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In Chapter Two, I summarised the theory, and discussed some of the paradigmatic commonalities and compatibilities that the theorists had. Placing them within the ancient dialogue of what space and time is, it was seen that they all worked within the same physical and metaphysical paradigm. In Chapter Three, I told some stories of social phenomena in Berlin. I told some stories that unfolded to me as a foreigner travelling across a strange land. I also reflected on these stories implementing the theory at hand. There are, then, two outstanding questions that remain, which will be addressed in this chapter. First, what does it mean when a foreigner travels across unknown territories, and observes them as they unfold before her? This dilemma unfolds when one chooses a theoretical lens through which to analyse space. In 4.1 Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) triad and poststructural multiplicity are taken as two possible lenses. The second question is: what do such observations mean for theories of space? In 4.2, I return to the theories of Lefebvre (1991), Massey (2005), Bauman (2007), Pratt (2004), Smith (2001), and Bourdieu (1984), and discuss the ways in which these theories are compatible and which ways they are not. In 4.3, I reflect on the ramifications of this theory on conceptualisations of borders and the production of social space. Hybridisation and vertical power are taken as two dilemmas that need consideration in the organization of urban space. In 4.4, the dissertation is concluded.
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In Chapter One, I explained that I approached this research from the standpoint of a foreigner. When I arrived at this research project I was new to Berlin. One of the great dilemmas of being new is finding an epistemology: how could I know this foreign place? In Chapter Three, I told stories of Berlin. These stories, told to the best of my ability, turned into contours (like Pratt’s (2004)) of Berlin. Applying theory to them, though, brings out still new nuances. In 4.1.1, these stories are framed in Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) triad of spatial moments of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces. It is useful because Lefebvre’s theory can expose clear entries and exits as a story of centre and periphery, and above all, of power. In 4.1.2, I want to analyse the stories according to the theories of Massey (2005), Bauman (2007), Bourdieu (1984), Pratt (2004), and Smith (2001). This approach leads to yet another view: one of a city full of a never-ending complex set of trajectories.
By recapitulating and framing the stories told in the third chapter in terms of Lefebvre’s (1991:38-39) three overlapping moments of space, one can see that: 1) particular trends emerge in the stories; 2) that the production of space is political; and 3) that theory has the power to alter one’s view of space. The trends that emerge through Lefebvre’s lens (the triad) show that squatters and newcomers struggle against the same Other. This struggle is one of a recurring struggle to secure and protect their space against forces of neutralization, festivalisation and so called legitimisation. The struggles reveal the power imbalances.
In the following paragraphs, I have separated the three moments of space. However, this division is not to imply that the spaces are detachable. On the contrary, these moments are necessarily interrelated. As Lefebvre wrote:
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“… the lived, conceived and perceived realms should be interconnected, so that the ‘subject’, the individual member of a given social group, may move from one to another without confusion,” (Lefebvre 1991: 40). |
The spaces are not necessarily disconnected at all. They may, indeed, be separate spatial elements, but they may also be one and the same, existing on different levels with different meanings to different people.
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Lefebvre defined conceived space as:
“… the space of scientists, planners, urbanists, technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certain type of artist with a scientific bent – all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived…This is the dominant space in any society (or mode of production). Conceptions of space tend […] towards a system of verbal (and therefore intellectually worked out) signs,” (Lefebvre 1991: 38). |
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In other words, conceived spaces are those in which spaces are represented. They can be the space of material discourse, as language is a signifying practice (symbols that signify an object), or they can be material and physical. Lefebvre (1991: 45) defines conceived space as something for planners, urbanist, technocrats, and for people with power, in general. If, however, we take conceived spaces to mean merely those conceptions of space in which perceived and lived spaces are conflated into one representation (as he also said, above), then conceived spaces can be created by anyone – with power or not. In the stories of the previous chapter, it was told that squatters conceived their discursive space in the form of solidarity parities, educational programs, community kitchens, and events. This was the way squatters represented themselves to themselves. Their discourse was critical of social and political processes. They were explicitly anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and against various models of city restructuring. This was how squatters (at the websites at least) represented their Other. To squatters, Others were those who supported the state and private capital. One might say that their discourse, in general, signified an alternative lifestyle, separated from and against process outside their boundaries. Their Other, in this discourse, also included integrated squats, such as the Tacheles. The writers at Squat.net (2006), for example, separated their values from the current Tacheles (the “cultural tra la la”) (ibid.). Those at the Rigaer94 were also discursively opposed to “pseudo-alternative,” (Rigaer94 2006) social modes.
Opposing these representations was the critical discourse over squatters from private individuals and firms – that, for example, the Schwarzer Kanal was conceived to lead to property devaluation. Some were so critical of squatters that they signified them as “spectre” (CDU-Fraktion des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin 2007). This particular quote came too, from a member of the Christian Democratic Party. Materially, graffiti was framed and presented as modern art. The Tacheles, a physical piece of property, was represented as a cultural centre. These conceptions also match the uncritical discursive representations from private institutions (e.g. Zitty and Deutsche Telekom) and consumers that Berlin: is fun; is a place of festivals with a wide and diverse gastronomic economy; and, is open and global. However, a critical discourse did emerge in academic circles – a discourse that perhaps allied itself with residents not born to German citizens.
About representational space, Lefebvre wrote that it was the:
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“…space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and writers and philosophers, who describe and aspire to do no more than describe. This is the dominated – and hence passively experienced – space which the imagination seeks to change and appropriate. It overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects. Thus representational spaces may be said, though again with certain exceptions, to tend towards more or less coherent systems of non-verbal symbols and signs,” (Lefebvre 1991: 39; italics as in original). |
Representational spaces, or lived space, can be said to be the space of emotion, art, i.e. spaces that carry meaning. From the squatter movement graffiti represented rebellion. Banners and music represented explicit political views. Space in Berlin was inscribed by the Aussteigerszene at least as far back as Ton Steine Scherben, who inscribed the sentiments in the lived space of song. Fights and protest represented their commitment against the MediaSpree, the pseudo-alternative, capitalism, and privatised development. Their fights were about holding onto specific tracts of land within Berlin, space that was also symbolic of their political and social perspective. Similarly, the lived space of some newcomers also involved struggle. The very corporeal and material existence of Afrikarat, AsylNet, No One is Illegal (Kein Mensch istI llegal), and various other social initiatives represented the lived space of struggle.
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Opposing these representational or lived spaces were “Free Spaces” (“Freiräume”) that represented uniformity, harmony, openness, or the Tacheles that represented access to modern art for everyone, or schools that again represented a service accessible by everyone. These spaces, produced by architects, or city officials, or private developers, signified. They were spaces created by a few for the use of a preconceived everyone. These spaces also (sometimes literally) framed the object, thus severing it too from its maker. The mystery of unknown underground culture was erased the moment the graffiti was framed. The transnational histories of newcomers were also veiled the moment the cultural festival as a product was produced. The signifier – the producer – was also masked in each situation. The power behind them existed somewhere else. Similarly, the postcard of the German Turk (Deutsche Turkin), or the German Telephone Company (“Deutsche Telekom”) veil over the Brandburger Tor, represented global openness, while their producer remained elusive and uncritical of its product.
On perceived space, Lefebvre wrote:
“The spatial practice of a society secretes that society’s space; it propounds and presupposes it, in a dialectical interaction; it produces it slowly and surely as it masters and appropriates it. From the analytic standpoint, the spatial practice of a society is revealed through the deciphering of its space,” (Lefebvre 1991: 38). |
Perceived spaces are the spaces of social practice – the channels and infrastructure that structure social life. That of the squatters was one of a continual defence of property. These territories never disappeared, however. They simply relocated if necessary, and squatters functioned inside this geography. Squatters also defended their bodies. This was particularly notable in the Schwarzer Kanal, which was an alternative meeting place for the production of alternative discourse about gender. This was also seen in the activist work of residents at the Bethanien, who occupied themselves with social issues. This defence of discourse was performed through taking space – through producing alternative public spheres. The geography of Cost Nothing Stores, solidarity parties, and community kitchens were also perceived spaces.
Newcomers also encountered social and cultural barriers that suggested certain norms in social practice which were to be conformed to. Throughout border-crossing procedures, they were also face to face with a legal barrier, where the ideals and interests of the state were backed by a judicial system and police force that protected the state. The barrier of the legal system continued to unveil itself as newcomers sought longer term residence. In some extreme cases, this lead to the social practice of mere survival, as was seen in the stories of deportation centres. The perceived spaces of newcomers were not trajectories that channelled them into defence of property, but into the defence of another physical entity: their bodies. Bodies were defended in courts (defending clothing), on trains through camouflage (i.e. shutting mouth to veil foreignness), and in no-go zones (securing health and well-being). We also saw a defence of community in practice when Ludin fought for her right to go to work wearing a tschador.
