Doing Tolerance

María do Mar Castro Varela Barış Ülker (eds.)

## Doing Tolerance

Urban Interventions and Forms of Participation

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## Contents


#### **IV Protest and Resistance**


## Acknowledgments

This volume resulted from a project financed in 2014/2015 by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the German-Turkish Year of Research, Education and Innovation, a joint initiative of the BMBF and the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology. The project, titled "Doing Tolerance: Democracy, Citizenship, and Social Protests," was a collaboration between the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science in Berlin, the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Technical University in Berlin and Bilgi University in Istanbul. On the one hand, the project looked at the entanglements of resistance between Istanbul und Berlin; on the other, it problematized practices motivated by "tolerance" vis-á-vis those excluded from the city and whose citizenship has always been precarious. We began with a workshop at Bilgi University where we discussed the production and gentrification of the city of Istanbul, as well as the different lines of resistance and contestation—with a special focus on the Gezi Park protests. A two-day Symposium at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin titled "Perplexus. Entangled Perspectives on Participatory Citizenship" brought together not only scholars, activists, and artists from Istanbul and Berlin, but also discussants working on rebellions in different parts of the world. In a workshop organized at the Centre for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin in Summer 2015, young scholars presented their work on "city and citizenship." During this final event, a more global and postcolonial perspective helped us to understand the transnational entanglements of discourses and practices around the city.

We thank the BMBF for the grant that made this productive comingtogether of different scholars, activists, and artists from Istanbul and Berlin possible, as well as generous grants from the BMBF, the Senate of Berlin and the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES Abroad) for the production of this volume. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Julia Sittmann for her critical reading of this edited volume and her invaluable comments to improve it. We sincerely hope that the insights collected in this volume will spark further discussions around citizenship, tolerance, gentrification, and resistance in the city.

## Doing Tolerance and the Question of Urban Citizenship: An Introduction

*Barış Ülker and María do Mar Castro Varela*

Cities are complex spaces. They simultaneously enable processes of emancipation remaining exclusive and discriminatory. It is in the cities—especially the metropolis—that people make use of their right to protest in order to demand the right to vote, stand up against corruption and call for measures to curb violence (among other things). It is impossible to think of the city without considering the contested, and somehow blurry, concept of citizenship. Some scholars claim that the city and citizenship are in crisis (see Samara 2012): The present volume takes that assertion as a starting point to engage with different perspectives on the city and citizenship through a critical understanding of the relations of tolerance.

#### **Tolerance Revisited**

At the twenty-eighth session of UNESCO's General Conference in 1995, member states declared November 16 as the *International Day for Tolerance* to create public awareness about tolerance, point out the consequences of intolerance, and activate tolerance promotion and education (UNESCO 1995). As part of this declaration, four different aspects were emphasized to clarify the meaning of tolerance (Article 1). First, tolerance—as a political-legal requirement and moral duty—is understood as "harmony in difference" and the "respect, acceptance and appreciation" of the diversity of the world's cultures, both of which provide the basis for a culture of peace. Second, tolerance—as exercised by states, groups, and individuals—is an approach that can be developed through the recognition of human rights and the fundamental freedoms of others. Third, tolerance supports the principles of democracy, the rule of law, and pluralism. Fourth, tolerance allows each person to follow their own beliefs and to accept that others follow theirs.

Within this conceptual definition of tolerance, the declaration considers both state-level adjustments (Article 2) and necessary social dimensions (Article 3). It underlines that tolerance must be backed up by legal and administrative mechanisms, and that states are required to assure that every person has the option to make use of social and economic opportunities without discrimination. States are also expected to approve the international human rights conventions on equal treatment of individuals and groups. Last but not least, states must respect that individuals and groups have the right to be different (the multicultural character of the human family) and hence must take precautions against the exclusion of vulnerable groups from social and political participation.

In terms of the social dimension, the declaration points to the impact of the globalization of the world economy and the interconnectedness of new migration waves and urban transformations, which has resulted in the escalation of intolerance as a global phenomenon. In this sense, the promotion of tolerance must take place at different levels of social life, including the family, schools, universities, workplaces and within communication media. Particular emphasis is also placed on the support required by socio-economically disadvantaged groups in terms of housing, health, employment, education, and integration. To build up these efforts at the social level, scientific studies and networking capacities must be mobilized to undergird the policy-making processes.

From a broader perspective, the UNESCO declaration was one of the first efforts to promote tolerance through participatory citizenship in the post-1989 world. Although in the following years, this declaration would have a large impact on how the role of urban settings in encouraging the participation of citizens for the promotion of tolerance was understood, the relationship between cities and tolerance was not *terra incognita*. In classical and contemporary studies (Simmel 1997, Wirth 1938, Fischer 1971, Abrahamson and Carter 1986, Zukin 1995, Wessel 2009, Bannister and Kearns 2012, Huggins and Debies-Carl 2014), cities had already been labeled as the most productive spaces to encounter strangers, engage with difference, and to provide in return the foundation for the creation and development of tolerant behaviors.

#### **Participatory Citizenship: A Genealogy**

These efforts to promote tolerance through participatory citizenship must, however, be analyzed critically in order to uncover the power relations embedded in the concept of tolerance in regards to various urban settings. What are the necessary conditions for the emergence and development of tolerance in different urban spaces? How can one interact with others through tolerance? How is tolerance reflected in urban space? Which urban actors are involved in the practices and narratives of tolerance? What are the limits of tolerance?

This edited volume provides answers to these questions by considering different forms of urban in/exclusion and participatory citizenship. By drawing together disparate yet critical writings, it examines the production of space, urban struggles and tactics of power from an interdisciplinary perspective. Illustrating the paradoxes within diverse interactions, the volume focuses on conflict and solidarity between heterogeneous groups of the governed and the governing in urban spaces. Above all, it explores the divergences and convergences of participatory citizenship, as they are revealed in urban space through political, socio-economic and cultural conditions and the entanglements of social mobilities.

Before considering these critical assessments more closely, it is necessary to briefly contextualize the idea of citizenship and the debates surrounding it, which historically relied on the emergence and development of cities. This overview is particularly crucial for both a deeper understanding of the power relations embedded in the concept of tolerance promoted through the divergences and convergences of participatory citizenship and a reflection of these relations in urban spaces. Additionally, it provides a conceptual background for the twelve chapters in this volume by highlighting the relationships between cities and citizens and thus the argument, from a methodological perspective, for urban space as the main unit of analysis.

Generally speaking, the idea of citizenship has evolved from a traditional form of communal membership to a rational understanding of social order. In this understanding of social order, populations are organized within the boundaries of nation-states by the content of social rights and obligations, by the form or type of such obligations and rights, by the social forces that produce such practices, and by the various social arrangements through which such benefits are distributed to different sectors of society (Turner 1993: 3). Put differently, citizenship has been defined as a set of political, economic, cultural and symbolic practices and an amalgamation of rights and duties that forms an individual's membership in a polity (Isin and Wood 1999: 4). In this sense, the relationship between the state and citizens is not regulated through the domination of one over the other. Although the nation-state as a dominant polity identifies individuals through criteria such as birth, blood, and nationality, registers them with identity cards, and regulates the process of naturalization and the rights of immigrants, citizens are not only political objects that can be manipulated by the nation-states (ibid.: 4). They are also active participants in the formation of political, economic, cultural and symbolic practices, and can potentially develop strategies against or through the nation-state.

According to Castles and Davidson, three dynamics affected this developing conceptualization of citizenship (2000: 6–9). First, globalization questions the relative autonomy of the nation-state upon which a particular national citizenship is based. This can be considered a result of the relationship between economy and bounded national territories. Since economic activities transcend national borders and become uncontrollable for national governments, national industrial society cannot be seen as an economic and social system based on rational principles within a bounded territory. In that sense, the autonomy of the nation-state as the main regulatory unit over a specific territory becomes questionable, since it cannot ignore the pressures of global markets.

Second, globalization has destabilized the ideology of distinct and autonomous national cultures. Though homogenization is one of the aims of the nationalist project, developments in transportation and communication have paved the way for the interchange of cultures. This, in turn, has increased the interaction between global and local cultures and weakened the ostensibly homogenous character of national cultures. Moreover, this trend has paved the way for an emphasis on ethnic groups within the nation-state and inevitably created the re-ethnicization of culture and identity.

Third, not only the temporary and permanent movements of highly skilled specialists, manual workers, tourists and young people for education or training but also labor migrations, and refugee exoduses have increased the mobility of people across national boundaries. This amplified mobility of people has also resulted in the emergence of new ethnic cultures and minorities, which have forced policymakers to reorganize national laws and practices concerning integration and citizenship. Additionally, the ethnocultural characteristics of migrants—in particular, solidarity mechanisms—enable them to further develop social linkages between the country of origin and the country of settlement, through which the rapid movement of capital, goods, people, culture, image, and symbol become possible, and transnational networks are formed. To have a better understanding of this recent development in the conceptualization of citizenship, it is helpful to look briefly at its historical dimensions.

The rights and duties of citizens in Europe are mostly a development of the last three centuries. According to Marshall, citizenship "is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status endowed" (1992: 18). In Marshall's conceptualization, citizenship, as a problem of democracy and capitalism, is related to the question of

how to reconcile the formal framework of political democracy with the social consequence of capitalism as an economic system, that is, how to reconcile formal equality with the continuity of social class divisions (Turner 1993: 6).

In other words, citizenship, in his formulation, is utilized by the ruling elites in order to tackle conflicts arising as a consequence of the division of social, political and economic resources among different classes. In this respect, citizenship is an ideological apparatus akin to nationalism or racism (Kaya 2003: 152–153). Citizenship is thus seen as a political institution that legitimizes inequalities within the structure of capitalist society. This tension between citizenship and capitalism can only be resolved through the arbitration of the welfare state (Delanty 2000: 16). With the institution of citizenship, the welfare state may usurp the role of class conflict by removing conflict from the social domain.

In analyzing the emergence of a modern conceptualization of citizenship, Marshall formulates an evolutionary understanding of citizenship which is dependent upon the acquisition of rights. These rights evolved from civic rights to political rights and then to social rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively. In the medieval period, these rights were inseparable, and citizenship could be seen in cities, where it reflected a right to the city and its institutions (Isin and Wood 1999: 26). While uniform rights and duties did not exist, status was the mark of class and the measure of inequality. Classes in early modern societies included patricians, plebeians, serfs, and slaves, which necessarily contradicted the understanding of equality implicit in citizenship (ibid.: 28). In the seventeenth century, the struggle against absolutist monarchies resulted in the freedom of the individual with respect to freedom of conscience, worship, speech, the right to enter into a contract and the ownership of private property. These rights subsequently gave rise to a civil form of citizenship. Moreover, these achievements led to the institutionalization of law courts and individual rights for open trials. The equality of all citizens before the law was foundational to these developments (Delanty 2000: 15).

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, political rights became the main focus of a modern conceptualization of citizenship. The emergence of political citizenship was mostly associated with the growth of modern parliamentary democracy. Within this context, political rights were composed of the right to vote, the right to be selected, the right of association and the right to participate in the organs of government. Although political rights existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they were not universal. Franchise remained as a group monopoly until the twentieth century, and political rights were exercised by those who had made economic gains and purchased property using their newfound civil rights (Isin and Wood 1999: 27). Both civic and political rights were necessary for capitalism and its class system. Thus, citizenship did not and does not contradict with the existing type of class structure (ibid.: 28). Rather they became unavoidable for the maintenance of particular forms of inequality. Status as a reflection of order, rank and family as in early modern societies was not destroyed but replaced with the institution of citizenship, founded upon the equality of opportunity, which provided the legal atmosphere to struggle for the things one would like to possess but without a guarantee of their eventual possession (ibid.).

Although social rights were incorporated into the status of citizenship with the introduction of public elementary education at the end of the nineteenth century, it was not until the twentieth century that the link between social rights—the right to education, health, unemployment benefits, pensions, and social security—and citizenship became readily apparent (Delanty 2000: 16). In that sense, the rise of social services, especially housing and education, as indicators of social rights has made citizenship the architect of a new class of inequality (Isin and Wood 1999: 29). Within the relation between education and occupation, for example, the demand for various degrees, certificates, and diplomas has become a substantial qualification for employment, as demand classifies individuals into certain groups and fosters a system of class differentiation via profession and occupation.

Furthermore, as examined by Isin and Wood, Marshall underlines three reasons for the incorporation of social rights into the conceptualization of citizenship (ibid.: 29): the rise of egalitarian principles, in which the notion of equality was expressed through the principle of justice; the rise of real incomes and the narrowing of the gap between classes; and the increase of mass production and the incorporation of the working class into mass consumption. Yet, these social rights had an overwhelming effect on class inequality. Although the rise of social rights was expected to diminish class conflicts, advocates did not concentrate on the lowest ranks of society but rather on the whole pattern of social inequality. According to Marshall, social rights created "a universal right to real income which is not proportionate to the market value of the claimant" (1992: 28). Thus, Marshall understands social citizenship as a model that will bring equality to social opportunity. That is to say, "equalization is not so much between classes as between individuals within a population, which is now treated for this purpose as though it were one class. Equality of status is more important than equality of income" (ibid.: 33).

Marshall's theory of citizenship has nonetheless been criticized from various perspectives. Isin and Wood outline three main arguments (1999: 30): First, they argue that Marshall privileges the question of how citizenship rearranged class-conflicts over the question of how citizenship rights were gained as a result of class struggle. That is to say, not only the impact of citizenship on class but also the impact of class on citizenship must be studied. Second, his formulation of a linear development of rights within the emergence of citizenship, over the possibility of a more circuitous pattern, leaves something to be desired, ignoring the possibility that the sequence of rights does not necessarily have to move from civic to political and to social rights. Third, it relates in particular to patterns of inequality, Marshall does not consider inequalities such as gender and ethnicity but presumes class as the only form of inequality.

Turner elaborates these last two points by criticizing the teleological character of Marshall's evolutionary view of citizenship (1993: 7–8). On the one hand, it can be claimed that the universal church during the medieval period provided a more universalistic degree of participation than was the case within the boundaries of the nation-state. In this line of thought, national citizenship can be seen as a particularistic type of secular social membership. Within this context, the institution of citizenship does not have to evolve in a straight line from the ancient city-states, to through the church, to the absolute monarchies—it can also exist in a different chronological order. Social rights do not inherently have to come after civil and political rights in every society, and Marshall does not give a causal explanation of how citizenship expands. Additionally, civil, political and social rights are not equally significant in Marshall's cosmology. For example, it can be argued that bourgeois rights of civil and political membership may not contradict or challenge capitalist property rights at all; indeed, they may be necessary for the support of capitalist relations. By contrast, social welfare rights appear to bite into the dominance of capitalist property, because they indicate or require some redistribution of wealth and property in society. Civil and political rights do not require any social hierarchy, whereas welfare rights, because they involve principles of redistribution may promote an egalitarian transformation of social hierarchies (Turner 1993: 7). Furthermore, Turner asserts that Marshall also neglects the idea of economic rights. Economic rights differ from social rights, insofar as the latter concerns citizens and provides various support mechanisms, and the former is related to those who are excluded from society (Kaya 2003: 154–155). With the increasing effect of global capitalism, these excluded people are identified as an under-class. They do not have the means to benefit from education, health, unemployment support, pensions, and social security since they are not permanently employed. On this point, according to Turner, Marshall's theory is unclear (1993: 8): Citizenship is not only a means of incorporating social classes into a society working through principles of capitalism but also a practice that conflicts with capitalism since it requires the redistribution of social wealth. Thus, even though these two principles seem to oppose each other, they in fact simultaneously enforce and constitute each other.

Like Turner, Delanty stresses other kinds of exclusion that lead to different forms of inequality in society (2000: 18). Given that a model based on social rights cannot accommodate these inequalities, a functional conceptualization of citizenship requires the recognition of group rights (e.g. cultural, sexual or gender rights). However, due to differing practices and interpretations of modernity, it is impossible to assume a single rational path for the development of rights. Considering the challenges of globalization and the effects of multiple modernities, the relationship between the state and the nation cannot be taken for granted (ibid.: 19). The sovereignty of the nation-state is challenged both with sub-national units and transnational agencies or groups. These challenges have influenced the relationship between nationality and citizenship and damaged the ostensibly perfect correspondence between them. As such, any conceptualization of citizenship must consider non-citizens, immigrants, dual citizens, denizens and refugees. Finally, Delanty points out the difference between industrial society and post-industrial society (ibid.: 20–21). In post-industrial society, the neoliberal discourse, in which citizen is replaced by consumer, dominates: The increased consumption of goods creates new kinds of rights that have nothing to do with notions of inequality. In other words, the shift from an industrial society to a post-industrial society is also a transformation from the liberties of citizenship to the liberties of market forces.

