plattformökonomie, Smart Technologies & Care, Münster, 24.05.2024.

2023

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2023). Crisis of Care und Plattformisierung: Ambivalenzen, Plattform-Logiken und der Einfluss auf Care-Arbeitende. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Session: Digitale Technologien in der häuslichen Care-Arbeit, Frankfurt a. M., 21.09.2023.

Meyer-Habighorst, C. & Schwiter, K. (2023). Gig-work futures. How digital labour platforms in the care sector reshape labour and social reproduction. American Associaton of Geographers Annual Meeting, Session: Feminist economic geography and the future(s) of work and social reproduction, digital, 23.03.2023.

Meyer-Habighorst, C., Lentz, J. M. & Riemann, M.-L. (2023). Urbane Plattformökonomien: Transformationen von Arbeit und intersektionale Ungleichheiten in der Care-Arbeit. Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie, Session: Plattform Urbanismus & Digitalisierung, Halle, 28.01.2023.

2022

Fricke, C. & Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2022). Knowledge Transfer and Mobility of Urban Housing Political Instruments in Germany. European Network for Housing Research Annual Conference, Session: Policy and Research, Barcelona, 01.09.2022.

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2022). Feminist and Justice-Sensitive Perspectives on Climate Change Adaptation. International Feminist Geography Conference Pushing Boundaries, Session: Climate Change II, digital, 17.06.2022.

2019

Meyer-Habighorst, C. (2019). Motive und Auswirkungen einer gärtnerischen Aneignung des öffentlichen Raumes. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Session: Urban Food Governance und aktuelle Ernährungspolitiken, Kiel, 29.09.2019.