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The Other, from which squatters and newcomers were defending themselves, was also wrapped in a defence practice: the defence of a whole, such as the harmonization of pupils, culture, appearance, and language. This was the background situation that informed decisions on problems in the schools and in the work place. There was also the production of neutralised spaces, of free spaces, and border regions. These spaces were designed and produced in offices and in fields, by professional, semi-professional and low-skilled labour. The policing and legal system reinforced and protected these social practices, these perceived spaces.
If we were to look at Berlin as purely a mass of poststructural multiplicity, there would be little left for categorization. Yet, poststructural multiplicity mirrors more accurately my experience as a researcher new to Germany. I had arrived with a set of assumptions about my object of study, which turned out to be false. I had also arrived with an ability to understand much that I could view. My naivety proved useful and encumbering at the same time. The blank slate of being new, where nothing can be taken for granted, meant that I could apply no prior knowledge and had to start at the beginning. It also meant that I had to stay open and willing to possibilities. Categorization had to be thrown to the wind, and this is a poststructuralist dream come true. What unfolded before me was an urban space of chaos.
Bauman’s (2007) liquid modernity is fascinating because it could describe any city, and at the same time no city. A poststructuralist flexible everything, taken in its extreme, can lead to oblivion. People are at best travelling along a trajectory moving along and among fields. The stories told in Chapter Three, however, attempted to pull a thread at this endless fabric. The “refuser scene” (Aussteigerszene) as a whole could be viewed as a movement whose members defined themselves a certain history and a certain future. Similarly, the newcomers could be explained as travelling along an array of trajectories. All of these trajectories may fade into view for a fleeting moment, and then out again into mystery. Berlin as a centre of poststructural chaos might also be full of many coeval trajectories that never come into view at all.
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A pivotal discussion is therefore invoked: one of openers and closures across borders. There is an irony here because despite Lefebvre’s (1991) goal of escaping dualities, the border one back in the picture. The endless array of fields, endless coeval trajectories, endless discursive arenas, pose endless possibilities for the construction and deconstruction of borders. On several occasions throughout the stories told in Chapter Three, attempts to unify and categorise could be seen. It happened whenever a boundary was constructed around a group of people, who were then said to all retain the same characteristics – and who were constructed at Other. Physical boundaries of this sort were squat barricades, jail fences, violence against persons of darker skin colour, police force. Squat barricades rejected the law and protected everything that belonged to the squat. Jail fences divided legal residents from illegal residents. Xenophobic violence divided endangered from unaffected. Mental borders divided investor versus punk, capitalist versus socialist, acceptable newcomers (Deutche Türkin) from unacceptable newcomers (Ludin). The blockaded houses became a socially perceived space as the squat became at once a privately own building and an island of insurgents. Existence of feared eastern districts also became socially perceived as Africans were steered away. The evicted squat metamorphosed into a conceived space for condos that planned a different clientele, thus distinguishing buyer or renter from squatter. Socially lived spaces of demo chants, art, concerts, speeches, and flyers all produced a category of Other.
Borders in multiplicity illuminated social struggles around equality and discrimination. It is the border between the contradictions of Self and Other. It is the border between all the dualities that Lefebvre (1991) strove to avoid. It is the border between fields, the border between publics, and the border between trajectories. Borders, then, seem everywhere. There is a tendency then to worry about this state of social space – a space that endlessly divides and categorises. It would seem to work against the very aim of the project of equality. Bourdieu (1984), Fraser (1993), and Massey (2005), however, were all very adamant however, that they do exist, and even need to exist. Borders may divide, but they also illuminated. They illuminated the inscribed social differences in habitus that lead to varying fields (Bourdieu 1984), the various discourses trying to emerge (Fraser 1993), the various converging time-space trajectories (Massey 2005).
Multiplicity is layered and occurs through time, however. As was seen in the stories, borders were reproduced almost as quickly as they are destroyed. It is perhaps here that borders can be judged: to which purpose do they serve? Some social contesting around a border may have the goal of eliminating some borders and the creation of new ones – of preferable ones. This seems to have been the case with the squatters. Other borders, such as those posed to many newcomers, are not designed to be removed whatsoever. If radical opening is the project at hand, as Massey (2005: 179) argued, then borders must, too, be malleable or negotiable:
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“The real socio-political question concerns less, perhaps, the degree of openness/closure (and the consequent question of how on earth one might even begin to measure it), than the terms on which that openness/closure is established. Against what are boundaries erected? What are the relations within which the attempt to deny (and admit) entry is carried out?” (Massey 2005: 179, italics as in original). |
Insider-outsider dilemmas constructed around any border ignited a spiralling difficulty of belonging and not belonging that overlooks sameness across difference, neglects difference within sameness, and ignores networks and horizontal connections.
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In 4.1.2, the stories of squatters and newcomers were discussed in terms of Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) triad. The triad revealed certain aspects of those stories. The stories, however, also revealed aspects of social spatial theory: namely, that the politics of space and trajectories of difference are material and spatialised. By framing of the above stories in terms of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces, it could be visualised that the trajectories and the histories of Others are spatialised. The stories involved spaces that were corporeal in the form of bodies, properties, material objects, places, meeting points, and infrastructures. It also shows that the spaces are inextricably linked with one another. Any one spatial element may occupy two or more meanings. Thus, Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) triad is a useful tool in revealing the materiality of poststructural difference, and Pratt’s (2004: 12) view, that feminist geography need not suffer from its tradition of ungrounded immaterial discourse, is supported.
The materialised representations of space (conceived space) of squatters were exemplified materially, by representations of their space as buildings, trailer-villages, meeting points, a place of residence, or a place of learning. Some discursive representations also emerged among the stories of newcomers in Berlin: the production and circulation of flyers, maps, and hotlines. Their Other represented them through framed works of graffiti that hung in subway stations, or pieces of property representing cultural centres. Representational spaces (lived spaces) of squatters were materialised in the form of graffiti, music, on protest signs, and activist groups. Their Other supported representational spaces materialised in the form of modernised “Free Spaces” (Freiräum e), public festivals, or exotics foods to be consumed. Spatial practices were materialised in defences of property, territories, or bodies. Cost Nothing Stores and social events were also physical places that hosted activity. Newcomers were channelled through schools, across border controls, and engaged with police or customs officials. Their Other produced neutralised spaces and border regions. Their spatial practices also affected school children and dress codes.
On urbanity, Lefebvre wrote:
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“To say urban space is to say centre and centrality, and it does not matter if whether these are actual or merely possible, saturated, broken up, or under fire, for we are speaking here of a dialectical centrality. It would thus be quite possible to elaborate on this form, to illuminate its structures (centre/periphery), its social functions, its relationship to labour (the various markets) and hence to production and reproduction … One might also go into the dialectical processes bound up with this relationship between a form and its contents: the explosions, the saturation points, the challenges arising from internal contradictions, the assaults mounted by contents being pushed out towards the periphery, and so forth,” (Lefebvre 1991: 101). |
His notion of the city is one of a meeting place, or a form of contact and centrality. Lefebvre’s (ibid.) conception here, however, comes very close to representing the city as a cohesive unit. Lefebvre’s (1991) centre and periphery are dialectic, and the centre might be fragmented or injured, but it suggests a one totality. As Schmuely (2008: 214) has also pointed out, Lefebvre was committed to a total project. Indeed, Schmuely drew a quote from Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life:
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“‘without this concept,’ [of totality] ‘there can be no frame of reference, no generality, and even more, no universality.’” (Schmuely 2008: 214) |
Also, according to Schmuely, Lefebvre was:
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“…vehemently opposed to the fragmentation of knowledge as he is to the specialization of practical and aesthetic activity. If the social division of labour is found to impose an alienating and reductive force on the individual human subject, then it is also seen to bring about similar results in the realm of thought itself,” (Schmuely 2008: 214, italics as in original). |
Even when discussing fragmentation, Lefebvre (1991) wrote of it in terms of its relationship to the whole:
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“Space is whole and broken, global and fractured, at one and the same time,” (Lefebvre 1991: 355-6). |
So, it would seem that Lefebvre was loath to multiplicity. This conflict with multiplicity and commitment to totality would seem to be the most difficult aspect of Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of space to reconcile with poststructural difference.