Although this brief account of the various conceptualizations of citizenship covers issues related to rights, obligations, legal status (the relationship between individuals and the state), it is also necessary to take into consideration the dimension of belonging, more specifically identity, in order to adequately examine the idea of participatory citizenship as it functions through tolerance in urban settings. While citizenship is more a concept of status than one of identity and is expressed in legal norms that define the rights of the members of a polity, identity is a concept that presupposes a dialogical recognition of the other (Isin and Wood 1999: 19). Whereas the concept of citizenship allows or disallows rights and obligations, identity is produced and reproduced by individuals in an ongoing process of dialogical recognition. However, as Isin and Wood have underlined, both citizenship and identity are group markers (ibid.: 20).

Roger Brubaker emphasizes two citizenship categories deriving from different constructions of nationhood (1992: 1–17): The French (civic) understanding of nationhood—assimilationist, state-centered and universal, wherein a political community rather than a shared culture constructs the nation. Inclusion into the political community and cultural integration are understood as the constitutive elements that lead to the formation of an expansionist understanding of citizenship. Citizenship is granted to all immigrants through cultural assimilation. Rather than emphasizing common ancestry, language, and cultural background, this citizenship rests on residence within a particular territory, functioning on the principle of *jus soli* (Castles and Miller 1993: 225–226). The alternative—the (pre-2000) German (ethnic) understanding of nationhood—is differentialist, polycentric and ethnocultural. Nationhood is constructed upon genealogical rather than territorial lines, restricting German citizenship. Although it was liberalized after 2000, the genealogical understanding of nationhood and belonging remains. It is thus not possible to lose one's citizenship if one was born German, but one can be expelled from the German nation if one acquires this citizenship later and subsequently does not fulfill the prescribed norms. That is to say, common ancestry, language, and culture remain the basic criteria for belonging to the nation and granting citizenship to children, based on the legal criterion of *jus sanguinis* (Castles 1994: 21). In this model, nationhood defines a constant form of culture that allows zero possibility for change and remains closed to non-nationals. This creates an unwillingness to grant citizenship to immigrants and even to their descendants born in the country to which their parents and grandparents immigrated.

In contrast to Brubaker, Yasemin Soysal tries to clarify the post-war changes within the institution of citizenship (Soysal 1996: 18). For Soysal, the predominant conceptualization of modern citizenship implies that populations are organized within the boundaries of the nation-state via rules claiming national belonging as the basis of membership. As a result of this, national citizenship is defined according to national belonging, as a source of identity, rights, duties, and correspondence between territorial state and national community. However, rights and identity as constitutive elements of citizenship have in fact been decoupled as a consequence of the post-war changes in the conceptualization of citizenship. In the process, rights that were associated with belonging in a national community have instead become international and legitimated at the transnational level, while identities are still considered territorially bounded and particularized. In other words, the sphere of rights predominantly highlights the universal rules and individual norms deriving from different organizations, institutions, laws, declarations or codes like UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Conventions of International Labor Office and so forth. Conversely, understandings of identity emphasize locality, particularity, distinctiveness, uniqueness, authenticity or self-determination. By pursuing this goal, however, citizen and non-citizen immigrants do not exclusively establish their claims on these group narratives. Rather, they refer to universalistic discourses of human rights and individuality. In a way, they seek to legitimize the emphasis on particularity by referencing definitions of global norms, institutions, laws, declarations, and codes.

To define this process, Soysal argues in favor of Roland Robertson's conceptualization of the "universalization of particularism and particularization of universalism" (Soysal 1994: 160). On the one hand, particularistic characteristics of collectivities are verbalized as part of universal norms of humanness at the global level; on the other hand, these discourses of human rights and universality are largely utilized and practiced within the narratives of immigrant groups. Although this leads to a re-definition of identities, the idea of nation loses its force since it becomes embedded in a universalistic discourse of human rights (ibid.: 161–162). In a similar way, themes, activities, and references, which underline the uniqueness of national identities, create a normalizing trend and thus nationhood becomes more and more discredited. As a result of these two vectors, national citizenship turns into a rather irrelevant conceptualization.

In order to clarify these developments, Soysal underlines four developments that have affected the expansion of membership beyond the boundaries of national collectivities (Soysal 1996: 18–19). Initially, the internationalization of the labor market led to massive migratory flows into Europe, affecting the existing ethnic and national composition of European countries. Moreover, de-colonization at the international level and the celebration of rights within universalistic parameters encouraged the emergence of social movements that focus on notions of citizenship in European politics, and the incorporation of identities into the social domain and institutions of citizenship. Additionally, the emergence of multi-level polities (as in the case of the European Union) produces different opportunities for social movements and new demands within and beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. Lastly, the intensification of the global discourse surrounding individual rights and its resulting instruments has encouraged the development of a discourse of human rights independent of nation-state institutions. According to Soysal, these global changes shifted the institutional and normative basis of citizenship from the territorial entity of the nation-state to a transnational level, extending rights beyond national territories, while also noticeably changing the dynamics of membership and belonging in Europe (ibid.: 21).

Thus, post-national membership becomes an intrinsic part of the agenda, as three differences have emerged between post-national and national citizenship (ibid.: 22–23). First, in the post-national model, individuals do not belong to specific nations with formal national boundaries and membership is more fluid than previously. Second, membership in this model does not assume a single status. Post-national membership implies a multiplicity of memberships, although rights are not distributed evenly among these citizens. Legal permanent residents, political refugees, dual citizens, nationals of common market countries, temporary residents and illegal residents are likely to have very different rights. Third, in this new model of membership, the legitimation level has shifted from national rights to human rights as a result of global challenges to the sovereignty of the nation-state.

Although Soysal's arguments challenge the idea of national identity and the national form of citizenship and depend upon the development of human rights and the spread of universal norms of individuality, these have certain limitations. First, as Castles puts it, empirically, it would be an overestimation to claim that immigrants have acquired most citizenship rights despite lacking formal membership in the nation-state (1998: 234). Second, Soysal admits that in a post-national membership paradigm, rights are not distributed evenly among immigrants. In this respect, post-national membership does not provide something different from the national form of citizenship, as discussed in reference to Marshall and Brubaker. Third, within the political dynamics of globalization, relations between individuals and nation-states have not reached a level globally at which authority has been transferred to supranational and transnational spheres—where it could generate a serious challenge to the prerogatives of nation-states (Koopmans and Statham 1999: 656). Even the common policies in the European Union are exclusionary toward foreigners and still fail to transcend the model of nation-state citizenship (Castles 1998: 235; Faist 2000). Last but not least, the practical implications of international human rights and civil rights conventions are highly questionable since they reflect various restrictions upon non-nationals and leave all discretionary decision power to local authorities (Koopmans and Statham 1999: 657).

Considering Brubaker's emphasis on national forms of citizenship and Soysal's post-national membership model, Christian Joppke attempts to set up a third model, arguing that national citizenship and post-national membership models coexist and simultaneously condition each other (1999: 186–187). In response to citizenship traditionalists, Joppke argues that different countries are moving from an ethnic to a civic-territorial model of citizenship for two reasons (ibid.: 203): One, the elimination of state discretion and cultural assimilation as preconditions for citizenship has decoupled the state and the nation. Two, membership in a nation is not required as a condition for membership in a state. He also claims that although it might have changed form from an ethnic to civic model, citizenship still matters, as post-national membership retains four major fallacies (1998: 25–29). First, post-national membership mostly considers immigrants, despite the fact that the majority of the global population, national citizenship remains a relevant choice. In this sense, only a small elite of global academics are post-national members of the global world, a title that—for our purposes here—can also be expanded to include entrepreneurs. Even the so-called 'guest workers' constitute only a small percentage of these post-national members in Europe since they are not as mobile as the upper-classes of the same immigrant group in terms of access to work and residence permits. Second, in a post-national membership model, there is a dualism between the nation-state and individual rights, since individual rights are inherent features of nation-states. Third, although post-national membership does not have a spatial marker, it mainly references Western Europe, thereby contradicting their attempt at being global. Fourth, this model also lacks a temporal marker. Although it has a clear beginning, it is conceived of as having no end. While 'guest workers' have challenged the nation-state in post-war Europe, their existence does not necessarily open the door for a post-national model nor is it an alternative to national citizenship emergence, unless a supra-national or world polity becomes a real possibility. All in all, Joppke's analysis underlines not only the inevitable influence of the national citizenship model, especially in relation to its transformation from *jus sanguinis* to *jus soli* but also the pressure of a post-national model on the evolution of nation-states.

#### **Urban and Participatory Citizenship: Resistance and Solidarity**

In his article "Reinventing Urban Citizenship," Rainer Bauböck uses "sociological insights about major trends in contemporary urban development, such as growing internal segregation within and transnational connectivity between cities, as starting points for asking how these changes should be reflected in norms and rules of citizenship" (2003: 141). This is also a good way to frame our intentions with this volume—namely to show, on one hand, the "growing internal segregation" of the city and, on the other hand, describe different forms of "transnational connectivity between cities," such as between Istanbul and Berlin, which formed the starting point of our 'thinking about the city.' For that reason, a short genealogy on citizenship and the relevant debates on the "changing shape of citizenship" (Smith/McQuarrie 2012: 3) is vital to providing a deeper understanding of the different citizenship models that frame the contributions to this volume, namely, "participatory" and "urban" citizenship.

As Mohanty and Tandon point out, it is important to depict the complex challenges of modern societies that a more mainstream perspective on citizenship is unable to grasp—neither in the Global North nor in the Global South. In their volume on "Participatory Citizenship" (2006), they, therefore, shift to a citizenship model that takes the perspective of those whose belonging to the nation is constantly under threat into account. But participatory citizenship and urban citizenship somehow still depend and are entangled with more classical ideas about citizenship that rely on a formal and legal belonging to the nation-state. Hence, even when the focus is on participatory citizenship, authors too easily fall back into the trap of methodological nationalism. Having said that, the fact that urban citizenship is a very blurred concept with little analytical power is a theoretical—and also political—problem. Meanwhile, it is surely important to transcend national citizenship as it often appears too easy to call for "a right to the city" without analyzing the challenges produced by such a call.

The claim that belonging to the city is more important—although legally more complicated—than belonging to the nation-state in mobilizing people and, as Smith and McQuarrie rightfully remark, cities "tend to privilege multiple modes of belonging beyond legal citizenship and place of birth—such as work, residence, and civic responsibility—as the basis of claim to rights and citizenship." (ibid.) As an analytical tool, it helps researchers to look at everyday practices of marginalized groups who are denied membership in the nation-state or are perceived as a threat to the nation-state. We might focus on the organizational and structural level to describe how the concept of citizenship has expanded through migration, to analyze how urban citizenship sparks new practices or to understand how a claim to the right to the city becomes a power which describes as a right through the city. Here, we might also point out to a pertinent ethical question—namely, how can the city protect citizens against the violence of the state, instead of working with the state against vulnerable citizens (see Fainstein 2010)? Or, more concretely, "how are cities strategic spaces through which immigrants struggle for general rights?" (Nicholls/ Vermeulen 2012: 79). "It is tempting", like Bauböck writes,

to regard the global city as a new political space within which the meaning of citizenship can be fundamentally redefined. We could hold up this hope against the prophets of globalization who proclaim the end of citizenship and democracy. Maybe a new conception of urban citizenship can offer a more attractive alternative (Bauböck 2003: 156).

The contributions in this volume endeavor to delineate the fraught line between tolerance and "freedom" offered by the city, between spaces of hope that are created within and the continuous "violence" exerted by the city as new conceptions of citizenship are contested. The authors show how negotiations, networks, conflicts, resistance, and rebellions push the borders of citizenship and thereby broaden the space of citizenship and create new models of belonging, but also curtail how alternative models of citizenship are contested by shrinking the opportunities the city might offer vis-à-vis violent global and local politics.

### **Contributions**

The first part of the edited volume is composed of three chapters presenting conceptual reflections. Barış Ülker (chapter 1) examines how public and private institutions, as well as civil society organizations in Berlin, take part in the definition and implementation of a specific form of tolerance toward certain groups of people through particular narratives and practices of measuring, exhibiting and networking for tolerance. This promotion of tolerance continuously asserts the superior position of the tolerant over those to be guided toward certain ends. In a complimentary manner, María do Mar Castro Varela and Leila Haghighat (chapter 2) introduce a new concept of solidarity—"de-solidarity"—which tries to tackle the shortcomings of previous conceptualizations of solidarity, which replicate a caritative blueprint where the well-off reach a hand to the have-nots without questioning their own privileged position. It, therefore, shows how inequalities persist even when citizens try to turn the violent city into a just city. Furthermore, Margit Mayer (chapter 3) unfolds the concept of participatory citizenship and illuminates the contradictory phenomenon of a nearly endemic rise in inequality and disenfranchisement in the city just as models of inclusive planning and concepts of participatory citizenship have multiplied and have opened up new possibilities of survival in the city through the lens of a neo-liberalization framework.

Part two illuminates how cities are controlled and surveilled. Bernd Belina and Jan Wehrheim (chapter 4) expose the violent side of the city and how municipalities make use of the monopoly on violence to regulate and structure their cities. The production of "danger zones" in cities like Hamburg parallels the production of dangerous subjects who are constantly under suspicion and surveillance. Tania Mancheno (chapter 5) illustrates the relationship between space and violence through an analysis of Paris's urban history, with an emphasis on the urban planning of the *banlieues* as a central component of French colonial and national history. While Julia Strutz (chapter 6) sheds light on the relationship between the city and citizenship by looking at the production of marginalized spaces, in particular through the history and architecture of the Topkapı bus terminal in Istanbul.

In part three practices of defending the city are presented. While Pelin Tan (chapter 7) unfurls practices of commoning and how they bloomed in spaces of resistance like the Gezi protests in Istanbul, Ömer Turan (chapter 8) argues that gift-giving relations were a major component of the Gezi Park protests and generosity and altruism could not be separated from this process. Moreover, Nazlı Cabadağ and Gülden Ediger (chapter 9) focus on the contributions of LGBTIQ movements to the Gezi Park protests and the emergence of a new wave of migration between Istanbul and Berlin deriving from the violence against the LGBTIQ communities. Last but not least, Giselle Andrea Osorio Ardila (chapter 10) complicates the claim of participatory city planning by showing how planners and government officials in Bogotá unilaterally present their projects and decisions to citizens, despite the fact that citizen participation in the making of public policies is a right protected by the Colombian Political Constitution (1991).

In part four, the authors consider examples from Hong Kong and Cairo to shed light on global protest movements. Liza Wing Man Kam (chapter11) analyzes the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement through the lens of postcolonial theory, in order to show the historical predicament of redefining the postcolonial city. Meanwhile, through the lens of Elicitive Conflict Mapping (ECM), Adham Hamed (chapter 12) attempts to understand how violence may have been a central ingredient in the alleged failure to achieve deep societal transformation in Egypt after the rebellion associated with Cairo's Tahrir square.

#### **Bibliography**


Zukin, Sharon (1995): The Culture of Cities. Cambridge, MA. Blackwell.

# **I Conceptual Reflections**

## 1 Measuring, Exhibiting, and Mobilizing Tolerance in Berlin

*Barış Ülker*

Since 2002, the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Friends and Patrons of the Museum have honored business people, cultural figures and politicians with the "Award for Understanding and Tolerance" on an annual basis. In presenting the award to Helmut Panke, the former chairman of BMW (the German multinational automobile and motorcycle manufacturer) in 2006, German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored that tolerance is not arbitrariness; rather, it is the ability to have serious dialogue with others, to accept that others think differently and to consider them an asset (Merkel 2006: 3–4). Following this utilitarian perspective, she complicated the definition of this already complicated concept by bringing in its opposite.

