About us

Mgr. Petr Vašát, Ph.D is the principal investigator of the project. He studied social anthropology, but, since 2012, has worked as a researcher in the department of Local and Regional Studies at IS CAS, and, since 2014, as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hradec Králové. He took place in several study stays in United Kingdom (The University of Edinburgh, Durham University, University of Kent, University of Roehampton) and Portugal (Universidade de Coimbra). He is mainly focused on urban poverty, especially homelessness. His field of interest is the study of its space and time, material and visual manifestations. In the project, he focuses on themes connected with urban space, social relations, mobility and time. He likes traveling and photography in his spare time.

RNDr. Martin Šimon, Ph.D studied Human geography and Sociology at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Charles University in Prague with thesis focused on urban and rural migration. He works as a researcher in the department of Local and Regional Studies at the IS CAR. His research focuses on the sociology of human settlements, population dynamics and mobility research. In the project he focuses on the number of kilometres necessary to be walked in a day of a homeless person to endure from one day to another. He likes gardening in a garden of his own.

Mgr. Markéta Poláková, Ph.D studied Cultural studies in Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, where she gained her PhD. She has worked as a researcher in the department of Local and Regional Studies at the IS CAS since 2012 and also has worked in the Department of Culturology of the Ethnological Institute of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague since 2014. She focuses on the issues of gender and culture, patterns of voting behaviour, culture development and access of cultural heritage in regional environment. In the project she concentrates on homeless women – their specific problems, their strategies of living, relationships, morality and division of labour. She likes exploring the diversity and uniqueness of human cultures through travelling, and enjoy cultural and social events and oriental dance.

Mgr. Josef Bernard, Ph.D studied Sociology and German studies in Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, where he gained his Ph.D. in sociology.  He is the deputy head of the department of Local and Regional Studies at the IS CAS. His research focuses on urban and rural sociology, the Czech rural areas, international migration and populations of foreigners living in the Czech Republic and also voting behaviour.  He concentrates on social inequality issues and various forms of spatial concentrated disadvantages in rural areas. In the project he focuses on methodological aspects of homelessness quantitative research and on ways to obtain data through questionnaire surveys. He spends most of his leisure time with his four sons and he takes care of his rural home, to which he has moved with his family a few years ago from Prague.

Mgr. Petr Gibas studied urban Geography in the University College London and currently he is completing his PhD in Anthropology in the Faculty of Humanities in Charles University in Prague, where he researches post-socialist industrial landscape, its aesthetics and aesthetization. He works as well in the department of Housing at the IS CAS. Apart from the landscape studies, he is mainly interested in topics connected with home and its linkage to housing. In the project he focuses on issues of emotions and material adjustment of home and visual techniques, especially photovoice. He likes photographing, enjoys occasionally observation of birds and as a member of The Czech Mycological Association he is getting to know the world of fungus.

Mgr. Hana Daňková studied Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, where she continues with her PhD studies. In her diploma thesis she focused on the Collective House in Litvínov where she researched relationship between memory and space, in her dissertation project she concentrates on the perception of changeability of the mining and post-mining landscape of North Bohemian Basin by local inhabitants. Since April 2016, she has worked as an intern in the project and she carries on as a member of the team since 2017. She likes doing music and tours to urban and non-urban parts of the Ore Mountain.

Dr. Chantal Butchinsky gained her degree, in Anthropology and Politics, as well as her PhD, in Social Anthropology, at Oxford Brookes University. Her research for her doctoral degree and since, has been undertaken with street homeless populations in Oxford. Her research has involved a variety of methods, over the past 15 - 16 years, including participant observation, 'hanging out', and many other ways of spending time with homeless people and she is currently writing a book about this. Chantal teaches Anthropology of Space, Architecture and Landscape at Birkbeck College London and Anthropology of Ritual and Introduction to Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University. In the Hobohemia project, she provides long-term experience with the issue, and in doing so, enables the international comparison. She lives in Oxford and works as an artist with found materials in her spare time.