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In this section, one particular component and analysis of Lefebvre’s hegemonic theory is useful. In his analysis of Lefebvre, Kipfer (2008) also discussed Lefebvre’s hegemony, and its aspects of minimal and maximal difference. According to Kipfer (2008), Lefebvre’s abstract space was hegemonic through difference. Urban space was particularised and its residents dispersed, parcelised, while at the same time, absorbed as minimal differences (Kipfer 2008: 201). The city’s whole was perceived, conceived, and lived as a composite and dialectic of particulars. These necessary and “induced” (Kipfer 2008: 202) particulars were Lefebvre’s minimal differences. The:
“...liberalist-pluralist diversity refers [then] to reified forms of minimal difference,” (Kipfer 2008: 204). |
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Lefebvre’s maximal differences could be sought out in quests for revolutionary transformation (ibid.). According to Kipfer (ibid.), groups claiming maximal difference had counter-hegemonic potential, if they can transform, and not merely assert, minimal differences (ibid.). Kipfer (ibid.) further explained that Lefebvre’s “Right to the City” was the medium through which minimal differences could transform into maximal differences and execute urban change (ibid.). Groups otherwise integrated inside a discriminatory and segregating power structure could transform into maximal claims if, like Paris Commune of 1871, they overthrew the structure and created something radically new (ibid.). In retrospect however, Kipfer concluded that this movement:
“failed to energise potentially counter hegemonic strategies with longer time horizons,” (Kipfer 2008: 205). |
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Schmuely (2008) concurred, and further reminded us that the reverse process was also possible: maximal differences could be incorporated and then rendered minimal differences.
Kipfer (2008) and Schmuley (2008) were helpful in thematising minimal and maximal differences. Indeed, Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of hegemony sheds useful light on social processes in Berlin. One could speculate which differences have been integrated as minimal differences to form and serve a greater whole. Thinking about the relationships entwined among minimal and maximal differences, however, remains in the confined to the blindfolded Marxist analysis of difference that Hartmann (1979: 2) had explained. One could say that women and men alike were minimalised and incorporated into a particular pattern that serves capital production. The Marxist feminist argument is, in its essence, the same as Lefebvrian minimalisation. That women took on particular roles while men others can be explained as induced differences within a certain whole, but the differential power imbalances within the system cannot be explained.
Poststructural difference evades such categorisations. Radical multiplicity, as Massey (2005) suggested, is incompatible with the concept of a centrality and periphery, except perhaps in its global sense, at which point – as I will explain below – all notion of centrality and urbanity is lost. Multiple trajectories would rather refer to multiple centres, multiple peripheries of respective centres, and multiple coexisting maximal differences. Smith (2001) was quite indisposed to reduce social processes within the city to purely economic realm. Furthermore, he was quite vehement that transnational histories expand the geography of so called centres, and that one strategy towards the suppression of minorities was indeed the overlooking of these networks that transcend conceived borders of urban space. The power of transnational histories and respective geographies was also confirmed by Pratt (2004). There is, however, a way beyond the impasse of poststructuralist difference and Lefebvre’s (1991) hegemonic theory. They are compatible if: a) urban space can be viewed as having multiple centres and peripheries b) if centre and periphery can be implemented to conceptualise a space that subsumed to an underlying logic or metanarrative (economic forces, in particular) and c) if the levels that Lefebvre uses to analyse centre and periphery can transcend the urban. On this last point, it is then only questionable, to what extent is it remains an urban theory as opposed to a global theory. These deliberations are relevant because they can change the way we think about space and the social problems within it.
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In sections 3.1 and 3.2, it was seen that integration or acceptance of either the newcomers or squatters depended on their ability to confront their restrictions, and dissolve their boundaries. Earlier in this chapter, when analysing the stories according to Lefebvre’s (1991: 38-39) three moments of space, it was seen that both groups seemed to struggle against the same Other, and that Other had substantial decision-making, and potentially violent, power. One might illustrate this phenomenon according Lefebvre’s (1991: 101) centre/periphery dialectic: one dominant centre with peripheral and marginal forces contesting it. This was, in fact, exactly how squatter movements were represented by Grell et al. (1998: 211). However, the stories can also be told in such a way to expose each movement itself as a separate centre. At the periphery of the hard core squatter movements were commodified forms of alternative lifestyles, or big city projects, or the government itself. At the periphery of some newcomers were areas that are unsafe, demand a different dress code or different language. Seen this way, these movements are and not merely becoming their own centres.
It may be interpreted that the squatters at the Schwarzer Kanal, the Köpi, the Rigaer94, NewYorck59 and possibly the Brunnenstraße 183 claimed – at least at their websites and during their blockades – maximal difference. The Schwarzer Kanal was an alternative public for transgender, inter- or homosexual, persons. The Köpi explicitly sought self-determination, and the Rigaer94 explicitly wanted its own space where the “alternative is possible,” (Kadterschmiede 2006). This claim for maximal difference was also materialised, and perceived, conceived, and lived in the form of cabarets, exhibitions, parties, housing projects, and community kitchens.
This maximal differentiation was also found in epistemological spaces. First, the language of this discourse implied gaping differences. Used in other contexts, the word Aussteigen means to exit, to get off board, to escape, or to drop out. The use of this term, alone, indicated a radical refusal of some kind. On the flip side, those who were being refused, and those who tried to evict the squatters, referred to the eviction process as Räumen. Used in other contexts, this word means “to clean” or “to tidy up". Police, while on assignment to “tidy up” a building, often damaged toilets and facilities (Rigaer94 2006), in order to render the premises unlivable and undesirable to squatters (ibid.). Second, there was a stark contrast in the use and application of the notion of “Free Space (“Freiraum”). The concept of “Free Space” (“Freiraum”) played a central role in many squats and trailer villages, and its meaning could be seen in the activities that took place: how they were organised and how they were advertised. Many activities were represented as underground activities or outside the mainstream. The squatter’s concept of “Free Space” (“Freiraum”) endorsed a do-it-yourself approach. The fight for “Free Space”, as defined by squatters, signified a refusal of State (top-down) control, or commercially defined norms. The city’s concept of “Free Space” (“Freiraum”), on the other hand, endorsed a space for everyone (at least in theory) to enjoy and participate in. This space was uniform and open, modern, and involved a high degree of skilled and non-skilled labour. Third, the conceived space of prejudices could not be overlooked in these scenarios. Neighbours of the Schwarzer Kanal along the Spree River perceived a devaluation of their own properties because of the squatters presence. CDU member, Wasner, was also quite open with his prejudice views. These discourses, as they arose on both sides, reinforced the notion that squatters may be maximally different.
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Of the squats that remained in the central districts (the neighbourhoods of Mitte and Kreuzberg), many were accepted under cultural enrichment programs endorsed by the City of Berlin, and correspondingly they did not profess maximal difference, and indeed, it might be interpreted that these differences were incorporated and minimalised. An extreme illustration of this phenomenon of commodification would be the Tacheles, whose artistic products were subsidised and promoted by the City. Similarly, yet not so extreme, the Lohmühle 54 was not immediately threatened by eviction. They had, however, services to offer to the greater community, such as programs in environmental education or cultural exhibitions.
Discussing the minimal or maximal difference of newcomers is somewhat more complex because newcomers were not a cohesive group save for their common relationship to the State. The stories told of newcomers also did not tell of any story that can be applied to all newcomers. It cannot be said that newcomers are a single group representing themselves as maximally different, because the differentiation within the group was extreme in and of itself. However, it can be said that of these variations within the group, maximal differences can be found.
Above, I have already mentioned the festivalisation of ethnicity as a practice of minimalising and inducing difference. Another practice of minimalising difference might be seen in the common experience of newcomers throughout border crossing procedures. The ability of newcomers to stay and live in Germany was a very clear process of crossing a physical and semi-permeable border. Those that were sifted out were those that did not meet certain criteria required for the settling in the field of the German State. Crossing into the country and ease of entrance were determined by one’s nationality (Schengen, EU, or elsewhere), criminal record, adult or age of minority, eligibility for employment, financial independence, or status of asylum. Once minimum habitus was proven, entry into the German field was granted. This was stamped in the passport, which signified permission to further fields, such as permission to register a home address, bank account, health insurance, permission to work, study, or simply tour. One might say that this sifting at the perimeter of German territory was a process of levelling the field – as all are required to demonstrate a certain habitus to play the field. One could also argue that this was a process too of minimizing differences, or of conflating multiple centres into one.