Merkel argued—echoing the liberal tradition (Popper 2013; Rawls 2005; Walzer 1997)—that there should be zero tolerance for intolerance and clear boundaries against those who reject the existence of a plural society, or who disrespect those that think differently, have a different skin color, or have different beliefs (Merkel 2006: 4). In that sense, she described tolerance by means of its limits: intolerance. Although an intolerance of xenophobia and anti-Semitism appeared to be a clear-cut theme throughout Merkel's talk, her emphasis on tolerance remained ambiguous, as she pointed to the concept in reference to BMW's intercultural education initiatives, the integration of handicapped people into the labor force, and violence prevention programs for children and young people—as needing to be learned and practiced (ibid.: 3).

In 2011, five years after this talk, Merkel would herself receive the same award, but her examples and ways of defining tolerance remained as unclear as before, allowing one to wonder about the features of this concept. What is tolerance and who defines tolerance? How can tolerance be taught? Can tolerance be exhibited? What are the defining features of being tolerant and tolerated? Have the values associated with tolerance changed through time and space? Can the same individual be tolerant, tolerated, and not tolerated? How can tolerance be measured? Who benefits from tolerance? How can society be mobilized for the development of tolerance? Is the use of tolerance in everyday life inevitable or are other suggestions possible, thus avoiding its usage?

Etymologically, 'tolerate' comes from the Latin word tolero and means to sustain, endure, tole, allow to exist, and suffer (Hoad 1996: 497; Wedgwood 1872: 686); 'tolerance,' from the Latin word *tolerantia*, refers to endurance, fortitude, and a disposition towards indulgence. Tolerance appears in German around the sixteenth century from the same Latin root and implies *Duldsamkeit* (forbearance, indulgence) (Pfeifer et al. 1989). Broadly speaking, tolerance does not exist without suffering.<sup>1</sup> It is about a conditional acceptance of certain practices, which are understood to be incorrect but manageable. It implies a power relationship between the tolerating party and the tolerated person(s) or thing(s). There is a hidden dislike, inquiry, challenge, and conflict.

Based on this brief conceptual framework, this chapter examines how certain practices and narratives are used by public and private institutions to contribute to the formation of an urban space associated with tolerance. In so doing, the chapter explores the attempts made by public and private institutions in Berlin to measure, exhibit, and develop networks of tolerance, as well as the positioning of the tolerating and tolerated parties. It focuses on Berlin as a case study, for its reputation as the city of tolerance in Germany, especially after the fall of the Wall (Biskup and Schalenberg 2008; Colomb 2012; Berlin Partner GmbH 2018).

The chapter is divided into four parts: In the first part, to analyze one of the ways of measuring tolerance, I look at the main arguments of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development (Berlin-Institut für Bevölkerung und Entwicklung), which developed an index of tolerance (together with indexes of talent and technology—following economist Richard Florida's arguments about creative industries) in Germany. The second part considers the ways in which tolerance has been displayed in four temporary exhibitions of the German Historical Museum (Deutsches Historisches Museum, DHM) of Berlin: *Zuwanderungsland Deutschland: Die Hugenotten* (Germany as a Land of Arrival: The Huguenots)*, Zuwanderungsland Deutschland: Migrationen 1500–2005* (Germany as a Land of Arrival: Migrations, 1500–2005), *Fremde? Bilder von den "Anderen" in Deutschland and Frankreich seit 1871* (Foreigners? Images of 'Others' in Germany and France since 1871), and *Immer Bunter: Einwanderungsland Deutschland* (Multicultural: Germany, a Country of Immigration). In part three, I point out the reasons for developing networks of tolerance, by analyzing the activities of two organizations: Bündnis für

<sup>1</sup> It is not within the scope of this chapter to look at present theoretical approaches or the historical development of this concept in Germany and Europe. For an introduction into these issues, see Forst (2013), Heyd (1996), Stepan and Taylor (2014), Wolff, Moore and Marcuse (1965), Dobbernack and Modood (2013), Brown (2006), and Žižek (2008).

Demokratie und Toleranz gegen Extremismus und Gewalt (Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance against Extremism and Violence), and Initiative Hauptstadt Berlin e.V. (Initiative for Capital City Berlin). The chapter ends with a critical analysis of the practices and narratives of tolerance in Berlin.

#### **Measuring Tolerance**

As an independent thinktank, the Berlin Institute for Population and Development conducts research on global demographic changes and development policies, as well as generating reports, discussion papers, and handbooks (BIfBE 2018). The Institute's purpose is laid out on three interrelated levels: as an academic organization, to inform journalists and interested citizens about demographic constellations and their relevance for daily life; as a policy advisor to discuss and develop solutions for sustainable development; and as a public information office to introduce demography (in relation to education, migration, integration, work, health, and environment) to the population as an important issue, as well as prepare society for reforms. The board of directors, the scientific advisory board and the central office are all composed of experts and scholars from various disciplines and fields.

The Institute was established in 2000 with the support of the Falk and Marlene Reichenbach Foundation (Hanover, Germany) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (California, the USA) (BIfBE 2011: 8). Since then, the Institute has received financial backing through research contracts, project grants, and donations from influential institutions.2 As a result, the Berlin Institute for

<sup>2</sup> Robert Bosch Stiftung; Generali Zukunftsfonds; Software AG Stiftung; Erste Stiftung; Rat für Nachhaltige Entwicklung; Friedrich Ebert Stiftung; DKV Deutsche Krankenversicherung AG; Merck Serono; Stiftung Mercator; Vodafone Stiftung; Futur 2 – Stiftung Kulturelle Erneuerung; Stiftung Schloss Ettersburg; GfK-Nürnberg e.V.; Adecco Institute; Adolf Würth GmbH and Co. KG; Ahorn-Grieneisen AG; Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Barner; Bankhaus Hallbaum AG; BHF-Bank Aktiengesellschaft; BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH; Degussa AG; Deutsche Bank AG; Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt; Firma Erhard Sachse; Fondazione Monte De Paschi Di Siena; Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung; Jeannette und Michael Saalfeld Stiftung; Heidelberg Cement; Münchner Rück Stiftung; Pfizer Europe; Union Stiftung; the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth; the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development; the European Commission; the Ministry of Interior Brandenburg; the Chambers of Commerce and Industry Schwaben and Ulm; KfW Entwicklungsbank; Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V.; the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ); and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (Potsdam) e.V.

Population and Development has become one of the few thinktanks that is able to conduct such a variety of research projects through third-party funding.

Tolerance appeared as a topic in one of the Institute's early studies, sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation, entitled *Talent, Technology and Tolerance: Where is Germany's Future?* (Kröhnert, Morgenstern and Klingholz 2007). By investigating differences in economic power and employment opportunities among German federal states, the study attempted to illustrate the economic potential in Germany, which is supposedly reliant on political and social conditions, such as economic incentives, the level of bureaucracy and the number of creative people (ibid.: 3). Rather than looking at traditional indicators like the gross domestic product and per capita income, the study was based on Richard Florida's creative class theory. Since it is the only existing model for measuring tolerance used in Berlin and other German federal states, it is crucial here to focus on the main arguments of Florida's theory, before moving on to the findings of Berlin Institute's study.

Broadly speaking, Florida argues that cities that are able to attract the creative class are more likely to develop economically in an era of intense international competition (2012). The creative class, for him, is composed of two groups: a super-creative core and creative professionals. The former refers to those who directly produce new forms and designs and consists of scientists, researchers, engineers, university professors, poets, novelists, artists, actors, architects, designers and cultural figures (Ibid.: 38). The latter works in knowledge-intensive industries, financial services, legal and health professions and business management (ibid.: 39). In a broader framework,

the creativity thesis […] argues that the role of culture is much more expansive, that human beings have limitless potential, and that the key to economic growth is to enable and unleash that potential. This unleashing requires an open culture—one that does not discriminate, does not force people into boxes, allows us to be ourselves, and validates various forms of family and of human identity. In this sense, culture operates not by constraining the range of human creative possibilities but by facilitating and mobilizing them. By extension, open culture on the macro level is a spur to societal innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development (Florida 2005: 5–6).

Three particular values, Florida continues, are shared by members of the creative class (2012: 56–58): first, individuality, self-expression, and reluctance to traditional group-oriented norms; second, meritocracy, propensity for achievement, and self-determination; third, diversity, openness, and tolerance. Put differently, he assumes that creativity understood as the ability to produce new knowledge within economically thriving practices is the key resource for economic development.

Following this line of thought, Florida introduces a creativity index that is composed of technology, talent, and tolerance (ibid.: 228). These 3Ts, he claims, are the main factors necessary for understanding the new economic geography of creativity. Each of them is necessary for economic prosperity:

Tolerance and diversity clearly matter to high-technology concentration and growth. Talented people go to places that have thick labor markets, are open and tolerant, and offer a quality of life they desire. And the more diverse and culturally rich, the more attractive they are. Places that attract companies and generate new innovations, and this leads to a virtuous circle of economic growth (Florida 2005: 137–139).

Although Florida's arguments about the creative class may sound encouraging to economic development-oriented agencies, politicians and social scientists, they have also generated a great deal of discussion and critique (Marcuse 2003; Peck 2005; Krätke 2010). That being said, his conceptualization of tolerance has received very limited attention and has only appeared as part of the analysis on social class, technology, the growth of cities, and mode of capitalist development. It is thus essential to look at how this—hard to measure and use—concept found its place in the study of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development through Florida's formulation.

Florida does not provide a philosophically or historically grounded definition of tolerance. In basic terms, tolerance is a way of openness to diversity and a constituent part of economic performance (Florida 2012: 231–232). He underlines that there is a connection between

a metropolitan area's level of tolerance for a range of people, its ethnic and social diversity, and its success in attracting talented people, including high-technology workers. People in technology businesses are drawn to places known for diversity of thought and open-mindedness places with low barriers to entry for human capital (Florida 2005: 130).

To measure tolerance, he used the Composite Diversity Index (CDI), which combines the Gay Index (the percentage of homosexuals in a given population), the Melting Pot Index (the percentage of immigrants in a given population), and the Bohemian Index (the percentage of authors, artists, directors, musicians, designers and photographers in a given population). For the updated edition of his book, an Integration Index (a measurement of the level of racial integration versus separation in a metropolitan area) was also added to the CDI.

Derived from Florida's index, the Berlin Institute for Population and Development created its own Tolerance Index. The measurement of tolerance took place in 2000 and 2005. This index was composed of four indicators: the percentage of votes for the far-right parties in the 2005 federal election, the percentage of foreigners within the population, the percentage of xenophobic statements, and the Bohemian index (the percentage of employees who are artistically active). First, the percentage of foreigners was highest in the city-states of Hamburg, Berlin, and Bremen, followed by federal states like Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia; the former federal states of the German Democratic Republic (except East Berlin) were at the bottom. In terms of the second indicator, the percentage of far-right parties was highest in the former federal states of the GDR (except East Berlin), followed by the federal states of southern Germany. The trend repeated itself, to a certain extent, in the ranking of the cases of confirmed xenophobic statements. On the Bohemian index, the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen were at the top; Bayern and other former West German states settled in the middle, while the former East German states and the northern Western federal states ranked lowest. In the general tolerance index, Berlin and Hamburg ended up in first and second place. Bremen, North Rhein-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Bavaria had a moderate level of tolerance. The lowest ranking was shared by Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Thuringia, and Saxony.

In this context, a general tendency can be underlined in this study. The Bohemian index, echoing Florida's promotion of classic pioneers of gentrification (Peck 2005; Smith 2002), had a limited impact on the operationalization of tolerance by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, since only employed artists were included, without taking the conditions and results of the market economy, such as social polarization, into consideration. As such, the target of tolerance becomes, to a larger extent, the migrant groups living in reunified Germany. In other words, as a policy recommendation, this study creates a regime of truth about tolerance and asks for practices and narratives that tolerate migrants to encourage the future economic development of the federal states. As Foucault appropriately puts it, this regime of truth is

centered on the form of scientific discourse and the institutions that produce it; it is subject to constant economic and political incitement (the demand for truth, as much for economic production as for political power); it is the object, under diverse forms, of immense diffusion and consumption (circulating through apparatuses of education and information whose extent is relatively broad in the social body, notwithstanding certain strict limitations); it is produced and transmitted under the control, dominant if not exclusive, of a few great political and economic apparatuses (university, army, writing, media); finally, it is the issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation ("ideological" struggles) (2000: 131).

This regime of truth about tolerance, generated by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development based on Florida's conceptualization, is part of the power relations between the tolerant host and its tolerated migrants. The practices and narratives of this conditional acceptance—tolerance—do not differentiate and categorize the migrants; rather they provide the basis for arbitrariness. The position of the tolerated migrant is inevitably open for negotiation and compromise since there is no guarantee of the definition and the continuity of these values. Therefore, any contingency can change the value given to this position (tolerated migrant) and results in the creation of a 'not tolerated' migrant, simply because they might be unemployed, less educated, unskilled, or unhealthy.

Within the formulations of contemporary liberalism promoted by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development and others, migrants are subject to a particular regime of truth about tolerance and its transformations, which recalls Aihwa Ong's conceptualization of flexible citizenship. In exploring transnational Chinese subjects in relation to their cultural practices, the nation-state, and capitalism, Ong introduces the concept of flexible citizenship, which refers to

the cultural logics of capitalist accumulation, travel and displacement that induce subjects to respond fluidly and opportunistically to changing political-economic conditions. In their request to accumulate capital and social prestige in the global arena, subjects emphasize, and are regulated by, practices favoring flexibility, mobility, and repositioning in relations to markets, governments, and cultural regimes (1999: 6).

Ong formulates her conceptualization with reference to international managers, technocrats, professionals and particularly to entrepreneurs. However, the flexible and mobile position of entrepreneurs is not unlimited nor able to completely transcend the regulatory power of the state, economic markets, and cultural regimes. In other words, although these subjects are able to escape localization by state authorities, they are never free from the regulations of the state, market operations and cultural regimes (ibid.: 19). As a result, dynamics of discipline (such as the localization of disciplinary subjects) and escape (the emphasis on the flexibility and mobility of subjects) reinforce each other and create the terrain of flexible citizenship. In this sense, Ong, quoting Foucault, defines the term regime as normalization of power relations through the system of power/knowledge. These power/knowledge systems condition, normalize and regulate subjects' attitudes and behaviors by reinforcing various forms of truths in culture, science, economy and so forth. Moreover, these regimes require the "localization of disciplinary subjects, that is, it requires that persons be locatable and confinable to specific spaces and relations defined by various regimes: the kinship network, the 'nation', the marketplace" (ibid.: 113). In line with Ong's formulation, one can argue that tolerated migrants in Berlin are conditioned, normalized and regulated within the regimes of truth generated by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development (which were themselves derived from Florida's conceptualization).

#### **Exhibiting Tolerance**

According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM, founded in 1946) Statutes, a museum is "a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment" (2018). In various European countries, promoting migrant integration policies and cultural diversity through migration museums has become a key objective since the mid-2000s (IOM and UNESCO 2006). Two arguments seem to dominate the discussions on migration museums (Baur 2009 and 2010). First, are these museums able to tell the story of groups of people who have been underrepresented in that society? Second, do they segregate the stories of migrants or migration from mainstream history? In regards to the second question, the national museums have also reflected on different aspects of migration and emphasized the importance of treating migrants with tolerance in their temporary exhibitions.

Although treating migrants with tolerance in the narratives of German national museums is a recent phenomenon, it cannot be understood without considering the immigration processes that have occurred in the country since the World War II: German refugees, expellees and deportees; the so-called guest-workers; asylum seekers and other refugees; ethnic German immigrants from Eastern Europe; Jews from the former Soviet Union; Roma refugees from eastern Europe; and asylum seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa since the beginning of the 21st century. In managing the presence of migrants, three general types of incorporation processes have been utilized: differential exclusion (e.g. guest-worker programs and undocumented labor patterns), assimilation, and multiculturalism (Schierup/Hansen and Castles 2006: 40–45). Therefore, exhibiting tolerance towards migrants within the context of German national museums must be rooted in these types of incorporation processes, which emphasize the relationships between the tolerant host and its migrants.

The visualization of migrants through temporary exhibitions provides the basis for the continuous interpretation of guests, strangers, or others. According to Emanuel Levinas, one encounters others at a particular moment (1969); it is this moment that makes the interaction with the other concrete because it is based on physical presence and a face-to-face relationship. This face-to-face encounter at a specific moment indicates the impossibility of dominating the other's thoughts.

