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- Convenors:
-
Karin Bürkert
(University of Tübingen)
Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland)
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- Stream:
- Urban
- Location:
- VG 4.103
- Start time:
- 27 March, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Understanding urban space as a result of negotiations, interventions and cultural (re)production, contributors examine practices and discourses of planning, creating and using urban spaces in negotiation and contest between civil society, economy and the government.
Long Abstract:
City development involves several kinds of actors, groups, initiatives and institutions, each with their own vision and agenda of an appropriate materialization of socio-spatial standards and living conditions. Political, ecological, sociocultural and economic changes and challenges affect the visions and strategies of the involved stakeholders. Thinking of political and social transformations during the last decades, stigmatization and marginalization along class, race, ethnicity and gender lines, the change from Fordism to Post-Fordism, financial crises, social restructuring, environmental disasters and of course war and migration create challenges that affect the production of urban space. They also influence the governance of cities in ways of (re)distribution, redefinition and valuation of space. At the same time, it effects the way cities are constructed and imagined in terms of how people think about their rights to housing and living in the city, the planning of new commercial and residential complexes as well as public space, but also the preservation of existing neighborhoods and historic assets.
This panel aims to introduce different examples from ethnographic research that attend to competing actors who contest and facilitate urban development from below. What are the problems and successes of such projects on an every-day level, considering traditions, the phase of development and its aftermath?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Eva Youkhana (University of Bonn)
Paper short abstract:
Against neoliberal urbanism creative forms of protest experience a renaissance. Cities are shaped by squatting, protest-camps and street art against commercialization, control, displacement. At the example of Madrid, it is shown how urban forms serve in struggles for the right to the city.
Paper long abstract:
Madrid is undergoing an urban transformation process. Economic growth primarily backed by the real estate and service sectors has introduced the city as an international hub for business and commerce. To demonstrate the new centrality neoliberal urban governance strategies such as revaluation and progressive tertiarisation transform the historic city center to an arena for consumption, urban spectacle and tourism. At the same time demographic pressure and segregation reconfigure the dynamics of the socio-spatial urban fabric.
Against the backdrop of neoliberal urbanism creative forms of protest have experienced a worldwide renaissance in recent years. The cities' public spaces are increasingly shaped by its symbolic appropriation through squatting, protest-camps and stencils conveying political messages against commercialization, control and displacement. But how is agency produced by those people who are widely excluded from decision making? Which role does the public urban space play for the production of belonging and the construction of a social collective? Giving the example of Madrid, it is shown how urban forms that shape and reflect power relations serve the urban dwellers in their everyday struggles for the right to the city. The paper also illustrates how solidarity networks and a culture of protest are built by acts of citizenship during the real estate and subprime crisis.
Anja Braehmer (Universität Tübingen)
Paper short abstract:
The presentation seeks to analyze diverse approaches to urban development in Nuremberg. It will focus on negotiations between a group of creative residents of the former warehouse Quelle and the city administration as well as on the challenges the stakeholders are facing.
Paper long abstract:
This thesis investigates urban development in the Western part of Nuremberg, an area severely hit by structural change. Formerly home of various industrial businesses, the area is now facing decline with a concurrent struggle over new identities and uses. Located in this area is the former warehouse "Quelle", a global player of retail sale in post war Germany. Having gone bankrupt in 2009, the empty building, being the second largest vacancy in Germany, has been temporarily used by a heterogeneous group of local artists/activists until 2015, when the complex was sold to an international investor. The artists have launched a series of 'attention-raising' events, such as expositions and congresses about the lack of creative space in Nuremberg. These have led to continuing negotiations between the artists, the city management and the investor. This debate is further exacerbated by statements regarding monument conservation, the iconic architecture of the warehouse building and the cities' application to become European Capital of Culture in 2025.
This thesis aims to analyze the process of restoration and reinterpretation of the building through alternative narratives. The following questions are addressed: How do the two stakeholders perceive the building's potentials and risks? How is the creation of a public discourse on creative space achieved by the two sides? How do the allegedly diverse understandings of urban development build the basis for 'attention-raising' events and affect negotiations?
Sanda Hubana (Humboldt-University of Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Civil society actors fight increasingly for political changes, participation and the control of public spaces in Berlin. The Tempelhofer Field is an example of such negotiation processes between civil and governmental stakeholders that try to find out: Who's actually the master of the urban plan?
Paper long abstract:
The dissertation "Conflict or cooperation? Urban development and civil society in Berlin" examines the transformation of practices of urban planning with regard to cooperations between civil society and governmental stakeholders in urban planning projects of Berlin. The aim is to explore strategic negotiation-processes, representations and activations of 'local knowledge' as civic science towards political and administrational representatives by self-organized civil associations. A transformation of established urban planning modes - a new way of thinking and creating space - will be analyzed and critically examined as a cooperating city-planning-process.
This process is illustrated by the Tempelhofer Field - a huge parc in Berlin, where civil society actors mobilized against the masterplan of the municipality from 2012 to 2014. Their main arguments were the fear of the loss of the public space, an intransparent participation process and the mistrust about the construction of affordable housing. This civil activation resulted in 2014 in the Tempelhofer Field-law that now regulates the use of this urban space. Recently, there has been a tempered discussion about the accommodation of refugees and therefore the temporarily change of the through civil activation invented law by the Senate of Berlin. Dwelling is one of the key questions in this research field. Therefore, the main arguments against dwelling, housing and the underlining moralizations that affect former and current participation processes by the administration and politicians will be discussed. Or to put it in other words: In the end it's important to know 'Who's got the plan and who's the master of it?'