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Maximal differences can exist everywhere. Individuals or groups claiming maximal differences are not necessarily on the outside to begin with. That is, they do not necessarily have cross a border. The social practices of squatters, for example, could be interpreted as maximal differences that arose inside the borders of the German Republic, and this shows that difference occurs despite borders. Furthermore, the newcomers discussed in Chapter Three brought with them histories, and transnational networks, which may or may not feed the production of maximal differences. As for the more specific stories of newcomers told in this chapter, maximal differences were exposed throughout struggles. It could be argued that Ludin was fighting for maximal difference, when she fought for the right to wear what she wanted to work. The Turkish Union was fighting for the inclusion of Turkish language courses in the schools – a fundamentally different strategy of social integration from that of the City which sustained that first graders and their parents should simply improve their German language skills. In both cases, the State pushed for integration through the acceptance of only minimal difference.
The stories of squatters and newcomers that were told in Chapter Three may represent coeval trajectories of maximal difference. In so doing, Hartmann’s (1979: 2) Marxist blindfold is removed, and differences are recognized coevally, and not necessarily as part of a particular system. To repeat what Bauman said:
“fences divide otherwise uniform space not an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’, but what is ‘inside’ for those on one side of the fence is ‘outside’ for those on the other,” (Bauman 2007: 76) |
In other words, borders that define the outermost periphery are relative just as the centres within each bordered realm are relative. As centres collide with and diffuse away from one another, one might even conceptualise trajectories moving in, through, and out of minimal and maximal differences. The motion of becoming is endless.
In the final paragraphs of “Production of Space,” Lefebvre envisioned an “orientation” (Lefebvre 1991: 423) for the future. This rested on his illustrations of Chinese socialism (ibid.), in which he described an organization of society in which no political party could rise above the society itself. This was an example, in Lefebvre’s view, that:
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“…the theory of space is capable of accounting for revolutionary experience world wide,” (Lefebvre 1991: 422). |
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The utopians, that he cited, too, were Fourier, Marx and Engels (ibid.). This heavy reliance on the socialist model as a means of emancipation is not easily bridged to poststructural multiplicity because it reduces the production of space to economic patterns.
Smith (2001: 23-46) was particularly concerned about, “time-space compression,” of urbanism, and the view that the local and global were mere containers, instead of, “mutually constitutive social processes,” (Smith 2001: 182). His primary argument was that transnational urbanism enables:
“…an approach in which the nation-state is given its due as an institutional actor implicated in the process of forming and reconstituting transnational ties. Ordinary people are viewed as creative actors involved in the social construction of transnational urbanism by social networks they form, rather than being ignored or represented as passive objects propelled by underlying economic or cultural logics,” (Smith 2001: 183). |
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Smith was not alone in his criticism of this reductionism. Pratt (2004: 159) was also very clear that transnational histories were not only relevant to understanding how status was formed, but also that histories provide necessary data required in order to redraw the geographies of socially processes. Smith (2001: 108) uprooted what he called the so called bottom dwelling communities. Smith argued that Harvey lacked a:
“…theory of the state and civil society and an understanding of the situated characteristic of knowledge and, hence, political agency,” (Smith 2001: 11). |
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By recognising that transnational networks were socially constructed, everyday people became active objects socially producing their space, and not merely helpless while located at the bottom of economic structures (ibid.). By comparing transnational networks within a city, and by comparing practices of transnational network across cities, Smith (ibid.) deconstructed the global-local opposition and argued that the local is composed of transnational:
“…networks of social practice [that were] constituted by their interrelations with and groundedness within localities,” (Smith 2001: 15, italics as in original). |
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The concept of transnational urbanism is relevant in this section because transnational ties, networks, and histories can also be viewed as trajectories. According to Smith (2001), immigrants were not merely relocating bringing ethnicity with them: they were transnationalizing. Looking at the stories of Berlin through this lens reshapes yet again the meanings that we draw from them. The international distribution of flyers to warn against No-Go Zones in Berlin demonstrated transnational networks. Curiously, this practice did not only re-map Berlin internally, but also externally. One might examine the geographies of these ties. One might also examine the Russian-Germans (Spätaussiedler). According to transnational urban theory, they were not Germans appearing once again inside a homeland (Heimat) or fatherland (Vaterland), they were transnationalising and transforming the very notion of what it supposedly means to be German. One might also examine native-born Germans. How transnational were they, in fact? Particularly, how transnational, were the Germans that the right wing sticker was referring to in Figure 6? Of squatters, a transnational network is easy to find on the internet. Squat.net was a website that brought together squats from all over the world. All of these networks could be mapped out to redefine the boundaries and limits of Berlin, and as Pratt wrote:
“maps are notorious instruments of power/knowledge, which can effectively solidify existing relations of power,” (Pratt 2004: 165). |
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Transnational urban theory also has implications on how intra-urban networks are conceptualised. Transnational urbanism, focuses necessarily on extra regional pathways, but the same can be said for intra urban pathways: their histories are relevant, spatialised, materialised, grounded, and are part and parcel of the social transformations. The squats were explicitly in solidarity with one another in their maximal difference. These were not groups whose maximal differences came into view only in conflict with their Other (i.e. the City or private developers), their difference was also actively affirmed and actively produced through lateral pathways inside the city itself that were independent of their Other. Furthermore, it was precisely because of these grounded, material, rooted, and lateral pathways of community that strengthen and reify their maximal difference despite their Other, that radical squatters were not:
“…a lot of pin-prick operations that are separated from each other in time and space…[that] can be beaten off one by one,” (Lefebvre in Survival of Capitalism: 116; as quoted in Schmuely 2008: 225). |
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Rather, subjects claiming maximal difference can move in a Foucauldian network, as described by Chanter:
“…subjects themselves can make power a resource…subjects are a nexus of various lines of force which converge and overlap at particular concentrations or nodes. Subjects can tap into these flows and eddies, thereby mobilizing energy in particular ways and creating new local and temporary centres of power, which are not orchestrated in any direct way by a centralizing, autonomous higher agency,” (Chanter 2000: 269). |
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Lefebvre loathed fragmentation of knowledge (Schmuely 2008: 214), but it is precisely the conception of an all encompassing totality that fragments. The centre/periphery dialectic has the effect of truncating social processes to particular locally specific processes while failing to transcend borders and recognise transnational histories or intra urban pathways. The idea that newcomers are particularities who have merely crossed a border and are now present, negates not only their transnational histories, but also their possible maximal difference. Totality confines communities within a whole (a container), and severs transnational associations. Looking at the stories in which it has been observed that maximal differences have been minimalised, induced, and legitimised, it can also be seen that the production processes get masked and severed from their histories, and transcendent stories. They are signified and defined by others than themselves. Festivals or “multi-culti” food and music, framed graffiti, polished and sanded broken-down-architecture, uniform and open free space (Freiraum), German Turk, are all history-less and self-signified but from an Other.
In general then, Massey’s (2005) theory of coeval multiplicity and Pratt (2004) and Smith’s (2001) analyses of transnationalism are not compatible with Lefebvre’s hegemonic theory because minimalisation disassociates any difference from its past and external relations. In theories of multiplicity, horizontal relations and pathways can never be severed (except by violence) by any movement hegemonic or not. Lefebvre’s (1991) hegemonic theory also demands a central signifying praxis, which is not possible in a space conceived of multiple centres of maximal difference. As Massey said:
“the margins have not arrived at the centre. This is the view of those who are already ‘in the centre,’” (Massey 2005: 88) |
Transnational urbanism and coeval trajectories permit each social phenomenon to be its own centre and its own definer. So again, we see an incongruence between Lefebvre’s (1991) commitment to totality and essential difference.
However, it would be a vulgar conclusion to say that Lefefbvre (1991) has nothing to contribute to poststructural difference. Schmid (2008: 28) reminded readers that Lefebvre’s (1991) main objective was to theorize what space is. Lefebvre’s (1991) “Production of Space” was a continuation of an age old philosophical question that he dates back to antiquity. Moreover, according to Schmid (2008: 33) Lefebvre’s dialectical triad, “has no parallel in philosophy and the history of knowledge.” In this light, Lefebvre did not insist on an economic reduction. His work was merely about defining space. Space was a process of dialectics of work and production, of centre and periphery, an Aristotelian process of becoming, and a Marxist view of reality in which subjects produce their own space. As such his work encourages people to own the means of production and produce space. These concepts, therefore, are not bound to a view of space that is economically reductionist. If we forgo totality, then coeval trajectories can be envisioned in this dialectic and dynamic (as discussed in Chapter Two) processes of becoming, and thereby producing their own space.