The face resists possession, resists my powers…The expression the face introduces into the world does not defy the feebleness of my powers, but my ability for power…the face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation incommensurate with a power exercised, be it enjoyment or knowledge (Levinas 1969: 197–198).

In a way, such a visualization of migrants in German national museums generates a narrative about the other's limitlessness or being in time without an end—a narrative based on the complex relationship between space and cultural difference. As Henri Lefebvre puts it, groups of people have the capacity to produce their own space through various conflicts, negotiations, and interactions (1991). Space cannot be reduced mere participation in production, exchange and accumulation dynamics. As a product of social relations, space has a determining power on the reproduction of wealth and surplus-value. The produced space is an instrument that has an impact on our thoughts and actions. It is an efficient mechanism of control, domination, and power (ibid.: 26).

Space, for Lefebvre, can be analyzed by relying on three axes, namely perceived, conceived, and lived spaces. Although they refer to different spatial indicators, they are all related to each other. Perceived space derives from everyday social life and it is measurable. Conceived space, on the contrary, comes from thinking and ideas, developed within a cognitive process that is often related to the formulations of planners, technocrats and social engineers. Lived space, however, is a complex set of symbols and images, which has the capacity to determine the balance between perceived and conceived spaces. From a Lefebvrian perspective, the relationships between the tolerant host and its migrants are therefore subject to continuous struggles over space; these struggles cannot be considered as fixed entities, but part of social construction (see also Castro Varela and Haghighat in this volume). It is illustrative here to look at four temporary exhibitions at the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin to further elaborate on the relationships between the tolerant host and its migrants, within the context of a spatialized understanding of cultural difference.

The first two temporary exhibitions took place in the DHM at the same time (between October 2005 and February 2006) under the general heading of Zuwanderungsland Deutschland (Germany as a Land of Arrival). The first temporary exhibition, entitled *Die Hugenotten* (The Huguenots), was focused on the migration of French Protestants, who escaped from France after the revocation of the Toleration Edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV and settled in the protestant countries of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as in England and Holland. Divided into eight rooms on one floor, the exhibition brought together different aspects of the story: questions of belief (1), Protestantism in France (2), on the run or in hiding (3), the reception of refugees (4), French colonies (5), the businesses of Huguenots (6), integration of the "French" (7), and the history of Huguenots in retrospect (8). The exhibition also included a history workshop, targeted at young people, which through different sessions, interrogated the questions of 'us' and 'others.'

Broadly speaking, this exhibition reflected on the idea of tolerance from three perspectives: the intolerant former host (France), the tolerant new hosts (the protestant countries of the Holy Roman Empire, England, and Holland), and the tolerated migrants. Although the policies of the previous and the new hosts were included in the exhibition and its publication (Beneke and Ottomeyer 2005), one decisive element was not afforded a critical standpoint: the characteristics of this group of individuals themselves, including their high qualifications, their technical and cultural innovations, and the possible economic contributions they might make in the new country. Put differently, economic interests played a large role in the treatment of this group by the political rationality through tolerance. This kind of political rationality legitimized itself through the mercantilist policies of the sixteenth to the middle of eighteenth century, a particular organization of production and commercial circuits. Mercantilism was based on the idea that the state developed through monetary accumulation, increasing population, and continuous competition at the expense of other states (in short, a zero-sum game). It was within this framework that these skilled migrants were imagined as a perfect example of the tolerated other.

The second temporary exhibition, under the heading of Zuwanderungsland Deutschland (Germany as a Land of Arrival), was entitled *Migrationen*  (Migrations) *1500–2005*. Although it covered a longer period of time and a greater number of migration waves than *Die Hugenotten* exhibition, *Migrationen* was also exhibited one floor. It was divided chronologically across eight rooms: the early modern period, 1500–1800 (1); German confederation 1815–1870 (2); the German empire, 1871–1918 (3); World War I, 1914–1918, and the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933 (4); Nazi Germany and World War II, 1933–1945 (5); the German Democratic Republic, GDR (6); the Federal Republic of Germany, FRG (7), and Germany since 1990 (8). Unlike *Die Hugenotten*, this exhibition dealt with particular categories of migrants in those periods (Beier-de Haan 2005): Dutch, Bohemian and Salzburg religious refugees; Jews in the early modern period; Ottomans in southern Germany; merchants from Lake Como (Italy); wandering craftsmen and servants from Central Europe; the exclusion of sedentary people, and the exclusion and persecution of 'Gypsies' (1); migrant workers from Eichfeld and seasonal workers from Lippe (2); agricultural workers from the eastern Prussian provinces to the West, Italian and Dutch workers, 'Ruhr Poles,' peasant children from poor families from the Austrian and Swiss Alps to farms in Swabia, Eastern Jews (3); prisoners of war and civilian workers, such as Russian-Polish seasonal workers, refugees from Bolshevik Russia, ethnic German 'returnees,' and Jews from Eastern Europe (4); displaced persons, refugees and expellees (5); contract and foreign workers in the GDR (6); refugees from the GDR and guest-workers in the FRG (7); and seasonal workers from eastern Europe, repatriates, and Jewish contingent refugees (8). As the first detailed exhibition in Berlin on the various histories of migration, the DHM clearly classified and coded migrants. Without questioning the discontinuity of space, it placed migrants into different cultural categories, which were reflected in the hierarchies of tolerance produced by the political rationality of the tolerant host.

The third temporary exhibition, Fremde? Bilder von den "Anderen" in Deutschland und Frankreich *seit 1871* (Foreigners? Images of "Others" in Germany and France since 1871) took place in Berlin between October 2009 and February 2010 with the cooperation of the DHM and the Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration (Paris). It was divided into different historical periods across two floors. On the first floor, the exhibit covered 1871–1914, 1914–1918, 1918–1933, 1933–1945 for Germany and 1871–1914, 1914–1918, 1918–1940, 1940–1945 for France. On the second floor, the exhibit continued with 1945–1970, 1970–1989, 1989–2009 for Germany and 1945–1970, 1970–1983, 1983–2009 for France. By comparing Germany and France, the exhibition aimed to challenge existing clichés about "others," the conception of ethnically homogenous nation-states and about national borders in the process of globalization and European integration (Beier-de Haan and Werquet 2009). The exhibition was organized to underline how the 'others' were imagined through a variety of media. Yet, the exhibition did not question how these imaginaries are associated with structural racism and the socio-spatial structure of capitalism in Europe (Wallerstein 1979). When considering the concept of tolerance, this exhibition recalls two strategies that in/tolerant hosts can develop in dealing with its 'others' (Lévi-Strauss 1992). On the one hand, the other, the deviant, or the stranger has to be incorporated into the self. Following Claude Lévi-Strauss, this strategy is about minimizing the boundaries between the self and the other, through various means of incorporation, such as cannibalism, genocide, massacre, assimilation, integration, and multiculturalism. On the other hand, the other has to be excluded from the self. This second strategy, which forces the others into isolation, can function through strong boundaries and special institutions, by erecting walls, increasing border controls, creating gated communities, and constructing concentration and refugee camps. However, similar to the first exhibition, this second temporary exhibition remained limited in its critique of the discontinuity of space and the positioning of migrants into cultural categories.

In their attempt to circumvent the production of a binary opposition between 'us' and 'others,' these paired exhibitions ignored the concept of crisis, which seems to be the basis for the treatment of migrants through in/tolerance. According to Reinhart Koselleck, the concept of crisis derives from the Greek verb *krino*: to separate, select, judge, decide and fight (2006: 358). Maintaining a central place in the Greek political sphere, this term was used first to underscore not only 'the quarrel' inherent to a battle but also 'the decision' that tipped the scales towards a particular outcome. In the legal sphere, it implied a verdict or a judgment. As such, the term was able to encompass both 'subjective critique' and 'objective crisis' (ibid.: 359). From this legal meaning, the term expanded into decisions of war and peace, electoral decisions, and government decisions, and set up a balance between justice and political order. Further, in the sphere of theology, crisis signified the Last Judgement, which would bring about true justice, impacting everyone since it was "already taking place within one's conscience" (ibid.: 359–360). Appearing as a cosmic event, crisis provided the ground for eternal life. Finally, in the sphere of medicine, crisis referred to the observable illness and to the judgment about the course which that condition would take (ibid.: 360). Put it differently, it referred to a decisive moment during which one could determine whether the patient was going to live or die.

From a historical perspective, Koselleck underlines that the concept of crisis includes the element of time, an awareness of uncertainty, and the obligation to forecast the future (2002: 240–244). Koselleck proposes three semantic models of crisis (ibid.: 16): First, in order to challenge the idea of a singular form of progress, history should be seen as a continual crisis. Second, order restructures itself under new conditions following a crisis, thereby pointing to the crisis as the end of a period. Third, the concept of crisis is future-oriented, focused on a final resolution of conflict. As a result, relying on Koselleck's analysis, it becomes clear that, in these two temporary exhibitions, migrants/others are depicted as the product of a crisis and that theses crises reproduced the relationships between the tolerant host and in/tolerated migrants in numerous ways.

The fourth temporary exhibition*, Immer Bunter: Einwanderungsland Deutschland* (Multicultural: Germany, a Country of Immigration), took place on one floor of the DHM from May to October 2016 at the initiation of the Haus der Geschichte (House of History) Foundation. Conceptually, this final temporary exhibition builds upon the first two and can thus be regarded as an extension of the discussion surrounding migration in Germany—a decade later. Unlike the previous two, this temporary exhibition's narrative began with the arrival of the guest-workers and ended with the arrival of the refugees after 2015. In order to elucidate concepts such as integration, assimilation, identity, nationality, interaction with foreign cultures and religions, parallel societies, xenophobia, and Islamophobia in relation to different periods, the exhibition was divided into six parts: guest-workers (1), a new home abroad (2), reluctant country of immigration (3), foreigners in the GDR (4), the Federal Republic transformed (5), and A New Germany? (6). According to the exhibition, while German society has become multicultural and developed the means to treat its migrants and their values with tolerance, this endeavor produced conflicts, which necessitated an agreement between state and society on the rules of co-existence and the limits of tolerance (SHGBD 2016). Similar to previous exhibitions, it pointed out the discontinuity of space and placing of migrants into cultural categories.

According to Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, this uniqueness of societies, nations, and cultures derives from an unproblematic division of space, which privileges its discontinuity (1992: 33–36). That is to say, each country denotes a specific culture and society, which are then attached to the names of nation-states. This isomorphism of space, place, and culture inevitably creates problems, however, in terms of understanding and conceptualizing the inhabitants of border areas, cultural differences within a locality, hybrid cultures of post-coloniality and social change within interconnected spaces. Identities are not fixed to naturally discontinuous spaces (ibid.: 38–39). In this framework, it is essential to look first at the construction of place and homeland by mobile and displaced people, and second at the embeddedness of place in political-economic conditions. Gupta and Ferguson thus criticize the spatialized understanding of cultural difference and the unproblematic distinction of "us" and "others" (ibid.: 42). What needs to be explored instead is the "processes of production of difference in a world of culturally, socially and economically interconnected and interdependent spaces" (ibid.: 43).

Examining the notions of hybridization, creolization, and hyphenation from a similar perspective, Ayşe Çağlar challenges the conceptualization of culture as a homogenized and bounded entity (1997: 169–170). Although the concepts of hybridization and creolization are assumed to produce new forms of boundary-crossing that go beyond hierarchies of difference, they remain in fixed territorial ideas and take for granted a prior ontological difference between cultures (ibid.: 173). The understandings of hybrid/creolized/hyphenated identities do not dissociate culture from territory; rather, they presume the existence of *a priori* spatialized communities and then naturalize this spatialization. Additionally, hyphenated identities overlap 'culture,' 'nation' and 'community' and thus simultaneously produce a spatialization of ethnicities and problematize potential conflicts within these associations (ibid.: 175). As a result, multiculturalism—taking culture as the constitutive element of a collective right to self-determination—emphasizes the need to secure the survival of cultural communities based on differences and thus fails to avoid the idea of spatialized communities (ibid.: 179).

#### **Networking for Tolerance**

Appropriation of different forms of capital as resources, Pierre Bourdieu argues, is decisive in the formation of social groups (1986). In his line of thought, capital does not merely represent an economic unit, but also an array of symbolic, cultural, and social indicators. Economic capital is institutionalized in property rights; cultural capital in educational qualifications; social capital (social network) in the form of status; and symbolic capital is the power to impose the social order (ibid.: 242–244). In particular, social capital becomes one of the most influential mechanisms for the development and promotion of the concept of tolerance.

In general, a social network or social capital reflects benefits derived from relations of mutual trust and collaboration, and thus depends upon the relations between members of a group (Coleman 1988). Social networks are "those resources that help people or groups to achieve their goals in ties and the assets inherent in patterned social and symbolic ties that allow actors to cooperate in networks and organizations, serving as a mechanism to integrate groups and symbolic communities" (Faist 2000: 102). They unavoidably ease transactions and facilitate cooperation through three mechanisms: obligations as a pattern of social exchange, reciprocity as a social norm, and solidarity-based on collective representations (Faist 2000: 104–111).

The first mechanism, degree of trust to other actors, functions by seeing the actual number of obligations and kind of services rendered in the past as substantial elements and can best be represented in market transactions, such as the allocation of scarce resources and the distribution of outputs among immigrant entrepreneurs. Second, reciprocity as a social norm refers to the exchange of roughly equivalent values, which depends on the prior actions of the other. In this sense, good is returned for good and bad for bad (ibid.: 105). Thus, there is a control over malfeasance or trust among members of a group. Third, solidarity among members of a group who share similar social and symbolic ties sparks the development of a collective identity. Although solidarity is institutionalized within the concept of citizenship, the decoupling of rights and identity (or of the state and the nation) allows people to define themselves with means of several identities and to acquire dual citizenship. Thus, solidarity as an indicator of collective identity does not have to be defined within the boundaries of the nation-state. In addition to these, social capital as a sum of these resources provides access to various resources and information.

To illuminate the impact of social networks on the society, Aihwa Ong (1999) and Donald Nonini (1997) look at the example of Chinese family and guanxi networks. Within these networks,

familistic regimes dominated by men and the elderly not only regulate and exploit the labor power (whether compensated by wages or not) and reproductive power of family women, younger men, and children. These regimes also constitute subjects such as the ideal Chinese daughter through the discourse of Xiao, 'filial pity', and discipline them through forms of violence (Nonini 1997: 204).

These regimes are also continuously re-inscribed on members of the diaspora through factories and schools since regimes of social networks require the localization of disciplinable subjects (ibid.: 205). Thus, they represent the practices of pragmatism, interpersonal dependence, bodily discipline, gender and age hierarchies, and other ethnic-specific modes of social production and re-production in the diaspora (Ong 1999: 116). Essentially, the regimes of a social network develop rules, norms, regulations, and rituals, which increase the surveillance and control of the population in order to ensure its health, productivity, and security and to achieve optimum economic benefit and minimum socio-economic and political cost (Ong 1997: 172). The greater the extent of a social network, the greater the possibility for surveillance and control exists (Faist 2000: 113). The extent of a social network is crucial since each person within this regime is a link, indirectly tied to others in controlling the flow of information, resources, authority, and power.

From a broader perspective, the functions of social networks after German reunification resemble those laws, regulations, and institutions, which aim to keep market dynamics and market competition untouched, to maintain the principle of rule of law in the economic order, and to avoid anti-liberal policies. These constructions run parallel to the neoliberal understanding of capitalism, which argues that it does not contradict itself as economic thought and that a competitive market society is possible. In that sense, social networks are conceptualized as social entities that help regulate the relationship between society and the economy. Within this context, it is useful to elucidate the impetus for the development of social networks for the promotion of tolerance in Berlin, through two brief examples: the Bündnis für Demokratie und Toleranz gegen Extremismus und Gewalt (BfDT, Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance against Extremism and Violence) and Initiative Hauptstadt Berlin e.V. (IHD, the Initiative for Capital City Berlin).

The BfDT was established in 2000 by the Federal Ministries of the Interior and of Justice, tasked with the promotion of tolerance and principles of democracy, which the government considers instrumental for the prevention of extremism and violence. The organization's networking is civil society-based, bringing together organizations, federations, action groups, and small initiatives through competitions, conferences/workshops, festivals, group discussions, and social activities. In this framework, BfDT emerges as a reflection of the German state approach to the mobilization of tolerance in the country. The act of connecting civil society actors in the name of tolerance, then, enables the authorities to conduct on the whole population or a group of people in a more sophisticated way.

