Maya Borean holds a Master’s degree in Urban Studies from Malmö University, through which she consolidated an interest in grassroots urbanism and alternative tenure. Throughout her Master’s, her research focused on squatting, urban vacancy and guardianship, collective city-making, and care relationships between individuals and their spaces. She is open to developing these topics further through future research, academic engagement, and collaborations.

Her master’s thesis explores the ways in which squats in the Netherlands function as infrastructures of care. It further considers how this allows queer squatters to engage in communal and reciprocal care practices, while also reflecting on how the temporalities of squats influence interpersonal and spatial care relationships.

Throughout her research, Maya keeps an interdisciplinary and multifaceted methodological approach. Spanning from topics such as urbanism to socio-political theory, she uses qualitative foundations enriched by less conventional methodologies, such as zine-making and photo-elicitation.