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´
At this juncture in the theory, we remain in discord with a unified centre and periphery, but not at odds with the Lefebvrian (1991) concept of space as socially produced. There is, however, a passage from Lefebvre (1991) that is worth contemplating, despite his apparent vision of a utopia in which every being in part of a unified whole. At the end, he wrote:
“The transformation of society presupposes a collective ownership and management of space founded on the permanent participation of the ‘interested parties’, with their multiple, varied and even contradictory interests. It this also presupposes confrontation […] it is a matter of producing the space of the human species – the collective (generic) word of the species […] the creation of a planet-wide space as the social foundation of a transformed everyday life open to myriad possibilities…” (Lefebvre 1991: 422). |
There is room for interpretation here that does not necessitate a Marxist shift but a universal shift. Similar can be said for Massey’s (2005) multiplicity. At the planetary level, it becomes a universal concept.
At this planetary level, the social reproduction of space can be viewed as having multiple and non-hierarchical centres, that crisscross one another, and form a global web. Somebody somewhere outside of Berlin received and read the mail from the Afrikcarat. Somebody or some bodies somewhere informed Ludin that a tchador was appropriate. These social processes inside and outside of Berlin could represent new centres. These may also be viewed as coeval trajectories. They may be viewed as layers in Lefebvre’s (1991: 86) mille feuille of space, which can be expanded across the globe, and at this global level it can be seen how the theories of Lefebvre (1991) and theorists of poststructural difference can meet. Layers, contours, and trajectories, become similar in meaning. Urbanity would be, at most, a node of colliding trajectories on this global web. The outstanding question might then be, then, how much urbanity (centrality around a point) can remain under such a vision?
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The heart of this dissertation is a theory of social space and its borders. Again and again, throughout the stories told in Chapter Three, the borders were revealed. Again and again, squatters found themselves contesting the norms. Over and over again, it was seen that many newcomers encounter barriers against the arrival and establishment of a new home. Squatters found themselves in fights to retain territory, and in fights to justify their alternative social norms that failed to mirror the values of their Other. Integration of their values – that breaking of their social spatial borders – often meant the commodification of their alternative lifestyle. Many newcomers found themselves entangled in bureaucratic webs, or legal battles that revolved around the right to stay. In both cases, the borders in question were not recognised by their Other, but rather the borders of integration or exclusion was rationalised, legitimised, and reinforced by law and police protection.
Money and capital power seem to have been the determining factor in terms of where squatters may settle. The squatter scene of today was largely a result of reunification, as the abandoned tenement housing of the eastern districts provided ample space at affordable prices for those seeking space for utopian lifestyles. Most squats and trailer-villages shared the same social political values of communal living, environmental consciousness, co-operation, self-determination, and non-commercialism. Squats that continued to fight for these values were generally pushed to the periphery. Of the initial squats that popped up after reunification, however, most have been removed. With the exception of Brunnenstr 183, most remained today in Friedrichshain or Treptow, and are in current battle with developers targeting the respective areas. Most overt in their political intentions and position are the Köpi, the Schwarzer Kanal and the Rigaer94. To them, their space could only be fought for. The fight would only discontinue, it seemed, if the state and institutions with capital power left them alone completely, or ceased to exist.
The border encountered by newcomers was one that the state builds and presents according to the Westphalian system of nations55. Germany has specific borders that are etched on each map of Europe, and which indicate a legal jurisdiction or institutional structures that span over a certain territory. These borders acted as filters to newcomers wishing to enter and live within it. This entry process for many is a highly bureaucratic process -- and one obscure enough to warrant help-organisations (e.g Pro Asyl) for those considering an attempt to wade through it. For those who did not fulfil the requirements of residence, a more grim geography of prison cells full of even tougher barriers. For those that acquire residency or citizenship, and lives in Berlin, a city will be discovered that is on the one hand proud of its diversity, and on the other laden with various degrees of systemic racism. In Kreuzberg and Neuköln one could encounter over a hundred spoken languages and a wide array of gastronomic services. The City of Berlin advertised this. However, limits to this openness may be met in so far that multiculturalism is limited to certain areas of the city where newcomers can also expect to live, that only languages of power are recognised, and that warnings have been issued about certain areas to avoid because of the ubiquity of xenophobic violence.
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The stories began with the idea that squatters were on a trajectory of Aussteigen, while newcomers are on the opposite trajectory of Einsteigen. However, this story of insiders and outsiders revealed only one border: that that lies between inclusion and exclusion, or insiders and outsiders. Yet, both poststructuralist and Lefebvrian (1991) social space theory indicate that the borders must be more numerous and complex. Below, in 4.3.1, I will discuss the implications of differentiation, hybridisation, and the problem of classification on the organization of urban space. In 4.3.2, the implications of vertical power are discussed.
The question of integration is also a question of classification: who is integrating into what, and how are these entities named? Hybridity is exactly what it suggests: the collision, morphing and/or re/production of mixed forms. Aristotle would have been the first anti-hybridist. He categorised everything56. Descartes, also, split the mind and body neatly in two, and his models of space neatly organised space into quantifiable units57. Lefebvre (1991: 39), indeed, tried to hybridise the physical and mental realms that had resulted from the Cartesian split. If, however, Lefebvre (1991) was also allergic to multiplicity, he would probably have a problem with Bauman’s (2004) liquid modernity:
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“The whole world around us is sliced into poorly coordinated fragments while our lives are cut into a succession of ill-connected episodes,” (Bauman 2004: 12). |
In this fragmenting process, borders demarcate a moment in the a process of differentiation, as well as the limits of any given group. If fragmentation is endless, however, is not then its opposite, hybridity, also endless? Are borders then, not arbitrary? How can one draw borders in a world of flexible everything and liquidity? If borders can be drawn at all, what then, do they implicate?
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Until the 1980s, the biological difference, the immutable and unchanging difference between men and women, was referred to as the difference between the sexes (Nicholson 2000). Feminine and masculine behaviours were relegated to the realm of the social, and were categorised as gender (ibid.). This framework proved useful to feminist thought, but gradually came under critical analysis as some58 questioned whether the corporeal and essentialist category of sex was really as resolute as was thought. This work, argued that differences (be they minimal or maximal) as well as hybrids were social constructions.
Turning back to the stories of Berlin, one might search for differentiated and hybrid spaces. Starting with differentiated spaces, the squatter struggles over land use resulted in differentiation. Cabarets, community kitchens (Volksküche), concerts, Cost Nothing stores, Open Air cinema, solidarity parties, projects towards ecological sustainability, and exhibitions, were all different social practices that were inscribed in the real space of squats. These were the fields that were constitutive of further perceived, conceived, and lived spaces. In the stories told in Chapter Three, it was seen that the representations of space that were supported by capital power were those that get ultimately built: such as the MediaSpree, Johannisviertel, Spandauer Vorstadt, and Rosenthaler Vorstadt. As these plans were realised, the seeds of differentiation and contest for fields were sown that further entrenched the divides between the two sides of the contest. The completed MediaSpree, for example, would set in motion various spaces of architects, new media technology, and the international music industry. These spaces would differ drastically from those of communal and do-it-yourself living styles of the Schwarzer Kanal, the Köpi, or the Rigaer94. To further entrench the difference, the MediaSpree was also perceived and conceived by the squatters as a top-down oppressive spatial praxis that systematically excluded those that neither had nor wanted the capital power required in order to participate. The squatter’s perceptions of the development plans set in motion still another dialectic of differentiation. In this case, it could be seen that the building of physical structures created physical borders that not only protected and excluded certain forms of habitus, but deepened the divide. Their perceived spaces informed their conceived spaces, and all the long these processes were inscribed. The counteracting discourses entrenched themselves and differentiation was set in motion.
The most heavily differentiated spaces for newcomers would be those of the detention centres, which resemble Wacquant’s (2004a: 2) ghettos. These spaces were so separated from the city, that hybridisation through habituation was all but impossible. Less extreme would be the asylum homes, a practice (albeit one that is being phased out in Berlin) that also reduced possibilities of hybridisation. Still less extreme than asylum homes might be the spaces of fear inside Berlin shared by some landed newcomers and tourists. There was also the space of the individual body. Outlawing tschadors in the work place, obviously did not outlaw them altogether. It was then reasonable to assume that Ludin and others would continue to wear them in spaces where they were required, desired, or tolerated. Another prominent space of differentiation told above would be the streamlining school system. According to Artelt et al. (2001: 44-45), only the Gymnasium schools offered an education at par with international standards, and in comparison to Gymnasium, other schools – which were the schools that newcomers were likely to be enrolled in – ranked very poorly. Accordingly, pupils habituated in these schools would encounter different sets of fields upon graduation, than those graduating from Gymnasium – a clear process of differentiation.