At this juncture, it is necessary to clarify the institutional structure of the BfDT. Its main office in Berlin is responsible for the coordination and documentation of the organization's activities, the publication of the projects, the organization of the advisory council meetings, and the development of permanent contacts with groups and associations. As the political steering committee of the BfDT, its advisory council meets four times a year and is composed of representatives of the German Parliament, the federal government, and civil society. Civil society representatives are appointed by mutual agreement for a period of four years by the Federal Ministries of the Interior and Justice—directly contradicting the organization's own mission of promoting tolerance and democracy. Current advisor council members include representatives from the following organizations: the American Jewish Committee Berlin; the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future; the Society for the Promotion of Jewish Culture and Tradition; German Youth Sports Council (part of the German Olympic Confederation); two universities (Justus Liebig University Giessen and Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences); Against Oblivion—For Democracy; the Archive of Youth Cultures; the Anne Frank Center; Do not turn on my buddy!—the Organization for Equal Treatment, against Xenophobia and Racism; and the Network for Democracy and Courage. Conversely, representatives of the German Parliament are nominated by their respective factions (one representative for each of Germany's major political parties—CDU/CSU, SPD, AfD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Die Linke, and FDP). Federal government representatives include parliamentary state secretaries from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, as well as the federal commissioner for immigration, refugees, and integration.

Moreover, as a part of its institutional identity, BfDT was incorporated into the *Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung* (BpB, Federal Agency for Civic Education) in 2011, although this restructuring did not change the organization's objectives. On the contrary, its integration into the historical development of the BpB clarified the reasons and methods behind the government's desire to construct networks for the promotion of tolerance (Hentges 2012). In a nutshell, the BpB's roots are in the domestic propaganda machinery of World War I: Initially founded as the Central Office for Domestic Propaganda, then the Reich Central Office for Domestic Propaganda during the Weimar Republic, it was finally incorporated into the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda during the Nazi period. In 1952, it was re-established as the Federal Agency for Domestic Propaganda, taking on its current name in 1963. Although the BpB has undergone various conceptual and organizational transformations since the 1950s, its objective to promote the political participation of German citizens has never functioned independently from German state policies. In this regard, situated within the BpB, the BfDT's role in developing networks for tolerance solidifies the organization as a facilitator for social control—an indirect form of control which occurs without the direct intervention of state institutions.

Consequently, the civic practices of tolerance that flow from the BfDT's networking activities are taken as examples of liberal egalitarianism by society. These practices are based on mechanisms of voluntary obligations, reciprocity, and solidarity as underlined in the Ministry of the Interior's own selfconception (BMI 1999): society's potential for self-regulation; transparency of public administration; boosts in participation by the population; transition from a society based on industrial production to a knowledge-based service society; performance-oriented and cost-efficient procedures; competing approaches; and responsible use of resources. Simultaneously, by developing networks for the promotion of tolerance, the BfDT turns itself into a symbol of the tolerant host that is capable of defining tolerance, its values and conditions, and the features of those who should be tolerated and not tolerated.

Initiative Hauptstadt Berlin e.V. (IHD, Initiative for Capital City Berlin) is the second example of an organization tasked with developing networks for the promotion of tolerance in Berlin. The IHD emerged as a civil society organization in 1990, with the goal of improving Berlin's image in the political, economic, and social circles as the capital city of reunified Germany. Similar to the BfDT, IHD's principal activities focus on education and the integration of different parts of society. Since its establishment, the executive boards and advisory councils of the IHD have been composed of policymakers (at local, regional and national levels), business people, and members of political, economic, and cultural organizations. The Initiative accepts individual and corporate memberships. While individual membership is capped at €20 per month, corporations contribute according to their annual revenue (€600 annually for revenue less than €10 million; €1200 for revenue under €50 million; €1800 for revenue under €200 million; €2400 for revenue over €200 million). Currently, the IHD has 320 individual and 80 corporate members.

Within this institutional framework, the Initiative organizes monthly Capital City Forum talks (as well as publishing these talks), arranges events and festivals for its members, and supports projects through Capital City Prize for Integration and Tolerance. The framework of this prize was established in 2007, funded by a golf tournament organized by the IHD. Between 2011 and 2013, the federal commissioner for migration, refugees, and integration acted as the main sponsor of the prize, before the Ministry of Interior took over in 2014. Associations, groups and non-governmental institutions vie for the recognition of their projects through the awarding of first, second, third or special prizes.

The Capital City Prize for Integration and Tolerance intends to integrate people with "immigration background"3 into "German" society, prevent the development of ghettoized communities, and promote tolerance toward communities with an immigrant background (IHD 2016). Although it is underlined that individuals with "immigration background" should not rid themselves of their national, cultural and religious identities, they should learn and respect the fundamentals of German-European identity reflected in particular historical periods (e.g. Ancient Greek and Roman periods, Christianity, the Holy Roman Empire, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Frankfurt Constitution, World Wars I and II, National Socialism, and Reunification). Since identity and homeland can only exist with an understanding of history, the rule of law and the German language are also inevitable elements of a successful integration process (IHD 2016). Accordingly, "German" society must support the integration attempts of migrants; and the prize should encourage the civil society projects in this direction.

In that sense, the IHD has supported several projects, including but not limited to intercultural music and sports competitions, culture and language events, neighborhood development activities, interreligious dialogue programs,

<sup>3</sup> In Germany, people with "immigration background" refer to those who immigrated into the territory of today's FRG after 1949, foreigners born in Germany, and persons born in Germany who have at least one parent who immigrated to the FRG or is a naturalized German citizen (Destatis 2018: 4).

and training workshops. While some of the projects were focused on districts popular with migrant communities and were initiated by migrant organizations, others did not specify a particular location and were carried out by "German" organizations. Nonetheless, all took "disadvantaged" migrant groups as the focus of their commitment.

Put differently, certain migrant groups have turned into a social dilemma—a concern, a fear, and a risk that needs to be dealt with, cared for, integrated, and tolerated. In this line of thought, the IHD (as a reflection of the mindset of the city's political and economic elites) has continued to develop networks through civil society organizations for the promotion of tolerance and to act—similarly to the BfDT—as the tolerating host, defining the limits of tolerance, and indicating the subjects of tolerance. Both the IHD and the BfDT are therefore social entities that help to regulate the relationships between (tolerated or not-tolerated) migrants and the state. Or, as Antonio Gramsci puts it in his *Prison Notebooks*, "it should be remarked that the general notion of State includes elements which need to be referred back to the notion of civil society (in the sense that one might say that State = political society + civil society, in other words hegemony protected by the armour of coercion). In a doctrine of the State which conceives the latter as tendentially capable of withering away and of being subsumed into regulated society, the argument is a fundamental one. It is possible to imagine the coercive element of the State withering away by degrees, as ever-more conspicuous elements of regulated society (or ethical State or civil society) make their appearance" (1992: 262–263).

#### **Concluding Remarks**

In this chapter, I brought together snapshots from the practices and narratives of public and private institutions in Berlin, each of which documents ways of measuring, exhibiting and networking for tolerance. Although these practices and narratives emerge out of different structures and follow separate patterns of development, they underline that the concept of tolerance is a conditional acceptance of things, ideas, and groups of people, that are to be included in the social order. Hence, it remains an indicator of the power relations between the tolerating and tolerated parties. The promotion of tolerance, however, is not unique to the economic, political, social and cultural development of Berlin. From a broader viewpoint, it has been taking place all around the world, in particular since the declaration of the International Day for Tolerance in 1995.

Referencing the relevant international conventions on human rights, the declaration of principles on toleration warns the members states of the United Nations against the rise of acts of intolerance, violence, terrorism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination in the context of a globalized economy, large-scale migrations, the displacement of populations, and changing social patterns (UNESCO 1995). To fight against the above-mentioned threats, the declaration called for the promotion of tolerance and the active involvement of state institutions, civil society, the private sector, the media, and educational institutions through programs, conferences, policies, public awareness events, research, and publications. This plea for tolerance can be explained by means of Wendy Brown's historical contextualization:

Tolerance surged back into use in the late twentieth century as multiculturalism became a central problematic of liberal democratic citizenship; as Third World immigration threatened the ethnicized identities of Europe, North America, and Australia; as indigenous peoples pursued claims of reparation, belonging, and entitlement; as ethnically coded civil conflict became a critical site of international disorder; and as Islamic religious identity intensified and expanded into a transnational political force. Tolerance talk also became prominent as domestic norms of integration and assimilation gave way to concerns with identity and difference on the left and as the rights claims of various minorities were spurned as "special" rather than universal on the right (2006: 2).

In her book, Wendy Brown questions the concept of tolerance within the Western liberal world, with a focus on examples from the United States, by means of seven aspects: "tolerance as a discourse of de-politicization," "tolerance as a discourse of power," "tolerance as supplement," "tolerance as governmentality," "tolerance as museum object," "subjects of tolerance," and "tolerance as/in civilizational discourse." She criticizes the culturalization of politics, which situates differences (e.g. racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities) within the private sphere by using tolerance discourses. These discourses, consequently, neglect the historical and political contexts of difference and essentialize the interpretation of identity. They also regenerate societal power relationships by reflecting on "foreign" people, and by concealing political claims for equality and justice outside of the public sphere. Last but not least, on the international level, tolerance discourses represent the "civilizing" function (Orientalist hegemony) of liberal Western nation-states.

Although Brown's explication of these tolerance discourses could describe the promotion of tolerance in Berlin, this article seeks to separate its critique from that of Brown's for two reasons. First, as Slavoj Žižek highlights (2008: 666), Brown's claims are still within the trajectory of tolerant liberalism, since she proposes a liberalism that is aware of its own Eurocentric approach:

This book seeks to lay bare this political landscape. It contests the culturalization of politics that tolerance discourse draws from and promulgates, and contests as well the putatively a-cultural nature of liberalism. The normative premise animating this contestation is that a more democratic global future involves affirming rather than denying and disavowing liberalism's cultural facets and its imprint by particular cultures. Such an affirmation would undermine liberalism's claims to universalism and liberalism's status as culturally neutral in brokering the tolerable. This erosion, in turn, would challenge the standing of liberal regimes as uniquely, let alone absolutely, tolerant, revealing them instead to be as self-affirming and Other-rejecting as many other regimes. It would also reveal liberalism's proximity to and bouts of forthright engagement with fundamentalism.

The recognition of liberalism as cultural is more than a project of debunking its airs of superiority or humiliating its hubristic reach. Rather, insofar as it makes explicit the inherent hybridity or impurity of every instantiation of liberalism, it underscores the impossibility of any liberalism ever being "only liberalism" and the extent to which both form and content are potted, historical, local, lived. It reveals liberalism as always already being the issue of miscegenation with its fundamentalist Other, as containing this Other within, and thus as having a certain potential for recognizing and connecting with this Other without. In this possibility may be contained liberalism's prospects for renewal, even for redemption, or at the very least for more modest and peaceful practices (Brown 2006: 24).

Žižek argues that Brown's limitation lies in the fact that her arguments reiterate the notion that modern Europeans as constantly changing whereas other civilizations remain culturally rigid (2008: 667). It is at this point that Brown's rejection of liberalism's claim of universality without culture (a false universality, as Žižek calls it) misses the main struggle against tolerance.

Actual universality is not the deep feeling that, above all differences, different civilizations share the same basic values; actual universality appears (actualizes itself) as the experience of negativity, of the inadequacy-to-itself of a particular identity. The formula of revolutionary solidarity is not let us tolerate our differences, it is not a pact of civilizations, but a pact of struggles that cut across civilizations, a pact between what, in each civilization, undermines its identity from within, fights against its oppressive kernel. What unites us is the same struggle. A better formula would thus be: in spite of our differences, we can identify the basic antagonism of the antagonistic struggle in which we are both caught; so let us share our intolerance and join forces in the same struggle. In other words, in the emancipatory struggle, it is not the cultures in their identity that join hands; it is the repressed, the exploited and suffering, the parts of no-part of every culture that come together in a shared struggle (Žižek 2008: 673–674).

Second, while Brown's strength in attacking a contemporary tolerance of liberalism is to be saluted, t this chapter distances itself from Brown's critique insofar as her reading of Michel Foucault's governmentality remains very limited. According to her, Foucault's account is problematic since it lessens the role of the state in theorizing modern political power, and thus misses the point that tolerance is a crucial element in the legitimization of state violence (Brown 2006: 82). Although it is not within the scope of this chapter to engage in a detailed reading of Foucault's governmentality, it is helpful to briefly clarify the concept here. Governmentality emerges, according to Foucault, at the intersection of two techniques, namely,

technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivizing of the subject; technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immorality (Foucault 1988: 18).

This broader framework does not diminish the state's role (as it is argued by Brown); rather, it opens up different possibilities for its physical and symbolic violence through tolerance. As presented in this article, public and private institutions, as well as civil society organizations in Berlin, take part in the definition and implementation of a specific form of tolerance toward certain groups of people through particular narratives and practices of measuring, exhibiting and networking for tolerance. In so doing, this promotion of tolerance asserts the superior position of the tolerant over those to be guided toward certain ends. From a methodological point of view, where one questions the conditions of possibility, this relation can be seen as a point of contact in terms of tactics and strategies of power.

The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power, not relations of meaning. History has no 'meaning', though this is not to say that it is absurd or incoherent. On the contrary, it is intelligible and should be susceptible of analysis down to the smallest detail—but this in accordance with the intelligibility of struggles, or strategies and tactics (Foucault 2000: 116).

#### **Bibliography**


## 2 Solidarity and the City: A Complicated Story

*María do Mar Castro Varela and Leila Haghighat*

Indeed, how are we to conceptualize the very problem of toleration and pluralism *as such* as central problems in contemporary cultural-political discourse? (Scott 2000: 283)

"Space," according to Henri Lefebvre "has been shaped and molded from historical and natural elements, but this has been a political process. Space is political and ideological" (Lefebvre 1977: 341). When we gaze at urban spaces, the space looks back at us showing the rifts and ruptures running through its streets and places. Cities are produced and formed by stories of occupation *and* exclusion, as much as by different forms of mobility. They are filled with narratives of oppression *and* of emancipation. Or, to put it differently, urban spaces have a history and are constantly being (re-)invented. Metropoles like Berlin, Istanbul or Athens are literally formed by migrants and refugees; meanwhile, urban and political struggles are part and parcel of the perennial city-making. As David Harvey puts it,

To claim the right to the city […] is kind of shaping power over the processes of urbanization, over the ways in which our cities are made and remade, and to do so in a fundamental and radical way. (Harvey 2012: 5)

It is important to note that urban struggles are directly linked to industrialization and work, to hope, modernity and alienation. Besides, tussles in cities like Berlin, Istanbul, Marseille or Barcelona, but also in cities located in the former European colonies, are not only a sign of the powerful exclusion of the urban unwanted (the urban poor, migrants, refugees, drug consumers, homeless people, sex workers, and the like), but must also be read as a *popular will to resist* or what Judith Butler calls the "right to appear as a coalitional framework" (Butler 2015: 27). We observe continuous explosions of resistance in the city (such as the Gezi Park protests or the revolts in Tunis, Cairo or Hong Kong). Struggles, strikes, and demonstrations have become almost customary in the metropoles. They represent urban micro-wars around the use of public spaces. But the city is also a grand place of enunciation: Popular resistance like in Istanbul's Gezi Park (see Cabadağli and Ediger in this volume) or in Cairo's Tahrir Square (see Hamed in this volume) intervene in hegemonic structures and a bogus harmony of the city. They shake-up frozen power structures and act as signs for the refusal of the popular masses to accept a slow but steady re-feudalization of the cities that goes hand in glove with growing popular right-wing movements and the increasing presence of police and (para-)military bodies in the cities (see Belina and Wertheim in this volume). The reasons and protest strategies might differ, but as Butler puts it, "the gathering signifies an excess of what is said, and that mode of signification is a concerted bodily enactment, a plural form of performativity" (Butler 2015: 8).

