I am a doctoral researcher in the working group Globalisation, Transformation & Gender at Free University Berlin.

I studied International Relations in the United Kingdom, Japan, and China, focusing on issues of international trade policy & development, global inequalities, and migration. I was a full-scholarship recipient of the University of Oxford, where I graduated with an M.Sc. in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.

Previously, I have worked on several applied research projects and served as an academic editor of the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration Review. Outside of academia, I have worked primarily for NGOs and foundations in Germany as well as in Nepal, Jordan, Lebanon, and India.

Winter Term 2019/20

Seminar Geographien der Globalisierung (Freie Universität Berlin)

Summer Term 2020

Seminar Geographien der Differenzen (Freie Universität Berlin)

Winter Term 2020/21

Seminar Geographien der Globalisierung (Freie Universität Berlin)

Seminar Einführung in die kritische Migrationsforschung & die Border Studies (Modul Spezielle Themen der Anthropogeographie) (Freie Universität Berlin)

Currently, I am exploring the digitisation of household-related services such as cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping or companionship for the elderly. I am specifically interested in the experience of migrant workers and their perception of digital labour platforms. My doctoral project explores the new opportunities and challenges that arise within the digitisation of care work carried out by migrant workers.

Talks and presentations

• „Global Care Chains Reloaded? Research Strategies for Investigating Workers’ Experience on Digital Care Platforms”, conference presentation at the Migrant Belongings conference, Utrecht University on April 23^rd 2021
• „Care for a Gig Job? Research Strategies for Investigating Reproductive Labour in the Platform Economy“, conference presentation at the Augmented Cities conference, Humboldt University Berlin on April 23^rd 2021
• „Care for a Gig Job? Investigating Workers’ Experience on Care Platforms”, poster presentation at the Politics and Ethics of Platform Labour: Learning from Lived Experiences conference, University of Cambridge on April 14^th 2021
• “Creating INTER-national conversations”, talk at Humanity in Action’s summer fellowship, June 22^nd 2019, Berlin
• “Introducing the International Refugee Regime –A Legal View on Refugee Status and its Discontents”, talk at the “Flight and Migration – Societies in Transition” Forum, Nov. 11^th 2017, Berlin

Chaired conferences (academic service)

• ‘Crises as Vantage Points for Geographical Migration Research’, Working Group Meeting of the German Geographical Association, Free University Berlin on November 19^th 2021.
•  ‘(Un-)Doing Borders. Realities of the Border Regime vs. Utopias of Freedom of Movement’, 17^th Annual Conference of the Network for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies (Kritnet), Nov. 01^st -04^th 2018, Berlin

Orth, Barbara (2021) Krisenbearbeitung durch digitale Plattformen: Rezension zu Moritz Altenried / Julia Dück / Mira Wallis (Hg.) (2021): Plattformkapitalismus und die Krise der sozialen Reproduktion. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. sub\urban. Zeitschrift für Kritische Stadtforschung, 9(3/4), 380–386. https://doi.org/10.36900/suburban.v9i3/4.724

Orth, Barbara (2021) “Engaging Feminist Geographies in Platform Research“, Feministische Georundmail Nr. 85, available here.

Orth, Barbara (2019) „Queer.Works: Dialog, Vernetzung und Bestandsaufnahme zur Situation queerer Menschen auf dem Berliner Arbeitsmarkt“, available here.