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Beginning with the squatter stories in the search for hybrid spaces, one might turn to the Tacheles and Lomühle which were squats that found ways to bridge the divide between themselves and property developers. This alone could qualify them as hybrid spaces. One might note, too, that these spaces were spaces of minimalised differences. In this process, they found new perceived, conceived, and lived spaces, and here too, new contradictions. Their counter discourses may or may not have been directed at the same opponents as once upon a time. However, their new social practices and corresponding fields structured new borders, and correspondingly new contests. Both the Lomühle and Tacheles had originally struggled with their respective neighbourhoods, and both found a road to legitimacy that dissolved those borders. Lomühle today emphasises communitarian lifestyle, subsistence economies, environmental friendliness, as their new systems of habitus. They also offer seminars in environmental awareness, exhibitions, concerts, and other cultural events open to the public. Similarly, many original squatters of the Tacheles moved away when the building was sold to the Fundus Group. This migration produced a new division between the “refusers” (maintainers of maximal difference) and the “accepters” (receptors of minimalised differentiation). In these cases the original borders dissolved, and the contest over property quieted down. However, the dissipation of borders – this hybridisation – has only made room for new ones. All of these new hybrid spaces, have opened up fields for new habitae, new spatial practices, new discourses, new social spatial inscriptions and contradictions, and new borders and contests.
Turning to the stories about newcomers, the entry and exit avenues were clearly wrought with a number of barriers that categorised insiders from outsiders. From the perspective of the State, there was clearly a division between those that belong and those that must ask permission to belong. Dual citizens – hybrid citizens – between non-EU and German were also not accepted, except in certain circumstances of birth right. Gilbert and Dikeç (2008), in their examination of the French condition, were recognised three major currents implicated in the literature on immigration and citizenship:
“First, immigration and citizenship directly call into question the sovereign and unitary capabilities of the nation-state, and consequently the issues of membership and its borders. Second, the notion of citizenship occupies a considerable place in the current debates revolving around globalisation and its unsettling impacts on the nation-state. While the flows of migrant labour have secured economic production, such new spatialisations are still lacking social and political recognition of citizenship. Third, the effects of immigration, and the practices of citizenship mainly unfold at the urban level,” (Gilbert and Dikeç 2008: 252). |
These observations are also a testament to the inflexibility and difficulty of nation-states, in general, to recognise the hybridity of its so called outsiders as well as its insiders, and the problem that this represents for cities.
A similar phenomenon to that of the squatters was also observed amongst the newcomers. Those cultural differences that were celebrated by the City were minimal differences, and too, revealed a support for certain kinds of hybridisations. The German-Turk (Figure 5) was not a stereotypical picture of a Turkish woman recently landed in Germany carrying with her transnational history and trajectory. Rather, she was a Turkish woman who had given up orthodox Muslim practices of covering the hair and neck. This person did not speak, think, or dream Turkish (Figure 5): rather it was all performed in German. “Perform” and “Performance” were central concepts to Butler’s (2006: 72, 175, 177-178, 186, 193) social construction of sex. According to Butler, social norms and values are performed over and over again creating the discourse in which the body develops. This postcard then, in its celebration of the performance (how they act) of new Germans, was also pushing for a space of discourse that encouraged hybrdisation (ibid.). Similar can be said for the strategies of integration in the school system. Foreign children born to foreign-born parents were to devalue their history and their performances (speaking habits) in the home, and learn German. These (hybrid) children (of minimalised difference) were supposedly then perform better in the school system. In contrast, the story of Ludin showed that extreme differences (the tschador) encountered obstacles.
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It might be observed here that there seemed to be an overlay between minimalisation and hybridisation. It would be inaccurate, however, to conclude that minimalisation always leads or is equal to hybridisation. This is because hybridisation, as it would be understood in terms of coeval multiplicity or transnationalism, exists all the time and everywhere, and minimalisation is a process of signifying and articulating value on and for certain forms with a particular purpose. Hybridisation and differentiation is that eternal cycle of Aristotelian becoming 59, to a degree such that, “’there is no point of departure,’” (Massey 2005: 67), and borders are everywhere. All borders, histories, and trajectories are blurred, overlapped, and as soon as they appear to resolve, another cycle is spun off. Changing of codes and practices merely change the spatial structure that structures daily life which too is subject to change. Once borders are removed, new sets of boundaries and contests are produced – borders along the lines of habitus or field, or representation or lived, of ideological or real, or of discursive arenas. This was seen as the Tacheles and Lomühle reached occupancy agreements. It was also seen as newcomers finally landed. As each border is contested and overcome, the process of einsteigen and aussteigen, of differentiation and consolidation, of opening and closing continues. A mosaic melts into liquid.
This spiralling and never ending process of differentiation and hybridisation also renders categorization rather problematic. Moments cannot be captured without misrepresenting it. Examination of data sets, for example, must categorise groups along lines that are only imaginary. Fixation of borders, then, can only be arbitrary. This isn’t necessarily problematic in and of itself, but it does beg an analysis of why, for whom, and by whom, are borders drawn. It can be seen in this chapter so far, that the production of borders produces otherness and difference. However, just as borders can be implemented as violent power from above, borders can also define the maximal difference. Poststructuralists tended to remove the centre or multiply the centre (as seen above), and they are thus loath to generalizations and rigid classifications. On the other hand, as Nicholson (1998: 296) pointed out, these generalizations have also empowered feminists into a political movement. Generalizations may have been at times so vague as to lose credibility (ibid.), but without it, social movements would not have happened at all.
With all this fluidity, hybridity, transnational networking, actually existing grounded maximal differences, diffusing of centrality, fragmentation of knowledge and space, and endless differentiation and hybridity, one might wonder if there is a place for a central structure at all. In the case of the Berlin stories, this line of argument, too, calls into question the role and place of that one Other that both squatters and newcomers seem to face: the central State. Yet, what could a central structure look like, in the face of Bauman’s (2007) liquid modernity, or Massey’s (2005) coeval trajectories, or Smith’s (2001) transnationalism? Lefebvre (1991: 54-60, 422) called for a total project – one in which groups claim their maximal difference and overthrow the centre, producing a radically new way of life (Kipfer 2008: 208). Given multiple centres, hybridity, and coevalness of histories and trajectories, this particular project must take on a different form. These are questions of socio political theory. Benhabib (2004) and Fraser (1993) offered clues here.
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For squatters, the most apparent instances of violent power from above revealed themselves when they were forcibly removed from their premises (see Chapter Three). At this moment, squatters showed their refusal of the State and the State showed its capacity to assert its position through violence. In a similar vein, newcomers encountered this barrier when they were denied entry, or were placed in detention. These were spaces dominated by physical force. When one was denied entry, one was perhaps not in direct contact with a Billy club or handcuffs, but any refusal to follow the ordained application procedures – which restricted movement and employment – would render them possible targets of physical force. A geography of detention and deportation, and all its borders, posed a threat to those who never obtained legal entry, or to those whose legal time limit expired. These borders were actively contested by human rights groups who spoke on behalf of deportees and painted a much more gruesome representation of space than did policy-makers and law-enforcers. Perceived by government officials and bureaucrats as simple exit steps, this space was perceived as violent and dangerous by at least some deportees and asylum applicants. Asylum houses, too, ran very close to Wacquant’s (2004a: 2) definition of a ghetto, because they were places of stigmatisation (signified by attacks), forced confinement (legal status), and exhibited parallel institutionalism (limited social contact). The redistribution of asylum applicants in housing throughout Berlin was slowly alleviating this latter problem. The border that was here contested showed a multi-tiered power difference between the social groups that stood on either side. There are the dialectics and dynamics between those who had rights and those that did not, of those who made decisions and those who asked the questions, of those who spoke the language and those that could not, or those who applied physical force and those who resisted it. These were measures to protect the institution of state structures, which may seem self-evident in Westphalian nations (Benhabib 2004: 41). Yet, in radical and flexible everything, any one subject would not have place to exert violent power over and above another.
Another form of power less brutal than police force – but not necessarily less violent because it affected bodies – was the process of Lefebvre’s (1991) minimalisation. Festivalization of culture and framing of graffiti could be viewed as a practice of drawing borders. The histories – that go beyond national borders or so-called norms – were severed. If this process benefited some – for example, Daimler Benz or the City – then drawing this border could be viewed as an instrument of power. Such minimisation of difference may be seen as part and parcel of a strategic plan to reinforce power structures as Kipfer (2008: 207) described. Here, too, it was important to see that differences were not eradicated. Rather, differences were merely minimised, so that their resulting induced (Kipfer 2008: 208) differences could be instrumentalised. Yet once more, in coeval and flexible everything, any one subject would not have place to exert power over and above another.