Samantha Hyler (Lund University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers how a sustainable future city is envisioned, and how dreaming about the future is meaningful for the present. It’s no longer just vision planners who are constructing the future. How has the discourse on the future vision been taken on and integrated by other actors in the city?
Paper long abstract:
Vision plans are a form of storytelling about a future city not (yet) existing. It is a collective endeavor to dream about and bring that future into existence. The year 2035 marks a point in the not-so-distant future towards which planners of the city of Helsingborg, Sweden currently aspire to with their vision plan. The stakes are set high for the future of this city, as politicians adopted a vision plan called Helsingborg 2035 that pushes an agenda of a joint, global, creative, vibrant, and balanced city. Or in other words, it should be 'sustainable.' Indicative of a particular kind of utopian future, the vision characterizes the past as outdated, unmotivated, and nostalgic in contrast with the future as dynamic, innovative, and sustainable. I explore the ways in which a sustainable future is envisioned, and how dreaming about the future is meaningful for the present. I am particularly interested in the ways in which discursive practices construct, stabilize, frame, and maintain this vision. Discourses of the past and future city in part form the present identity of the city. The vision is a central motor for constructing the present and future of the city as, for example, sustainable, modern, and tolerant. Yet it is no longer just the vision planners who are constructing the future. Events are popping up across the city that engage with the future discourse. How has the discourse on the future vision been taken on and integrated by other actors in the city?
Sascha Roth (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
By comparing Soviet archival sources and recent ethnographic examples from Baku/Azerbaijan, this paper analyses state-citizen relations with a focus on the issue of urban housing. It illustrates different spheres of contestation and addresses more general developments in many post-Soviet cities.
Paper long abstract:
In the former Soviet Union cities were represented as the main drivers towards modernization. The Soviet state, by means of centralized planning, control and redistribution of resources applied a top-down implementation for materializing its ideological visions. Urban housing and the continuous discourse on its scarcity has been among the daily concerns of Soviet citizens and states alike. After the end of socialism, housing has increasingly become a contested sphere in most post-Soviet cities. In contrast to many narratives that emphasize the official workings of the Soviet government, this paper emphasizes the potential capacity of Soviet citizens and other urban actors in negotiating and contesting the local state's procedures in allocating housing to citizens. Archival material and public media on housing allocation in a notorious district in Baku/Azerbaijan provide vivid sources for state-citizens relations in Soviet society more general. By comparing this historical case with a recent ethnographic example on urban restructuring and demolition of a whole Baku neighborhood in the very same district, the paper aims at describing the transformations and continuities of Soviet and post-Soviet state-citizens relations in contemporary Azerbaijan. By embedding concrete conflicts about housing into their wider historical, social and cultural context, this paper contributes to the understanding of negotiating urban space and the right to the city. At the same it argues that the allegedly restrictive Soviet regime allowed far more ways for negotiating civil rights than in contemporary Azerbaijan.
Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland)
Paper short abstract:
Cultural production of social landscapes is defined through purity and pollution. Top-down transformation is contested by insurgent urban practices, identities and tactical urbanism from below. Contest opens up avenues to deconstruct and renegotiate social relations and understanding of urban space.
Paper long abstract:
The cultural production of material, spatial and social landscapes of Istanbul is defined along the lines of purity and pollution through current biopolitics and governmental practices, leading to urban and social transformation. These landscapes transform through the competition of traditional/ non-municipal with municipal garbage management, but also various forms of insurgent urban practices, identities and tactical urbanism. Existing and newly emerging actors play a key role in redefining the flexible boundaries between value and garbage.
In this research, I focus on practices around garbage picking, recycling and greening the city. While most are familiar with the Turkish government's course of action against oppositional voices in education, journalism, politics and business, fewer are aware of the eviction of "invisible" groups from the inner-city of Istanbul, such as the garbage pickers. They often consist of ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees the urban poor, in short: the non-white (non-) Turks, and are targets of biopolitical and spatial restructuring. Their practice, supported by other forms of tactical urbanism, takes creative ways of development from below and efficient forms of recycling; the voices of resistance, however, are diminishing and silenced under the growing power differential between government and these groups. This could only come to a halt if more inclusive, democratic processes are enabled toward just city-making. I aim to show the danger of policies that engage spatial cleansing with the outcome of ethnic cleansing, but also how this redefinition and contest open up avenues to deconstruct and renegotiate social relations and understanding of urban space.
Carolin Genz (Humboldt-University of Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Senior citizens are new actors in the field of urban resistance, who seek to form an active part of urban society. They influence the discourse on the transformation of the dwelling market and negotiate questions about how we want to live in the future and what kind of urban society we imagine.
Paper long abstract:
This case study brings to light new actors in the field of urban development from below: senior citizens. The paper explores the challenges and adaptations that face senior citizens, as they seek to change the urban fabric - via new and traditional practices of resistance. The senior citizens in question are people aged between 75 and 90 years. They put up resistance against their landlords, squat their homes in protest against neoliberal urban development politics; organize online-petitions and flash-mobs. These new actors influence the discourse on the transformation of the dwelling market, the government's urban policy ideas, and negotiate questions about how we want to live in the future; what kind of democracy and urban society we imagine.
I analyze how these senior citizens are developing forms of collaborative resistance practices against raising rents and gentrification, forms that are defined by the limitations of their age and health. Which kinds of urban resistance and organizational aspects are unique to this specific group of actors? What is the role of their special physical circumstances, their deteriorating health, their uncertainty about sudden death, and their modest income as retirees? Put simply, the retirees face challenges in the urban development processes that are different to those of the 'average' citizen. This paper devotes scholarly attention to this (rather unusual) protest group for two main reasons. Firstly, the retirees represent a demographic group that is a large proportion of city's population, and secondly, as the case study demonstrates, they want to get politically involved.