Research Areas: Sociology of the City; Sociology of Space (and the Body); Sociology of Everyday Life (and Time); Historical Sociology
Research Themes: urban theory; body, public space and urbanization; social inequality/poverty and urban (public) space; intersectionality and space; space and time in sociology; urban sustainability und public space; homelessness; cultural heritage; urban visual culture; sociology of everyday knowledge; São Paulo (city, history); social thought about the city in Brazil.
Link(s): Lattes | Academia | ResearchGate
E-mail: fraya@usp.br
Phone: +55 11 30910244
Room: 2139
Short Biography:
As an Associate Professor (2017) of the Department of Sociology at the University of São Paulo (USP), Fraya Frehse holds a bachelor's degree (1996) and a teaching degree (2001) in social sciences from the same university, where she also completed her master's (1999) and doctoral (2005) degrees in social anthropology, with a sandwich doctorate at Oxford University (2002-2003) and postdoctoral studies respectively in (urban) sociology at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2010), in sociology of space at Technische Universität Berlin (2019, 2025) and in urban studies at the University of Cambridge (2020, 2023).
She is a research fellow of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) and coordinates a Regular Grant project funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). At USP, she coordinates the Centre for Studies and Research in Sociology of Space and Time (NEPSESTE) and the Social Research Laboratory (LAPS) of the Department of Sociology, as well as being vice-president of the International Cooperation Committee of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and a member of the ‘USP Global Cities’ Synthesis Centre at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA).
Fraya Frehse was a Visiting Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Université Paris Diderot, at the Universität Wien, at Technische Universität Berlin and the University of Cambridge. Moreover, she was a Visiting Professor of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (2012), of Freie Universität Berlin (2014) – where she held the Chair “Sérgio Buarque de Holanda” in Brazilian Studies –, and of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee (2023).
She specializes in the fields of anthropology and sociology in their interface with history, with an emphasis on urban studies, and works mainly on the following topics: urban theory; body, public space and urbanization; social inequality/poverty and urban (public) space; intersectionality and space; space and time in sociology; urban sustainability und public space; homelessness; cultural heritage; urban visual culture; sociology of everyday knowledge; São Paulo (city, history); social thought about the city in Brazil.