In each of these situations, a barrier to decision-making was perceived. Those applying the force were also those making the decisions. Those that did not make the decisions, could only at best demonstrate, suggest, or ask for change. The footing was not equal. It was also another case of those exercising power were also those doing the signifying. The stories in Chapter Three told, too, of borders between two real and ideological fields that counteracted one another and could not exist simultaneously. It was a dynamic of state legitimised power versus counter discursive and alternative lifestyles. It was another dialectic of work and production, as the ramifications of each spatial moment rippled through each side of the discourse and the differentiation continued. The discourses of the “winner” claimed universality (e.g. free space) and space was accordingly realised with the support of legal force, while the discourses of the “loser” in the contest resorted to counterpublic arenas. The outcome, their spatial product, was yet another contradiction of product and production process, where the process was hidden.
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So what could a central or centralizing structure look like in a liquid, fragmented, and flexible society? This question has been intensively examined over the past 20 years in political theory.60 Yet, indeed, in Germany the state system has not flexiblised and horizontalised as everything else has, as Bauman (2007) described. Benhabib (2004: 216) explored new models of political membership that challenged classical Westphalian democratic sovereignty, which she defined as based on: 1) the principle that people are both author and subject of their laws; 2) the ideology of a unified demos; and 3) the idea of a self-enclosed, autochthonous territory governed by that same demos. She focussed on immigration issues as she saw migration issues as a problem still yet to be addressed as states, economies, and knowledge decentralise. In view of globalization:
“…the legitimacy of international laws to treaties among sovereign states alone, is no longer adequate to understand the legal complexities of a global civil society. Along with the obsolescence of this model, the ideal of territorial autochthony must be discarded as well,” (Benhabib 2004: 216). |
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In Germany (see Chapter Three), the laws that governed immigration recognised a hierarchy of political memberships that favoured Germans before Europeans, and Europeans before Non-Europeans. Germany’s form of citizenship was, also, wholly territorial based. Although, Benhabib (2004: 218) did not call for the radical deconstruction of state apparatuses, she did emphasize that models of political membership must not necessarily be territorial based. For example, she argued that people could unite or link up along lines of language or ethnicity, or aggregate in institutions or under a particular common cause. She cited (2004: 105), for example, that illegal Mexican immigrants in California worked for and have voice within institutions such as hospitals, schools, and the army. Despite their illegality, they were not voiceless or useless within these spheres (ibid.). Conversely, for example, acid rain was a problem that affected Canadians and Americans alike (ibid.). Aggregation and expressing voice united around this common cause could also form a public forum of discourse that is not territorial based (ibid.). For the sake of argument and to highlight their contrast with state powers, these lateral attachments might be called horizontal power structures. Such models resemble Fraser’s (1993: 8) counter publics, where counter forums are necessary in order to create counter discourse.
The Rigaer94 was explicitly a meeting place for counter discourse. The Schwarzer Kanal was also a meeting place for counter discourse, and one specifically for homo-, inter- and transsexuals. Here we saw too, that Fraser’s (1993) discourse analysis was spatialised into the form of a building. Fraser’s (1993: 8) counterpublic spheres were necessarily spatial. A space was needed in order to contain discoursing bodies. These were also potential spaces of membership and political voice. In contrast, as a publicly funded cultural centre, the Tacheles did not offer much counter discourse. It was also visited by millions each year – rather open in comparison to the closed and mysterious facades the Friedrichshain squats. The stories of newcomers in Chapter Three did not tell much about counter spaces, as the stories did not represent them as one united group. However, the Turkish Union might be seen as one counter public sphere, since they proposed counter pedagogical models in response to the PISA studies. The detention centres might be viewed as another counter space, if they were able to mobilize counter discourse. The extent to which these statements are true would be one for further analysis, but the potential for counter public space for newcomers would be very empowering indeed.
The stories in Chapter Three also showed once again an overlap among minimalised, hybridised, and not-so-very-counter spaces of discourse. Those of minimalised, hybridised, and/or not-so-very-counter spaces, encountered less conflict with vertical power. One might then ask to what degree are spaces of political membership or counter discourse needed for groups that claim maximal difference, or move in spaces of differentiation? For Fraser (1993: 9) multiplicity was a necessary component to democracy. Similar to an Aristotelian polity61, diversity was necessary. Otherwise constituents merely iterated the same views. Fraser (ibid.), however, brought in the notion of space and polity: space for discourse, and space for counter argumentation. Fraser’s (1993) counter publics necessitated space, and a closed space too. This may at first glance appear contradictory to the possibilities that are revealed by open systems. Non-territorial memberships and counter publics, or parallel publics, are models that could fit nicely in a conception of space as radically open and composed of coeval multiplicity and transnational trajectories.
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This dissertation was about urban space in Berlin. It was an ideational dissertation from the standpoint of someone new to Berlin and Germany, and interested in understanding social movements in a foreign place. Lefebvre’s (1991) production of space, and theories of poststructural difference were chosen as theoretical directions of inquiry that might explain the apparent opposite trajectories of entering newcomers and exiting squatters.
At the end of the Chapter Two, some compatibilities among the theories were discussed. These showed that the theories worked within the same spatial paradigm. The stories of Berlin did not change this paradigm, but this paradigm showed why space is important and why space would be important to the subjects described in the contours. In 4.1 the stories were reread within Lefebvre’s triad and poststructuralist multiplicity. In 4.2 the limits and opportunities of the theories were discussed. Attempts to bridge the theories showed: that the original entry/exit contours might be inaccurate; that both phenomena can indeed be viewed at once and not as particularities subject to different disciplines; and, that a rethinking of space, in general, might prove useful.
At the end of Chapter Two, four commonalities of the theorists were discussed. The first was that social space was necessary and real and therefore not ordained by a higher or supernatural level. Space and all the corporeal agents within it were real, sensual, and knowable a posteriori. Lefebvre (1991: 68-168) showed that the space of human interaction was not naturally created space but socially produced. Social spaces, and therefore borders, were working social productions. This process, Lefebvre (1991: 229-291) argued, was a process of abstracting the absolute, in which abstraction was inscribed. The production of a product, a thing, a corporeal agent that occupies and demarcates space (as for example a border). Space was therefore necessary, because without space, ideas remained fantasies. It was also a political statement because humans, stripped of any chains of oppression, could manifest their reality. The inability to produce was therefore political.
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Non-naturalness and non-neutrality were the second and third compatibilities that lay very close to one another in meaning. Unnatural space meant that space could not be reduced to natural phenomenon. Space was not produced by supernatural or biological predestined forces beyond the perception and grasp of humans. Embracing the real, sensory, and tangible characteristic of space, all space could therefore be assessed by whose ideal was being manifested. Spatial change is therefore political. Non-neutral space is similar. Like non-natural space, in non-neutral space, humans are viewed as agents in the production, inscription and abstraction of space. Non-neutrality refers to the humans perception of that space, and that each space is a reflection of someone’s ideals.
Of the authors presented in this dissertation, only Lefebvre (1991: 48, 85, 125, 129, 331, 333, 372, 392 ) discussed dialectics. I chose dynamic social space to apply to the other images of space proposed by the others. Although different in meaning, their commonality is that space is always in motion. That oppositional forces dynamically countercheck and counterbalance one another suggests too that social space must be in a continual and non-static state of unevenness. There must always be a border-contest dialectic. Every new moment of resolution or conflict sets new dialectics in motion. The produced spatial practices of haves and have-nots, upper classes and low classes, insiders and outsiders, selves and others, familiars and aliens, oppressors and oppressed, decision-makers and affected, criminals and victims, dominators and dominated, rich and poor, can never reach a permanent borderless equality.
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The Berliner stories changed nothing concerning these compatibilities. These compatibilities only reminded us why space matters -- that the antique question of what space is remains relevant today’s world of social unevenness, just as it did in antiquity. The Berliner stories were, however, a signal that something is perhaps amiss, and that something might ought to be done. Could there be ways of imagining space and realizing space such that inequalities are addressed?
In section 4.1 the Berliner stories were framed in Lefebvre’s (1991) triad. This allowed a rereading of Berliner space, and exposed fragments and power relationships. The conceived, perceived, and lived spaces of the squatters and (some) newcomers were compared. These spaces, as viewed by the government and developers were also compared. What was found were: consistent power dynamics between signifiers and signified; material manifestations of struggle and difference; a frame of reference in which counter-hegemonic movements could transpire.