It would be rather naïve to believe that plain protest politics is able to stop the massive ongoing restructuring of global metropoles, but they may stir up hegemonic discourses and configurations (without necessarily radically transforming them). That is the reason why protest groups are often confronted with a massive counter-resistance by the *urban powerful*, such as urban planners or gentrification barons, who habitually work together with the governments in power (Harvey 2012).

Following Antonio Gramsci, we understand urban protests as wars over hegemony that, among many other things, powerfully determine who will be granted the right to inhabit the inner-city of London, Istanbul, Berlin, Marseille, Barcelona or Rome. Protests by refugees as observed in 2015 and in years before—illustrate that the right to the city is and was always a disputed right. Combatting place is the civil society (Jakob 2016). Fights about rights to the city are not only fights over who gets access to the scarce resources (such as housing, water, and education), but also struggles for the right to non-normative lives and spaces—which only (big) cities are able to facilitate. "The violence of power is answered by the violence of subversion. […] State-imposed normality makes permanent transgression inevitable" (Lefebvre 1991: 23).

It is a rather disturbing paradox that practices of resistance by the *urban unwanted* have turned cities like Istanbul and Berlin into trendy tourist spots—places desired by the global class of young successful narcissists. For many years, cities like Berlin, Barcelona or Lisbon have experienced a rise in the number of tourists and simultaneously an increase in resistance against the mass-tourism industry (Plummer 2017). Fulfilling the desire to be in a cool city accelerates diverse gentrification processes and exclusionary politics. At incredible speed, cities are transformed by a global hipster crowd into cool places—unaffordable by the majority of its inhabitants—as hipsters are able and ready to pay for overpriced housing in the metropoles. In consequence, the rent for apartments in cities like Berlin and London have increased at a nearly perverse speed, reaching soaring heights.<sup>1</sup> The young, rich and successful wish to live in neighborhoods that are perceived as *nonchalant* often, these places have become attractive precisely because of socially marginalized people living in these neighborhoods for centuries, the fairly non-normative lifestyles of the (former) inhabitants (such as migrants, workers, queers, and the like) have been fetishized although their lives continue to be precarious and vulnerable. The rich youngsters parasitically latch on the diverse cultures of the urban marginalized, temporarily copying their way of life—by smoking shisha or drinking beer out of a bottle sitting on a bench on the street, for example.

There is also another side to the city as is shown in studies on so-called solidarity and/or sanctuary cities (Lippert and Rehaag 2013). Metropoles like Berlin and Barcelona are similarly desirable places for global migrants, who often portray them as the entrance to a more privileged life away from poverty and war zones. On arrival, the image often enough turns from paradise to hell (Castro Varela 2007). But more and more European cities such as Palermo, Barcelona, and Berlin have begun to experiment with a form of strategic solidarity. The local governments of these cities have welcomed refugees and migrants, making housing and health care accessible to anyone with or without papers, and with or without citizenship. As the *Charta of Palermo* (2015) declares:

It is time that the European Union abolishes the residence permit for all those who migrate, reaffirming the freedom of movement of people, as well as of capital and goods, in the globalized world. A strong solicitation on a global scale, not just within the Schengen area, must be sent out from Europe to recognize the mobility of all human beings as a right (City of Palermo 2015: 3).

What poststructuralist thinkers have reiterated again and again has become obvious, namely, that justice is a rather contingent idea. Put in a Derridean way, a just world is always a world *to come*; a world in the making. But even if the fight for justice remains unfinished, it must be pursued ruthlessly. What does this imply in the context of rights to the city? Who shows solidarity with whom to reach what kind of justice? Who are the actors when it comes to urban transformation? And what transformation should be aimed for?

In light of these observations and questions, this chapter presents a few thoughts on solidarity in the context of urban rebellions that challenge a too

<sup>1</sup> The blog "Bizim Kiez" documents the increasing injustice in Berlin's real estate market in the well-known Wrangelkiez in Kreuzberg. See: https://www.bizim-kiez.de/en/

simplistic reading of both solidarity *and* uprisings. A rather unsophisticated description of solidarity would follow a Christian perspective and consider solidarity as a practice of lending a hand to those in need. In contrast to this, we want to introduce a concept of solidarity—which we coined 'de-solidarity,' to address the problematic aspects of the hegemonic idea of solidarity as an unquestioned liberal practice and simultaneously to hold on to solidarity as a necessary ethical social practice. Our unfolding of the concept of 'de-solidarity' departs from the contingent idea of solidarity as a moral obligation of the bourgeoisie to *help* the "have-nots" (Alinsky 1972). Instead, we are in search of unsullied approaches to establish transversal urban alliances. Alliances that will inevitably be messy.

We begin with an overview of diverse perspectives on solidarity, before considering two important questions that arise from our ideological positioning as postcolonial feminists: Is it possible to delineate a non-Eurocentric solidarity? And how is it possible to build alliances that crisscross class, national belonging, race, sex, gender, etc.? After sketching out 'de-solidarity' as an alternative mode of collectivity-building, we conclude by demonstrating the connections between 'de-solidarity' and (urban) movements resisting everyday oppression.

#### **Revisiting Solidarity**

Change comes from power, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together (Alinsky 1972: 113).

In the *Communist Manifesto* (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels emphatically argued that the main focus of solidarity should be the liberation from all forms of injustice. Following this rather unpretentious definition, solidarity can be described as an interminable process with a clear political direction: the liberation of the oppressed masses. Here, we translate masses into subalternized groups *and* diverse marginalized social urban groups. In the city, subalternized groups are composed mainly of undocumented migrants and homeless people, those who, according to Spivak (2000), are not able to enter the sphere of civil society:

With the breakup of the welfare state, the earlier definition of the subaltern as one cut off from lines of social mobility increasingly applies to the metropolitan homeless, although the cultural argument is subsumed under a class-argument here (ibid.: 323).

Marginalized groups are however far more heterogeneous. That is why we center our analysis on poor people in general: the unemployed, the drug consumer, a certain stratum of sex workers, etc. without ignoring trans and intersex people, black, indigenous and people of color and people with disabilities. We crisscross the class line and look for assemblages. Subalternized groups are, as Spivak reiterates, not able to represent themselves. That is why, in cities like Berlin or Marseille, one finds numerous groups (self-)representing trans individuals, migrants or people of color, but it is almost impossible to find self-representing groups of undocumented migrants or homeless people. Although there are groups and movements of undocumented refugees such as the *sans papiers* in France (Freedman 2008), they inevitably become clients of social work and desired objects of compassion for a community of global liberal humanists. The self-interested bourgeois compassion is masquerading as solidarity. This is the kind of solidarity that we ought to defy. Notwithstanding, we believe that certain kinds of solidarity are needed in any democratic social context. Similar to tolerance, solidarity is a necessary social poison. We should also differentiate between horizontal solidarity which is part of political collective-building and self-empowerment, such as the *Convivialist Manifesto Movement* which converges on the convivial virtues of acknowledging others. Convivialism is defined in the Manifesto as

an art of living together (con-vivere) that would allow humans to take care of each other and of Nature, without denying the legitimacy of conflict, yet by using it as a dynamizing and creativity-sparking force, a means to ward off violence and killing (Convivialist Manifesto 2014).

Conversely, the kind of vertical solidarity we want to problematize is one where the 'strong' reaches for the 'weak': a sort of social Darwinism.

The term solidarity originated from the Roman law *obligatio in solidum* and describes a special form of communal liability (Bayertz 1998: 11). By the end of the eighteenth century, the legal concept of 'solidarity' became generalized as an important term within politics and morality (ibid.). Over the course of the French Revolution, 'solidarity' found its place in the political sphere next to 'brotherhood,' while also being used in sociological analyses, prominently mobilized by later authors such as Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim who described solidarity as a kind of social glue (see ibid.). In his work *De la division du travail social* (2007/1893), Durkheim unfolded different types of solidarity, namely organic and mechanical solidarity, and stressed that solidarity was not an ideal, but "chiefly a living reality" (quoted in Liedman 2002: 2).

Solidarity is often described as a mutual moral obligation between an individual and a community: a principle targeting the isolation of the individual by focusing on mutual (co-)responsibility and (co-)obligation (Hubmann and Kapeller 2012: 141). As Georg Hubmann and Jakob Kapeller convincingly argue, there are several reasons for people to show solidarity: We can distinguish between a "reason-led" and "enlightened" solidarity in the sense of a Kantian 'good' on the one hand, and solidarity as a practice motivated by social reciprocity on the other hand. Solidarity can be expressed as an act of compassion and/or empathy, the compassionate sharing the suffering of victims of violence or discrimination. As Martha Nussbaum elucidates, compassion is a "painful emotion directed at the serious suffering of another creature or creatures" (Nussbaum 2013: 142). But compassion is only felt if the spectator and agent of compassion thinks that the suffering is serious and has not been caused by the suffering person themselves. Moreover, the suffering person ought to be perceived as similar to oneself so that the one who feels compassion thinks that what happened to this person could also happen to him- or herself (ibid.: 143). That way, essentially, compassion is merely a specific kind of self-pity. We argue that solidarity-based on self-pity is not harmless but destructive, as it is a kind of doing good for the other because of one's own (unconscious) anxieties. As such, the link between solidarity and compassion is—at a minimum—a problematic one.

But solidarity can also open paths to liberation when, for example, a political group defends an individual against state repression. The Civil Rights Movement is one example, but also political collectivities that show solidarity against the deportation of refugees or against the German law that restricts the movement of refugees (Residenzpflicht) as long as their asylum claims are under review.2

In short, solidarity is without any doubt an important constituent of political struggles. Like any other liberal political notion however, solidarity is not without historical baggage and is laden with aporias. Its direct links to the French Revolution and to social and political emancipation speak to the double bind that characterizes the concept. Historically, every emancipatory moment has been simultaneously a source of oppression for another group. Freedom from feudalism, for example, lead to a wave of terror against all those opposing the revolutionary ideology of the French Revolution. In other words, solidarity can lead to other forms of oppression: The failure of decolonization e.g. points to the problem that arises from non-inclusive solidarity—or, in other words, from a non-de-subalternization.

<sup>2</sup> "Residenzpflicht" (2012) by Denise Garcia Bergt is an excellent documentary on the highly contested law (online: https://residenzpflichtdoc.com/).

#### **Cities as Places of Resistance**

At the end of it all, the analyst is often left with a simple decision: Whose side are you on, whose common interests do you seek to protect, and by what means? (Harvey 2012: 71)

Stuart Hall prominently remarked, that "cities are the product—the material and spatial expression—of their times" (Hall 2006: 20). The main contradictions within contemporary social, economic, cultural and political conditions are not only made visible but are contested in the city. Think of Walter Benjamin's flâneur and ragpicker as portrayed in his "Arcade Project" (1999/1940) wandering through the city not only opposing the efficient and clean bourgeois, but also representing a kind of condensed counter-hegominc position. During the European financial crisis which hit first Greece and later Spain, Italy, and Portugal, contradictions of capitalism became visible: The ragpicker collecting the leftovers of history (see also Le Roy 2017) and the flâneur loitering around, dreaming through the city again became important subjects of resistance. The *Movimiento 15-M* was born in Spain. Eight million citizens went onto the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and other big cities shaming their government for being unable and unwilling to secure basic rights like health care and education. The movement started on 15 May 2011 and went on for years, spreading through many cities in Spain. People protested against high unemployment rates, welfare cuts, the unquestioned power of the banks and political corruption. It was by no means an unprecedented demonstration; big cities—especially in Southern Europe—have been exploiting the streets to show their displeasure with decisions by the political caste for centuries. Astonishingly, the coming together on the streets worked even in times of social media: Although important information (e.g. time and meeting point) was shared via Twitter, Facebook, and different messenger services, the protests themselves consisted of assemblies in the streets and courts (Butler 2015). The phenomenon, discussed as *new municipalism,* is understood as a movement that brings together different social confluences forming new political configurations in the municipalities. The municipalism movement claims more autonomy for the cities from the nation-states. At the same time, cities and municipalities take up active roles in a global network, jointly with other municipalities, to uphold human rights principles. The movement has not only been able to mobilize residents to participate actively and intensively in local problem-solving it has also has been extremely successful in local politics:

[M]unicipalist initiatives question the sharp division between the 'inside and outside' of local institutions, whilst accepting that there must also be a productive tension between these spaces. In many cases, the organization of municipalist candidacies come from social movements, as activists and ordinary citizens decide to present themselves for elections (Roth 2019, unpaged).

As a result, representatives of the municipalist movements won several local elections (e.g. Madrid, Barcelona, and A Coruña) implementing new democratic rituals like discussion forums, wherein any citizen can throw light on municipal problems that concern them. A democratic practice that was popular during the Gezi movement in Istanbul. Protests were translated into democratic rituals. Regrettably, in the last elections, a number of the municipalities in Spain did not support the municipalist movement. Consequently, Madrid, for instance, is now governed by a coalition of the conservative and right. Likewise, the legacies of Gezi are contradictory.

As an expression of our times, cities enshrine the main social and economic conflicts, be they the so-called sex-wars or gender-wars or the war for communal resources like water and housing. The contestation of people with marginalized socio-political status becomes possible in the city and produces the city at the same time. Cities understand differences as spatial attractions for different but converging streams of human activity. Seen from the perspective of Cultural Studies, Hall points out that

cities have always been divided by class and wealth, by property rights and power of disposal, by occupation and use, by way of life and culture, race and nationality, ethnicity and religion, social as well as sexual orientation (Hall 2006: 24).

Concurrently, cities function as the connecting element between "different lifeworlds" and establish diverse relations of interchange between them (ibid.: 25). Hence, cities do not just have a "long history as centers of trade, like markets, and thus as sites of cultural exchange and social complexity (ibid.)," but they are also sites of political contestation. As Harvey (2012: xvii) highlights, the relationship between the city and citizenship and its "political meaning […] mobilizes a crucial political imaginary" since the city is "an object of utopian desire", "a distinctive place of belonging within a perpetually shifting spatiotemporal order".

Harvey's writings were greatly influenced by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre whose groundbreaking work *The Right to the City* was first published more than 50 years ago and since then has become canonical. Lefebvre's famous claim must be understood in his broader social analysis of the categories of 'city' and 'space.' As an analytical category, the city and the urban play an important role as both abstract and concrete figures in his socio-political observations. Lefebvre's theories draw on Marxist dialectical materialism and the idea of self-production of man as a social being. He comprehends individuals as joined to each other by complex, concrete and fluid relationships who have to "'subjugate' the alienated and 'reified' powers in actual practice" (Lefebvre 2009a: 62). The social needs as anthropological basis that is contradictory and complementary include security and adventure, work and play, predictability and unpredictability, unity and difference, isolation and encounter (Lefebvre 2009b: 95). It is in urban spaces that major social needs can be satisfied; they are spaces of simultaneity and encounter not defined by exchange value and profit (ibid: 96). Lefebvre criticizes the transformation of the use-value of the city into an exchange-value, which comes, as Andrezj Zieleniec points out, "at the expense of a truly collective social and spatial solidarity and proximity, of a shared potentiality of creative experience of being together in space" (2018: 10). However, urban life for Lefebvre is not confined to life in the cities. His concept of 'urban society' expands the urban to society as a whole. He identifies a connection between industrialization and urbanization, which he describes as a double process of "growth and development, economic production and social life" (Lefebvre 1996a: 70). Nevertheless, Lefebvre attributes a significant role to the city: It plays a mediating part. He distinguishes between three levels that interact to form social reality: level *G*, the distant order, is the global, general level of the state and the world market; the private level *P*, the close order, is everyday life; between these levels lies the city as the mediating level *M*. The (mixed, middle or intermediate) level M "is the specifically urban level. It is the level of the 'city', as the term is currently used" (Lefebvre 2003: 80). Both the global (G) and the private (P) levels manifest themselves both materially and immaterially in the city as a "specifically urban ensemble," which "provides the characteristic unity of the social real" (ibid.). Lefebvre stresses that the city always has relations with society as a whole, with its constituent elements (landscape and agriculture, offensive and defensive power, political powers, states, etc.) and with its history. Therefore, the city changes in structures and practices according to the changes in society (Lefebvre 2009b: 44). The city also depends to a large extent on the immediacy of social relations, on direct relations between the people and social groups that compose that society (ibid.). It is indeed these interpersonal relations "of association and domination, practical solidarity and competition, complementarity and exploitation" (Lefebvre 1965: 75) that characterize society with their own peculiarity and contradictions.

