Research Areas

Michal Lehečka is a social anthropologist. His main scientific interests lie in the areas of urban anthropology, ethnographic methods of inquiry and applied/engaged research (Anthropictures and AutoMat NGO’s).

Within his academic and applied research he deals with various urban phenomena: community development, housing policies,  displacement and gentrification, urban movements, migration, segregation as well as issue of modernist housing estates in CEE countries (topic of his dissertation thesis).

Currently, he focuses on urban planning policies within the contexts of global flows and theoretical conceptions of production of space.

In 2018 he established a Laboratory of Sustainable Urbanism under AutoMat NGO, based in Prague – a transdisciplinary workspace focusing on the issues of social urbanism and sustainable mobility.

Since 2021 he is a vice-president of Czech Association for Social Anthropology (board member since 2017).

• Urban Anthropology

• Applied and Engaged Anthropology

• Anthropology of Space

• Development Anthropology

• Qualitative Research Methodology

• Urban Studies

• Gentrification and Displacement

• Urban Segregation and Migration

• Modernist Housing Estates

Courses

See SIS.

Contact Information and Office Hours

See SIS.

Education

• 2021: PhD. in Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University

• 2013: M. A. in General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University

• 2010: B. A., in Liberal Arts and Humanities, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University

Employment

• 2022: lecturer at University of New York in Prague (Cultural Anthropology)

• 2021 – 2022: external lecturer, Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.

• 2019 – 2021: researcher, project Cultural Capital: Legitimization mechanisms and reproduction of cultural hierarchies (Czech Science Foundation).

• 2018 – 2022: head of Laboratory of Sustainable Urbanism (AutoMat NGO)

• 2014 – 2019: external lecturer, Department of General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University.

• 2014 – 2018: applied researcher/ethnographer, Anthropictures NGO

Other experiences

• 2019 – 2022: head coordinator, Městem film festival: Urbanism and Mobility

• 2018: curator, exhibition Arrival City Prague: Southwest City in cooperation with Goethe Institut Prague and Deutsches Architektrumuseum

• 2017: research internship, Laboratory of Critical Urbanism, European Humanities University, Visaginas and Vilnius

• 2014 – 2022: External consultant in urban planning, participatory development and social issues (state and municipal institutions, local authorities, private sector)      

Research

• 2019 – 2021: Grant project, Kulturní kapitál: legitimizační mechanismy a reprodukce kulturních hierarchií (Czech Science Foundation GAČR 19-12372S, principal researcher Dr. Ondřej Špaček).

• 2018: Arrival City Prague: Southwest City. Ethnographic research and exhibition (donor: Goethe Institut Prague).

• 2017: researcher, grant project „Urban Processes in Contemporary City“, SVV 260 470, Glokalizovaný svět a jeho místa.

• 2016: principal researcher, Migration and Dangerous Speech. Beyond Zero NGO (USA). Applied ethnography of migration narratives in Czech Republic.

• 2014 – 2016: researcher, (Do) We Know Each Other. Participatory Community Development. NROS Foundation, Applied research in Modernist Housing Estate.

• 2014: principal researcher, Monitoring of Communities in Pilsen. Pilsen 2015 European Capital of Culture. Applied urban research.

Selected Publications

Lehečka, M., Nessler, M., Liubimau, S. (2021) „When Private and Public React Together. Regimes of Privatization and their Consequences in Visaginas.“ Pp. 82-98 in Re-Tooling the Knowledge Infrastructures in Nuclear Town edited by Siarhei Liubimau and Benjamin Cope. Vilnius: EHU.

Hoření Samec, T., Lehečka, M. (eds.). (2020) Pražská panelová sídliště jako místa protikladů. Praha: Sociologický ústav AV.

Lehečka, M. (2019b) “To Own or Not to Own. Post-socialist Housing Policy, Privatism and Regimes of Vulnerability in Prague, Czech Republic.” Archivio Anthropologico Mediterraneo 21 (2). Available at: https://journals.openedition.org/aam/2228

Heřmanová, M. and Lehečka M. (2019). Arrival City. Invisible diversity at Prague’s Housing Estates. Informationen zur Raumentwicklung 2/2019, pp. 58-67.

Lehečka, M. (2019a). Pocity Plotu: Teritoriální (re)produkce, normativita a ne/viditelnost ve veřejném prostoru panelového sídliště. Sociální Studia 16 (1), pp. 57-77.

Lehečka, M. (2018). “Veřejný prostor panelových sídlišť: Kolektivismus, privatismus a participace.” In Veřejný prostor v ohrožení? Aktuální problémy městského veřejného prostoru z hlediska společenskovědních disciplín, edited by Petr Kratochvíl, 93-104. Praha: Artefactum.

Lehečka, M. (2017). Micro-regional Hybridity. On (un)sustainability of the Urban/Rural Dichotomy. Urban People/Lidé Města 19 (2), pp. 285-295.

Lehečka, M. (2015a). “Když nám tam chtěl někdo hrát cizí, tak jsme ho třeba vykamenovali”: Reflexe vtělené zkušenosti vyrůstání na sídlišti. Biograf 61, pp. 35-62.

Lehečka, M. (2015b). Odrazy sídliště. Ethnographic movie document exploring everyday life in the modernist housing estate of Stodůlky in Prague. http://mystreetfilms.cz/video/odrazy-sidliste

Lehečka, M. (2013). Sídliště současné a minulé: Proměny pražského sídliště Stodůlky očima jeho obyvatel. Slovenský národopis 61 (4), pp. 351-367.