When squatters signified their own conceived spaces, they signified themselves as refusers or outsiders. They signified themselves as different. This was also found among newcomers. When squatters signified their own lived spaces, one found protest songs, graffiti, banners, and protest. Protest and action was also the lived space of newcomers, representing themselves. The lived spaces of their opposition, revealed images of free spaces open to everyone, postcards advertising well integrated newcomers, and framed graffiti. When squatters signified their lived spaces, one found community kitchens, cabarets, exhibitions – generally an extensive network of counter-hegemonic institutions. The spatial practice (lived space) of some newcomers could be seen in public intuitions such as schools, government offices – a general network of institutions in which their bodies were to be defended. The oppositional lived spaces were a practice of harmonization (of pupils, language, appearance, language) and a general defence of the “whole”.
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The signifier/signified dynamic is not irrelevant, because it is a well documented power dynamic. Godard (2003), in her review of feminism and semiotics, wrote that sex/gender system:
“…has been shown to be an important signifying practice through which relations of power are enacted. .. [and] the insights of feminism into power, difference and the signifying process of identification have contributed to the emergence of studies of racialised difference, postcolonial studies, lesbian and gay studies, and queer theory,” (Godard 2003: 1). |
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That is to say that entire groups have mobilises their fights by exposing the signifying practice. What Lefebvre’s (1991) triad also showed was that this power dynamic was real, material, and corporeal. It was not just discourse. There are flyers, banners, buildings, songs, people, food, paintings, cells, handcuffs, to name just a few of the material objects in Berliner space that some of the most radical squatters or most foreign and illegal residents use or come in contact with. These material manifestations, as seen in 4.1.3, could be found and read.
In 4.2, the limits of Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of space was explored. It was found that the main problem with his theory was his reliance totality. The framing of the stories according to Lefebvre’s triad, shifted the focus of the stories from one of entry and exit to one of power. At the risk of splitting the solidarity of Marxism, feminist theories of coeval trajectories (Massey (2005), radical flexibility (Bauman 2007), and transnationalism (Pratt 2004; Smith 2001), however, were needed to deconstruct reductionist metanarratives of totality. A fusion with Lefebvre (1991), however, was found if centres could be multiple, if space was not reductionist, and if cities could be viewed as nodes on an extensive net of trajectories.
Lastly, the possibility of a political structure under flexible everything. A powerful central political economic top-down structure remains in Berlin, and this was seen to be an Other against which both squatters and newcomers came in conflict with. I called it vertical power: that which enforces norms from above on bodies below. “Vertical power” was used to describe processes of violence or limitation on peoples who were not part of the decision-making process of those who decided to apply it. Violent power was sometimes seen in the application of police force. Other times, it was seen in less brutal forms as Lefebvre’s minimalisation (as described by Kipfer 2008: 208). Minimalisation (ibid.) was violent in so far that refusing it could mean being shifted to less desirable living conditions. It seen that those who may be interpreted as minimalised and hybridised were not participants in particularly counter discourses. Those that claimed maximal difference resorted to more confrontational means of resolution. The theoretical question was, then: what forms of political organization could arise if vertical power were abandoned? It would seem that vertical power is not possible in flexible everything. Fraser (1993) and Benhabib (2004) offered clues here. Counter publics and territory-unbounded public forums shed some light onto the theoretical possibilities.
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This dissertation was about rethinking space – just as the authors discussed have done as well. This dissertation discussed space in terms of looking at ways to imagine space such that social unevenness might be evened out. It is an age old problem, and western philosophers of the northern hemisphere have been rationalising difference for many centuries now.
Lefebvre (1991) showed us that social space is dialectical, produced, inscribed, and decodable. Lefevre (1991) was valuable too because he pressed the reader to remember the masked production process, to identify not just the signified, but also the signifier. This reveals the non-neutrality of space, and the politics and power of space. His project (ibid.) was a political one too because his vision of a real and concrete social space put the responsibility and power in each person’s hands. Each had the power to produce (ibid.), and by changing the codes one can change space. Massey (2005) viewed space as a mish-mash of trajectories and stories continually thrown together at junctures called the present. Homogenising these trajectories into a single time-space narrative necessarily forced an exclusion of another story. A radical opening of space, then, was in Massey view, the necessary social and political project. The theories of Bourdieu (1984), Massey (2005), Smith (2001), Pratt (2004), Benhabib (2004) and Fraser (1993) were, too, political projects towards social equality.
Otherness was a recurring theme throughout, and is essentially a problem about borders. Borders were seen throughout the stories of social processes in Berlin. That borders were everywhere, the original observation that squatters are on a course of leaving while newcomers are on a course of entering was then shown as false one-dimensional at best. Neither were simply crossing a line on map or refusing of a particular whole. Rather they were stories immersed in a sense web of trajectories, fields, and spaces hegemonic and counter that are everywhere bound by, and required for the production of further, borders.
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Depending on the theoretical lens, it was seen that spatial borders exist at various levels: signifier and signified, decision-makers and decision-receivers, counter and hegemonic, self and other, central and peripheral, vertical and lateral, to name a few. Borders, too, even if only temporary and ephemeral, were an integral component of these spaces. Borders were found at the points of contradiction, at the edges of fields, along the trajectories of habitus and time-space stories, and in the bounded arenas of counter discourse. All of these borders were socially produced abstractions in absolute space. All were real and concrete. All are inscribed in space. All could be perceived, conceived, and lived. All were contestable and removable. Social space was therefore, despite its borders, limitless.
Is it possible to build public spaces free of socio-economic, socio-cultural, unevenness in the midst of current forms of capitalism? To what end can each enclosed social universe be de-bordered? Could a social world with infinite possibilities be the social project that Lefebvre sought? Is it the radical opening up that Massey (2005) dreamed of? Is it possible? Is the infinite an alternative for organisation of social space? Is radical opening possible? Is it possible to conceive of networks where the “whole” never existed to begin with. Can one locate the infinite within local spaces. Are there, for example, infinite parallel societies? To say that it isn’t is to resort not only to pessimism, but to restrict oneself to rigid perceptions and conceptions of space. To say that it is possible is to throw form, structure and function to the wind and submit to the endless chaos of representational space. At what point must the border be drawn: the city, the nation, the continent, the earth, the universe? How many may a social unit include: the individual, the family, the support network, the citizenry, the earthling? Difference and contest is unavoidable.
In this dissertation, it was seen that these borders can be seen everywhere, but they are above all removable. If borders are socially produced, then no border can be assumed to be natural or permanent, and through a contest can be removed. Identifying the borders and embarking on strategies of border removal might be a pertinent further research project. Of further research interest might be to examine how contest can form, or what strategies of communication might be most fruitful. Because if borders can be perceived, conceived, and lived in its various dimensions, then stories can be addressed, and differences can be bridged.
54 The Lohmühle is located in the district of what is now Treptow – a district not generally considered central. It is, however located just outside of the central neighbourhood of Kreuzberg, being on the eastern banks of the Spree River.
55 Although commentators on the political make-up of the Europe as a whole claim that Europe over the last 50 years has been a rejection of the Westphalian Peace Treaty of 1648, its emphasis of sovereignty of states, equality of states, and the principle of non-intervention into the internal affairs of another state, it is considered by some to be the birth of the modern nation (Benhabib 2006: 4).
56 See Aristotle’s ‘Categories’(Barnes 1971a).
57 See the works of Descartes (Cottingham et. al. 1985).
58 See Butler (2004 and 2006) and Jagger and Young (2005).
59 See Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics’ (Barnes 1971b: 1552-1728).
60 This subject is vast in scope. For some a glimpse into the literature see: Sassen (1998); Keil (1998); Keil, Wekerle and Bell (1996); Wolff, Schneider, Schmid and Klaus (1998); and Paloscia (2004).
61 Aristotelian social space is evident in his discussions of the state. Unlike Plato, to Aristotle, a person’s ideal was attainable and therefore real and concrete. He clearly stated, “Our purpose is to consider what form of political community is best of all for those who are most able to realise their ideal of life,” (Barnes 1971b: 2001, ‘Politics, Book II, Line 1 ’). Aristotle presupposed that people, under the right circumstances, can achieve their ideal form, and that the resulting ideal state is no different from the real state. The State, too, as is an object. He wrote, “… a state is composite, like any other whole made up of many parts; these are the citizens, who compose it,” (Barnes 1971b: 2024, ‘Politics, Book III, Line 4 ’). Functionalist in its essence, Aristotle accordingly deepened the argument with questions pertaining to possible best practices under the ideal state. In the Aristotelian republic, people are objects of and for themselves, as well as among one another. They are dispersed through space whose form is subject to them as the resulting collective state. People may also be taught, and through education, their appropriate roles acquired. He wrote, “The citizen should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives,” (Barnes 1971b: 2122 ‘Politics, Book VIII, Line 1’).
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