For Lefebvre, urban life reflects these relational encounters: "the confrontation of differences, reciprocal knowledge, and acknowledgment (including ideological and political confrontation), ways of living, 'patterns' which coexist in the city" (Lefebvre 1996: 75). As a result, urban life itself entails democratic potential. But since urban democracy's potentiality threatens the privileges of the ruling class, it is muffled by displacing the proletariat, refugees and other 'unwanted subjects' from the city centers, destroying what Lefebvre (2009b: 13) calls "urbanity":

As a form, the urban transforms what it brings together (concentrates) […] It consciously creates difference where no awareness of difference existed […] It consolidates everything [also] conflicts" (ibid). The urban acts as a multiplier and is neither harmonious as a form nor as reality, but is rather defined "as a place where conflicts are expressed (ibid.: 174).

Practice here is characterized by difference, whose origin lies in its peculiarities, and any attempt to straighten out differences would result in a reduction of diversity, an ideological homogenization that seeks to legitimize one's own law as the universal one (Guelf 2010: 20–21). Differences thus become the revolutionary potential that replaces the proletariat in Marxist analyses. In "*Le manifeste différentialiste*" (Lefebvre 1970) wants "the right to difference" to be anchored in the Basic Law, since differences are supposed to secure the permanent cultural revolution (*révolution permanente*) as a vision for the future (Guelf 2010: 21). The right to the city is, therefore, also a right to difference. Hence, is the right to participate in shaping the city and thus also society as such, and consequently also includes all other rights: "the rights of ages and sexes (the woman, the child and the elderly), rights of conditions (the proletarian, the peasant), rights of training and education, to work, to culture, to rest, to health, to housing" (Lefebvre 1996: 157). Lefebvre's claim to a right to the city is to be understood in a broader sense as the right to difference as well as participation in shaping society at large. In his dialectical understanding, the urbanized society represents a danger and a possibility at the same time. The danger lies in a (global) homogenization of everyday life that leaves no room for differences and inventiveness. At the same time, urbanization also offers the opportunity to change society, by demanding these rights through the encounter of individuals, particularities, differences and the possibility of solidarity.

The main claim that everybody has a right to the city can be translated into the agendas of multiple urban social movements that have emerged all over the world (Santos Jr. 2014: 152). These movements consist of a wide range of struggles: against evictions; for the homeless, the rights of immigrants, cultural movements, environmental issues and many more (ibid.). It is in the cities that different struggles and heterogeneity of demands galvanize:

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights (Harvey 2012: 4).

Seen through a Lefebvrian lens, the right to the city becomes a *right through the city*, as it is the city that forms the backdrop for contestations (for example, concerning human rights violations and refugee laws) amongst its inhabitants (see also Attoh 2011). It comes therefore as no surprise that immigrants from formerly colonized countries wish to move to the big metropoles. Although big cities are known for their cruelty (Wacquant 2009), they are also spaces of possibilities. Not without reason, most right-wing parties praise the countryside and demonize the cities. Nevertheless, the story is more complicated and the romanticizing of cities like New York, Berlin and Barcelona is rather disturbing, since they are also places of marginalization. Barcelona, for example, is one of the most visited cities in Europe, famous for its "highly impressive urban environment" (Alashwal 2012: 2741) which underwent several phases of transformation, including a major one in preparation for the 1992 Olympics when decaying and impoverished parts of the city were renewed, and an impressive and now very popular beach has been developed. But,

at the same time, a radical transformation of inner-city districts began, with a policy of improving the social capital and mopping-up the marginal inhabitants who had given the city a reputation for serious crime (ibid.: 2742).

Precisely in the urban intersection of the possibilities of protest and the production of "wasted lives" (Bauman 2003), we start to cogitate about 'de-solidarity' an urban political strategy of thinking about urban cohesion that transgresses the rather lame politics of tolerance (see Ülker in this volume).

The social phenomena of anti-austerity movements and the new left populism observed in South European cities from 2008 onwards is remarkable: Although solemnized in certain circles (Butler 2015), they revolve mostly around particularisms. People on the streets feeling betrayed by their governments is not the same as, for example, as people on the streets in solidarity with undocumented refugees. To be more concrete, *a right through the city* is only possible by means of a particular horizontal solidarity, since, to argue with Harvey (2012), the idea of the right to the city "primarily rises up from the streets, out from the neighborhoods, as a cry for help and sustenance by oppressed peoples in desperate times" (ibid.: xiii). As Margit Mayer points out, most right-to-the-city-networks are composed of very diverse groups: anarchist or alternative groups; middle class "urbanites;" different varieties of "precarious people"; artists; local environmental groups engaged in struggles against problematic climate, energy or urban development policies; or groups in which migrants, people of color, homeless people, and other marginalized people have organized themselves (Mayer 2013: 162).

In a recent interview for *ctxt. Revista contexto*, political theorist Chantal Mouffe stated that a strategy of leftist populism necessarily has to be seen as a "war of position" in the Gramscian sense,3 implying that instead of trying to reach a radical transformation in one go, there will be always fallbacks. The strategies, therefore, have to be heterogenous to be able to counteract appropriations and defamations by conservative parties. Taking these arguments into consideration, 'de-solidarity' intends to work out strategies that enable heterogeneous groups to act successfully in a situation of a war of position in times of a neoliberal crisis.

#### **De-solidarity: A two-realm model of belonging and disidentification**

De-solidarity can be described as a two-realm model of 'belonging' and 'disidentification.' According to Kurt Bayertz, justice is inherent to the concept of solidarity since its normative use is justified only where the common goals and interests can be considered legitimate from the point of view of justice (1998: 44). He elucidates the history of workers' movements against injustice and their understanding of political and social emancipation to show that, in this case, it is not about the enforcement of naked self-interest, but about a realization of universal just goals (ibid.: 45). Human rights had to be laboriously worked on, and solidarity as a form of support for minorities has played, according to Bayertz, a key role here (ibid.). He sketches out solidarity as an indispensable political resource, especially in situations where institutionalized mechanisms for the establishment and safeguarding of justice do not exist or fail to respond to actual injustices and when decisions between conflicting interests and claims can only be made through political, economic, or social struggles (ibid.).

<sup>3</sup> Online: https://ctxt.es/es/20190710/Politica/27300/chantal-mouffe-reformismoradical-populismo-de-izquierdas-hugo-chavez-samuele-mazzolini.htm

But, as mentioned previously, acting in solidarity always risks dissolving into mere compassion, making it incompatible with political strategies in search of radical transformation. Without a critical reflection on compassion for the have-nots, solidarity only reproduces and stabilizes an unjust social order. To put it otherwise, solidarity without a constant auto-critique—of populist movements, for example—deprives those who are helped of political participation and voids their agency. When rights—such as human rights—are fought for by another social group than the social group in need, it automatically reinforces existing hegemonic structures and, in so doing also (traditional) social hierarchies. Furthermore, as Todd May correctly remarks:

One of the reasons we find it so difficult to imagine another social order is that these hierarchies present themselves as natural or inescapable because the presupposition of inequality has been ingrained in us (May 2009: 8).

Equality ought not to be the end of a political process but must be seen as presupposition of any solidarity. This postulation of inequality plays a key role in the political thinking of Jacques Rancière, who inspires our thinking on solidarity. His concept of "empty freedom" draws attention to the failure of liberal and humanist politics, which masquerades as "humanist", its politics of self-interest. In his work *Dis-agreement* (1999), Rancière differentiates between politics and the police. While it is the police order which assigns individual-specific positions, politics takes place when people who appear to be unequal act as equal and expose the arbitrariness of the police order and therefore counteract it. Rancière understands politics as "a process of emancipation" by means of "verification of the equality of any speaking being with any other speaking being" (Rancière 1992: 59). Emancipation, which may be defined as doing politics, takes place through a process of political subjectivation, which, according to Rancière is "a process of disidentification or declassification" (ibid.: 61). Rancière develops his theory through a thorough reading of the Athens democracy, where the abolition of slavery led to a new class of citizens, the demos. The demos became a class of citizens whose members lacked traditional traits, like wealth, birth, or moral virtues, deemed necessary for active participation in the political process. Instead of accepting their attributed role, the demos not only demanded to participate equally with "the rich, well-born and morally superior" but claimed to be the sole source of the city's sovereignty" (Davis 2010: 55). Inspired by Aristoteles, who described members of the demos as those who had "no part in anything" (Rancière 1999: 9), Rancière labels marginalized groups as the part who have no part (*les sans-part*). The political struggle of the sans-part—the poor of ancient times, the third estate, the modern proletariat, and unwanted refugees—is essentially what politics is made up of. They are in disagreement with the hegemonic caste. Their struggle for existence as a political subject is, in Rancière's terms, the process of political subjectivation and the enactment of equality. He delineates (three) different processes of political subjectivation: One is the process of disidentification, which we understand as one part of de-solidarity. Disidentification means the unwillingness to identify with an attributed social positioning.<sup>4</sup> However, political subjectivation must be accompanied by an "impossible identification" with otherness in general. Subjectivation in a Rancièrian sense is never a simple assertion of identity, but always chaperoned by a being in-between: "The place of a political subject is an interval or gap: being together to the extent that we are in-between—between names, identities, cultures, and so on" (Rancière 1992: 62).

Nonetheless, the concept of disidentification goes beyond the struggle for one's position. Rancière's two main illustrations of disidentification including the impossible identification associated with subjectification can be found in his "Politics, Identification, and Subjectivation" (1992) and "The Case of the Other" (1998). The latter is an edited lecture which he gave at a conference on France and Algeria in 1995 in Paris (Davis 2010: 136). In the context of the Algerian war and in the face of the strong solidarity of left intellectuals in France in the 1960s with the so-called Third World, Rancière prominently remarked, "we could act as political subjects in the in-between-space or the gap between two identities" (1992: 62). Referring to the large demonstrations that took place toward the end of the Algerian war in 1961, he spoke of "a moment when the ethical aporia of the relationship between 'mine' and the other was transformed into the political subjectivation of an inclusive relationship with alterity" (Rancière 1998: 28). "For my generation", Rancière explains,

politics in France relied on an impossible identification –an identification with the bodies of the Algerians beaten to death and thrown into the Seine by the French police, in the name of the French people, in October 1961. We could not identify with those Algerians, but we could question our identification with the 'French people' in whose name they had been murdered (1992: 61).

<sup>4</sup> Michel Foucault similarly remarks, "Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are […] We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for several centuries" (Foucault 1982: 785).

This acting in solidarity as a political subjectivation was an act of disidentification with the nation-state *and*, at the same time, pointed to the impossibility of identification with the former colonized (see also Muñoz 1999). Here, the plight of the other, the Algerians, was not only a reason to act in solidarity with the wretched of the earth but a reason for one's own political subjectivation. In a certain sense, the predicament of the Algerians made the political struggle of the Parisian intellectuals against war as such possible (Rancière 1998: 27). In Rancière's understanding, a political subjectivation implies a 'discourse of the other' in three senses: a rejection of an identity established by another; a demonstration addressed to another that constitutes a community by a certain wrong, and an impossible identification with another with whom one cannot in normal circumstances identify (e.g. the Fanonian 'wretched of the earth' (2005 [1963]) (see ibid.: 29). Political subjectivation may, therefore, be understood as the formation of a collective subject. A collective subject which is "a collection of individuals who presuppose the equality of one another in their common action" (May 2013: 16).

Taking into consideration Rancière's concept of disidentification and its connection and intersections with political struggle, we want to propose an active idea of solidarity which is always impossible but politically necessary as long as we desire a more just world. The yearning for belonging must unavoidably be combined with disidentification—even a disidentification with the city. The two desires interrupt each other and open up a political space where the other is no longer the object of politics, but quite the other way around, the motor of a process of disidentification.

#### **Conclusion**

Politics cannot be imagined without solidarity, as political transformations are eternally bound to urban struggles. We are still in need of viable political strategies that do not reify the political order but allow differences to make a difference, as Kimberlé Crenshaw remarks (see also Castro Varela and Dhawan 2016). De-solidarity offers tentative ideas of how to build collectivities that are non-hierarchical, radical and simultaneously critical of their own selfproclaimed radicality positioning the actors of solidarity in a space in-between.

In line with Gramsci, one might argue that solidarity has to be thought of in terms of political alliances: "Gramsci positions solidarity as rather more integral to the generation of collective political will" (Featherstone 2013: 68). In his essay "Some Aspects of the Southern Question", Gramsci points out that solidarity is built through practice in spatial relations. He also emphasizes the importance of regional solidarity in generating political action which can lead to the previously mentioned war over hegemony, since, as Featherstone points out, not only solidarities but hegemonic articulations are constructed through spatial practice (ibid.: 69). Here again, the dialectical relation between space and social practice kicks in. To think the urban is to think ways of living together and co-existing, a con-vivere, that would include taking care of each other and tolerating differences and conflict, as stressed in Lefebvre's writings and developed in the Convivialist Manifesto. It is this kind of living together that enables solidarity. At the same time, solidarity (in terms of political alliances) is needed to preserve spatial social practice that further supports solidarity. Yet solidarity as a form of political subjectivation needs the awareness of the impossibility of identification with the other, of being a political subject "in the in-between-space or the gap between two identities." It has to be conducted with the awareness of radical alterity—the wholly other—as Spivak convincingly reminds us (Spivak 2012: 97).

To be born human is to be angled toward an other and others. To account for this the human being presupposes the quite-other. This is the bottom line of being-human as being-in-the-ethical-relation. By definition, we cannot—no self can—reach the quite other. Thus, the ethical situation can only be figures in the ethical experience of the impossible. This is the founding gap in all act or talk, most especially in acts or talk that we understand to be closest to the ethical—the historical and the political (ibid.: 97–98).

With Lefebvre's concept of the urban society as an open possibility and Derrida's notion of a world in the making, we have to think solidarity as a way of co-shaping society, while keeping in mind the impossibilities theorized by Spivak and Rancière. De-solidarity then becomes paramount in a world where cities are turned into objects of capitalist and neoliberal agendas, such that they have lost their power to work through and with contradictions.

#### **Bibliography**


## 3 The Promise and Limits of Participatory Discourses and Practices

*Margit Mayer*

This chapter disentangles some of the diverse participatory discourses and practices that can be observed in our cities today and explores how their widespread use might be understood in the context of contemporary urban contestations. Such a disentangling requires a theoretical perspective; I use that of neoliberal urbanism, which has been developed within critical urban studies. Such a macro perspective allows for an analysis of both societal dynamics and the interests of relevant actors. Through the lens provided by a neo-liberalization framework, a seemingly contradictory development that has emerged over the last few decades comes into focus: at the same time that inequality, exclusion, disenfranchisement, and social polarization have become more and more widespread, models of inclusive planning, practices of participatory citizenship, and a discourse of expanding citizenship rights have proliferated like never before.<sup>1</sup> This critical perspective allows us to explore the tension between (expanding) formal rights on the one hand and, on the other, the de facto realities of dis/empowerment and the (often) very limited access to power for increasing numbers of groups. Surveying recent literature and case studies, the chapter reveals that, in spite of participatory citizenship officially being on the rise, this tension has not disappeared. If anything, it has intensified. On the basis of such evidence, the chapter argues that we need to elaborate a more differentiated understanding of the significance of the participatory turn than is prevalent in current debates in urban planning and development.

This chapter proceeds in three steps: first, it explains how the contemporary context of 'neoliberal urbanism' frames the widespread political adoption of participatory measures, particularly in regard to urban development and urban governance issues. Second, it traces the emergence and evolution of

<sup>1</sup> Recently, both practices of 'participatory citizenship' and expanding citizenship rights have taken on significant valence, particularly in Latin American and European countries. They encompass (the right to) a range of activities "from involvement in participatory democracy (including actions that hold governments accountable) to representative democracy (including actions such as voting), and to participation in the everyday life of the community. The definition is inclusive with respect to new forms of civic and political participation...." (Hoskins et al. 2012; Caldeira/Holston 2015).

the participatory turn and its reflection in urban planning and design models, detailing participatory programs and practices, as well as their uses and effects. A third section complements the picture with two case studies, in order to examine how progressive urban movements might engage with participatory measures and programs towards goals of social justice.

