Blog

26. April 2021

Conflicted fantasies and spatial identities: from Ramallah to Paris

Aseel Aldeek

This post presents a personal account of my experiences growing up in Ramallah, Palestine, studying at Al-Quds Bard university in Palestine and then emigrating to France. It is an overview of all the spaces I had to interact with throughout my life which have now come to define my identity. By observing the different political and social atmospheres in different spaces and their effect on me, I have come to realise that my identity has no static definition and is continuously redefined through every space I exist in.

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16. April 2021

Fluid boundaries of urban living spaces

Melissa Bayer

In the city of Antofagasta in Northern Chile, 16,396 people live in around 62 so-called informal settlements which lack basic service provision – with water access being the residents’ main concern. Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork carried out between 2018 and 2020, this blog post offers a hydro-social analysis of the informal practices of water acquisition employed by the residents of Antofagasta’s informal settlements. By taking into account both the material elements of these practices as well as their underlying logics and rationalities, the author aims to shed light on the reciprocal relationship between official water access and social belonging, paving the way for a more nuanced discussion of urbanisation processes.

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2. April 2021

Neighbourly negotiations

Aline Schütze | Franziska Bittner

Idealised values of common identification and consensus often attributed to urban neighbourhoods are romanticised, transfiguring and problematic. The socio-spatial construct of the neighbourhood is constituted not only by what we have in common and what we share, but also by dissent and conflict. We argue that conflict is not to be seen as deficient but can rather be constitutive and, in some cases, even productive for the socio-spatial (re)production of urban neighbourhoods. A research design that combines theory on social negotiations, rules and conventions in the public sphere with critical mapping techniques based on workshops conducted in the field helps to analyse the ambivalent role of conflicts in Berlin-Neukölln.

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26. March 2021

Ein Gefühl von Heimat – Stadien als Orte von Polykontexturalität

Dr. Michael Wetzels

Wenn wir von »Stadien« sprechen, haben wir bestimmte Bilder im Kopf. Orte, an denen sich »legendäre« Spiele ereignet haben, jubelnde Fans, kurzum: Räume, an denen sich Großes ereignet und viele Menschen zusammenkommen. All diese Vorstellungen ist eins gemeinsam: Stadien wirken auf Menschen vielfältig oder um ein Wort aus diesem SFB zu verwenden: polykontextural. Was verbirgt sich hinter diesem komplizierten Wort? Das werde ich in diesem Blogbeitrag am Beispiel des Olympiastadions Berlin und dem Verein Hertha BSC erklären.

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19. March 2021

Energie, Infrastruktur und Herrschaft

Dr. Jannik Schritt

Wie lassen sich Energiewende, Demokratie und Ökonomie zusammendenken, um den Herausforderungen des Anthropozäns zu begegnen? Der Blogbeitrag skizziert aus einer räumlichen Perspektive, wie Energieinfrastrukturen nicht nur bestimmte Produktionsverhältnisse, sondern auch spezifische Herrschaftsmuster begünstigen. Während Kohle und insbesondere Erdöl kapitalistischen Oligopolismus und Autoritarismus befördern, bieten erneuerbare Energien durchaus postkapitalistische und demokratische Potenziale, wenn Energieautonomie mit lokalen Entscheidungsstrukturen und solidarischen Wirtschaftsformen ineinander ginge.

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12. March 2021

Stadt, Land, Konflikt

Dr. Ariane Sept | Julia Paaß

Ariane Sept im Gespräch mit Julia Paaß vom Netzwerk Zukunftsorte zu konfliktreichen Gemeinschaften und gemeinschaftlichen Konflikten auf dem Land. Schon länger wird darüber debattiert, dass die ländlichen Räume für die urbane Mittelschicht zunehmend attraktiver würden. „Gefühlt will im Prenzlauer Berg jeder Zweite aufs Land“, titelte beispielsweise der Deutschlandfunk im Sommer 2019. Auch die Forschung beobachtet eine „aktuelle Konjunktur des Ländlichen“. Seit Beginn der Covid-19-Pandemie schwirrt der Begriff Stadtflucht noch stärker durch mediale Debatten.

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5. March 2021

Cities in the making: urban politics, agroecology, and peripheral urbanization

Nicolas Goez

Izidora, a so-called “informal” settlement in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is a laboratory of urban politics and sustainable urbanization technologies. As a self-constructed neighbourhood, it is marked by inequalities as well as conflicts with the municipal authorities. In this text, I portray the politics of Izidora’s dwellers, as they appropriate different agroecological practices, enmesh them in their struggle for housing and citizenship, and pursue an emancipatory logic of urban planning. Activist coalitions with intersectional agendas and political articulations of alternative forms of urban agriculture in Belo Horizonte’s peripheries have led to the creation of Izidora, as well as an array of new urban imaginaries. This text is about Izidora and the politics of a city in the making.

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26. February 2021

“I will kill you, I will waste your life and nothing will happen”.

Rebecca Enobong Roberts | Comrade Deji Adeyanju

Navigating public space is globally complex and complicated . In nations of the Global South, where democracies are gradually becoming problematic , it is becoming obvious that these democracies are blurry with porous boundaries. Various mechanisms such as “no trespassing” signs, high fences and strategic CCTV cameras all testify to increasing contestations over what public space means and who has a right to access it. In Africa, the situation is progressively getting worse, as the recent oppression and killings of unarmed protesters in public spaces attest to. For example, the arrest and killings of unarmed protesters in the cities of Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria and Kampala, Uganda , should bring to the fore debates and questions on the reconfiguration and negotiation of public space. In this post, we seek to reflect on the ENDSARS protest in Nigeria and its implications for rights to public space in Nigeria.

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