Miro’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of urban inequality, with three main areas of interest:
Social Class and Urban Inequality
Miro’s work seeks to shed light on how contemporary urban life is shaped by social class divisions and their intersections with race and gender. In previous years, his research has particularly focused on the relationship between urban marginality, social mobility, and the meritocratic ideal. Combining documental research and narrative interviews, his research has explored the contradictions between the lofty promises of socio-spatial mobility, its politics and its complex manifestations in people’s lived experiences.
Symbolic Power and Urban Inequality
Another important area of Miro's research on urban inequality is the study of what might be called "consequential categorisation". How do certain urban terms and categories become powerful and taken for granted? And how can a focus on the symbolic dimension help us to better understand the production and reproduction of power relations in the city? While his earlier work focused particularly on territorial stigmatisation, he is now extending this research to "prestigious" neighbourhoods (in 2024, Miro’s work on "Nobelviertel" received funding from the DAAD).
Wealth and Urban Inequality
Alongside his current interest in the study of "prestigious neighbourhoods", Miro has recently turned his attention to the production and reproduction of wealthy neighbourhoods more broadly. Emphasising the importance of a historical and relational understanding, he is particularly interested in how these spaces of concentrated affluence shape wider social and urban transformations. Put simply, how do wealthy neighbourhoods impact other, less privileged city-dwellers and, indeed, the rest of the city?