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Short abstract:

This paper considers how air pollution is (dis)placed and so defined as a matter of concern when associated with a specific location. Taking Berlin as case study, it shows the air quality problem involves entrenched local-national tensions and practices of identity-making, belonging, and exclusion.

Long abstract:

Literature in science and technology studies (STS) has emphasized the subjective and cultural experience of air pollution beyond chemical exposure and quantitative health risks. Following Mary Douglas’s (1966) concept of dirt – matter out of place – this paper demonstrates the role of location in defining the pollution: it means something that somewhere gets deemed “polluted,” beyond its mere geographical coordinates. I take Berlin as a case for interrogating the entanglement of the city’s identity and notions of belonging and exclusion in the construction of the air quality problem and ensuing political developments. Concerns there about nitrous oxide and particulate matter involve a historical encounter between two place-based cultural imaginaries: Berliner Luft and the German Auto. The drama unfolding after Volkswagen’s dieselgate scandal widened divides between local and national affiliations, as seen in controversies over car-free zoning in the city center and a freeway extension that would purposefully bulldoze some of Berlin’s well-known nightclubs. In Berlin, the rise of citizen science, referencing of more stringent EU and WHO pollution standards compared to national ones to shape policy, and complaints about car traffic can all be seen as ways of asserting local identity through the pollution problem. What is shown is that more than just urban health risks are at stake: whose economy, culture, air, and freedom matters as well.