#### **Neoliberal Urbanism**

The contemporary context—where participatory measures and procedures have enjoyed such enormous growth—is fundamentally characterized by the increasing marketization and commodification of all realms of life. Scholars studying this process (Cahill et al. 2018; Mayer and Künkel 2012) have emphasized not only the active mobilization of state institutions to promote market rule, but also the self-technologies of identification and responsibilization, through which state programs and discourses work. Unlike the Fordist-Keynesian regime of the 1960s and 1970s, which was characterized by a centralized, topdown, relatively closed state, the neoliberal regime offers various concessions to local culture and/or protest movements at all state levels—but especially at the local level. In the Fordist city, the demand for "participation" was a battle cry of many urban movements; participation was something that had to be wrested from the heavy-handed top-down state. Access to decision-making bodies and the right to participate in planning and designing the city had to be struggled for and was not achieved, in Germany, until the "careful" urban renewal programs of the 1980s. These movements had some success in their demands for greater participation and for spaces of autonomy and self-realization (such as self-managed social centers)—but this came at a price. Such successes frequently led to fragmentation and internal conflicts. More specifically, many tenant and squatter groups, as well as citizens' initiatives, would, as a result of their success, find themselves incorporated into emerging urban renewal regimes. Alternative and community groups became incorporated into social service provision and community management regimes; self-organized survival strategies in anti-poverty work became instrumentalized as coping mechanisms within the newly-emerging workfare state (Mayer 1993). In this way, urban movements of that era turned out not only to 'save' certain blighted neighborhoods but also to make them attractive to investors and high-income residents. These movements thus contributed to their own neighborhoods' gentrification while also acting as important agents in bringing about a participatory opening of local politics.

This transformation, which marks the transition from the Fordist to the neoliberal city, was crucial in shaping evolving forms of governance and patterns of interaction between municipal authorities and residents, as well as their claim-making, i.e. the kinds of issues that became politicized and the types of demands that were articulated. The outcome of this transformation neoliberal urbanism—can be characterized by four central features that are markedly different from the features of Fordist urbanism.

#### *Chasing Growth in New Ways*

Since the beginning of the neoliberal turn, the overarching political strategy has been the pursuit of *growth first*. That is, urban managers do whatever they can to accelerate investment flows into the city and to improve their position within interurban rivalries. While not all cities can come out on top, these interurban rivalries have led urban policymakers and planners everywhere to prioritize unless challenged by mass movements—'highest and best use' as the main criterion for land use decisions. Thereby they drive forward gentrification and create urban enclaves, privatized spaces of elite consumption, and sanitized spaces of social reproduction, thus transforming the built environment. An effect of this pursuit of growth-chasing projects, galvanized by international property speculation, has been the explosion of property prices, which in turn has led to surges in evictions, social displacement, and a new homelessness crisis stemming from a lack of affordable housing. In contrast to the 'global city' hotspots, most 'ordinary' cities now face tightened budgets, preventing urban managers from implementing big projects and organizing expensive urban spectacles—such as World Expos, International Building Exhibits, or Garden Shows—which they had pursued since the 1980s. Instead, they now turned to forms of locational politics that rely more on low-cost, symbolic ways to accentuate the local flavor of their cities and to attract 'creative classes' in order to culturally enhance their brand. That is to say, the search is on for innovative, low-budget, especially culture-driven efforts to mobilize city space for growth.

In the array of cultural branding strategies that cities have come to adopt, urban managers have discovered that particular groups, such as creative workers, artists, and even sub-cultural activists, can play a useful role in contributing to city marketing efforts and their image construction. Many cities have put specific programs and subsidies in place in order to foster the emergence of spaces for the (sub-)cultural activities and productions of such groups. In other instances, they play an important role in participatory measures that can serve as a way to harness their innovative energies as well as channel potential protest (such as in the struggle over Berlin's Tempelhof field presented below).

#### *Entrepreneurial Governance*

Another crucial feature of the neoliberalization of cities has been the adoption of entrepreneurial forms of governance in ever more policy areas. Municipalities have thoroughly internalized the entrepreneurial logics of public-private partnerships, outsourcing risk, and speculative investment. The presumably more efficient business models and privatized forms of governance have entailed a shift towards task- and project-driven initiatives. These include the development of particular parts of town, upscale uses for waterfronts, and other projects suggested by the 'growth first' imperative, such as competing for mega-events (such as the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup). When funding streams from higher levels of government have dried up, and local governments need to do more with less, cities have increasingly turned to 'the market'—not just for speculative projects, but to fund their basic infrastructure needs as well. In this process, urban governance structures have become more and more financialized.

In these endeavors, mayors and their partners from the business sector, often bypassing city council chambers, set up special agencies to deliver target-driven initiatives that focus on specific concrete objectives. In contrast to the previous Keynesian mode of governance, which generally secured the consent of the governed through tri-partistic, corporate and long-term means, these novel forms of regulation, while less transparent and often not democratically legitimated, stabilize hegemony—if at all—by making small, flexible, and constantly-changing concessions to particular groups (primarily middle class and upwardly mobile groups, the selection of which will frequently shift). This trend towards projects has significantly transformed municipal planning, where informal and cooperative procedures have gained new significance (Schubert 2006: 240; Rinn 2016: 138). These cooperative planning procedures now involve participating citizens/groups as well as (global) developers, along with the municipality's political and administrative representatives. They do not always succeed in processing and resolving conflicts over different ideas of the planned development, nor the conflicts over in/exclusion and representation.

In this increasingly ad hoc and informalized political process, out-of-town investors, global developers and corporate flippers have come to play ever more prominent roles. The increased power of outside investors, together with the lack of public transparency within these entrepreneurial governance strategies, have given rise to various struggles over the (erosion) of representative democracy and the exclusion of 'expendable' groups from the city.

#### *Privatization of Municipal Assets, Public Services, and Public Spaces*

The intensified privatization of state assets and public infrastructure, as well as of services, is another key feature of neoliberal urbanism that keeps being thrust to new levels. These processes of privatization have not only transformed the traditional relationship and boundary between the public and private sphere (especially through the rolling back and reorganization of socially-oriented public sector institutions), but they have also exposed collective infrastructures (from public transport and utilities to social housing) to the market. Thereby privatization has actually turned into financialization (Hodkinson 2012; Rolnik 2013). In this raid of public coffers, often by government-sponsored private companies, urban resources, public infrastructures, and public services have been turned into options for expanded capital accumulation by dispossession (Ward 2017).

The privatization of one particular asset has had particularly palpable effects for urban land: As the extortion of maximal land rent functions best by dedicating more and more private spaces to elite consumption, cities have intensified the privatization of public land and public spaces. As a consequence, privatizing public squares, train stations, or quasi-public shopping malls has limited access to collective infrastructure and/or made its use more expensive.

These enclosure strategies have triggered various contestations, from protests against condo-conversions and rent increases to the occupation of social hubs and community centers. Frequently, practices of commoning have emerged in response to enclosure and privatization strategies from above, where residents engage in community land trust activism (Bunce 2015; Horlitz 2018) or develop alternative non-market ways of providing necessary services such as health care, housing, or schooling. Savvy city politicians attempt to stave off such potential conflicts by offering participatory schemes to incorporate expected resistance into more broadly acceptable privatization schemes.

#### *A Novel Strategy for Dealing with Social Polarization*

Finally, in dealing with intensifying social polarization in cities, the neoliberal tool kit has been updated with new strategies. During the early roll-out phase of neoliberalization in the 1980s and into the 1990s, this tool kit consisted of area-based programs, namely a mix of neighborhood revitalization and activation programs that were meant to stop the downward spiral in 'blighted' or so-called 'problem neighborhoods'. Since then, these programs have been severely curtailed and supplanted by a novel two-pronged policy: on the one hand, attrition and displacement policies, and on the other, more benign programs designed to incorporate *select* impoverished areas as well as *select* social groups into upgrading processes.

The repressive prong entails punitive strategies that tend to criminalize unwanted behaviors and groups—such as homeless people or beggars occupying public space—as well as attrition and displacement policies that evict and banish the poor, pushing them to distant outskirts or into invisible interstices of blight within the urban perimeter. Many communities of color, informal workers, homeless people, the undocumented, and, increasingly, the new victims of austerity are exposed to this repressive side of neoliberal politics: stricter laws, tougher policing, and greater disenfranchisement (Beckett and Herbert 2011; Eick and Briken 2014).

The 'benign' prong is applied to areas which are, due to changing circumstances, now deemed to have some development potential. For example, decaying social housing districts or (former) industrial areas—in short, previously stigmatized 'problematic' areas—now become locations for urban spectacles and (development) projects, with city managers claiming that such vehicles will benefit the residents of these areas. Today, such measures of benign incorporation are strategically deployed to undergird efforts to attract growth, investors, creative professionals, and tourists. They 'work' only where valorization processes, such as a rise in property values or investments, are promising. Once they succeed in attracting the desired upscale clientele—frequently by marketing the 'untamed urbanism' and exploiting rough working-class milieus or chic cultural authenticity (Peck 2007; Zukin 2010) –, the local, poor, and vulnerable populations are forced out. Anticipating their protest, these vehicles usually involve participatory mechanisms in order to manage the conflicts between different interests.

#### *Neoliberal Urbanism: New Exclusions and New Inclusions*

These popular instruments and policies show that with deepening neoliberalization, state-civil society relations have transformed significantly: While the state now systematically incorporates citizen activism and citizen collaboration into (informal modalities of) governance processes and governance networks, there has been no decline in the coercive power of the (local) state.2

<sup>2</sup> This distinguishes the perspective employed here from that of most meta-governance research, where coercion is seen as epiphenomenal. In fact, administrative compulsion pervades countless collaborative institutions, and coercive tools (such as evictions, demolitions, rent increases) are routinely deployed (see also Davies 2014).

The features listed above define neoliberal urbanism as a complex configuration where the widespread adoption of neoliberal discourses and policy formulations has mutated urban development and urban governance landscapes (Peck et al. 2013: 1092). While it manifests in different nationally and locally specific forms and takes on different socio-spatial contours, it exhibits a distinct and novel tension between accelerating de-democratizing and repressive trends on the one hand and expansion of inclusionary and participatory mechanisms on the other. Liberal democracies in the West have created new and graduated forms of exclusion and othering (such as curtailed forms of citizenship for documented and undocumented migrants, making citizenship rights conditional) and limited the rights to housing, health care, education and other previously widely available services—a reality which even progressive municipalities struggle to counter. At the same time, the functioning of contemporary neoliberal cities appears to be increasingly predicated on pervasive participatory structures in ever more areas. Roundtables, citizen boards, and dialogue forums are mandatory in regeneration projects and neighborhood development, in the planning of large development projects or electricity grids, and in many environmentally sensitive planning projects.

Today, participatory citizenship and the inclusion of citizens in planning and decision-making are an essential ingredient of the hegemony of neoliberal urbanism, which does *not*, however, mean that coercion has disappeared. Participation, from a Foucauldian perspective, is part of neoliberal governmentality; participatory citizenship is a political technology, and as such a distinctly different device for extending capitalist social relations than other/ earlier political technologies (Davies 2014: 3217). This applies not only to the interests and expertise of middle-class urbanites, whose knowledge is priceless for (re-)designing competitive cities,3 but also to groups adversely affected by the intensifying marginalization processes of austerity urbanism. Particularly cash-strapped cities resort to civic engagement in order to cushion the social distress of homeless and other vulnerable groups, and to participatory budgeting in order to legitimate and implement cutbacks.

Within the context of neoliberal urbanism, strong civil society networks are considered positive in that they enhance efficiency; the collaboration of urban residents and municipalities is seen as productive, as it furthers endogenous potentials and local growth. The promise of the neoliberal discourse is that, aided by the incorporation of citizen engagement in urban governance,

<sup>3</sup> Unlike the marketing experts hired by city bureaucrats, residents know—from their everyday experience—what makes and keeps a neighborhood vibrant and alive.

we can reconcile local autonomy with international competitiveness, and sustainability with economic growth.

#### **The Evolution of Theories and Practices of Participatory Citizenship**

This widespread adaptation of participatory measures and procedures has a double-edged functionality. While it allows for (affected) residents, whose opinion was rarely of interest before, to have a say, that 'say' has typically been severely circumscribed, as several fundamental decisions have already been made. In order to explore this ambivalence and how affected groups might deal with it, this section first traces the evolution of the participatory turn and its manifestation in urban planning and design models and then sketches the current varied landscape of participatory practices.

Over the course of the 1960s, demands for direct participation, consensus-based decision-making, and active citizenship became widespread. Participation was then understood as pre-figurative of a new, radically democratic, society. As a radical political project, the idea of participatory democracy contained within it the notion that participation could help to emancipate and empower citizens in every sphere of life (Pateman 1970; Blühdorn 2009). It involved a radical critique of liberal and representative democracy, which was also reflected in a rethinking of the public sphere (Habermas 1962). In the context of expanding (Keynesian) states, (especially local, but also central) governments gradually responded to these demands and began to involve citizens in decision-making processes in various areas (Poletta 2016a, 2016b; Roth 2002). In urban planning, design, and architecture, new theories based on Habermas' theory of communicative action and on normative commitments to more democratic urban governance emerged; these new theories criticized the top-down, technocratic, expert-driven urban planning concepts that had been in place during the post-war period (Udall and Holder 2013). The new planning theories, which emphasized collaboration, communication, and empowerment (Forester 1989; Healey 1996), gradually replaced the previous rational planning models and served to underpin emerging communicative participatory practices. Initially, such practices would occur only late in the planning process and typically were designed to facilitate information provision through one-way communication or limited and controlled consultation (Bloomfield et al. 2001).

In the United States, urban renewal programs from the 1960s onwards entailed clearly defined roles for participants in public meetings, including clearly defined rules of conduct regarding who could speak and when. Early on, Arnstein (1969) pointed out that when *informing* and *consultation* are the extent of participation, citizens may indeed hear and be heard, but they lack the power to ensure that their views will actually be heeded. Their goal – that citizens co-produce their city—would only be achievable on the highest rung of the participation ladder, where citizens can actually participate in the management and administration and share power, responsibility, and resources.<sup>4</sup>

By the 1970s, participatory practices became more organized in Europe as well. Participation became part of federal legislation, such as in the German law governing housing and urban development (BauGB), which legally required public participation exercises as part of local plan preparation. Beyond what was mandated by federal law, several cities began to employ participatory measures in drafting land-use plans, in urban renewal, or in community development planning (cf. Rinn 2016: 191). However, some began to worry that without changes in resource distribution, these legal mandates would just become another box to tick in order to get approval for a regeneration or infrastructure project. And concerns emerged that NIMBY ('not in my backyard') groups would use them to protect the value of their private property. Therefore, progressive activists and scholars set out to identify new institutional designs that could facilitate more radical forms of democratic participation (such as advocacy planning, cf. Davidoff 1965). Advocacy groups developed alternative models for participation, for example, inbuilt environment decision-making, where tenants whose housing was threatened with demolition to make space for new development could work with professionals to organize to effect change through resistance. In such situations, meetings and organizational practices outside of state control would allow for collective action, and sites of participation shifted away from city hall or government offices to the locations under contention (Beaumont and Nicholls 2008: 89).

This parallel flourishing of participatory decision-making under the aegis of the state, on the one hand, and citizens pushing to expand the democratic reach of these openings even further, on the other, came to a halt when, over the course of the 1980s, neoliberal agendas not only slashed state programs but

<sup>4</sup> Arnstein's ladder is divided into three parts (Arnstein 1969: 217): the lowest two steps ("non-participation") start with manipulation and therapy, followed by three steps she views as "degrees of tokenism": information, consultation, placation. Only the top section entails "degrees of citizen power": partnership, delegated power, finally citizen control (by which she means those forms of participation which refer to selfadministration, such as in schools, or the self-government of city districts or neighborhoods with respect to single policies or programs). In contrast to forms of delegation, in the case of "citizen control" available financial resources may be used according to the decisions of the actors involved (Heinelt 2012).

also began to transfer many state functions to civil society and market actors. In Germany, many municipalities reformed their charters during the 1990s, introducing referenda that enhanced the potential for direct democracy and establishing new agencies (for migrants, for children, for youth, for older and for disabled people, etc.), thus broadening political citizenship for citizens and other residents (Roth 2002: 77). While new elements of citizenship thereby became institutionalized and more and novel instruments for eliciting civil society involvement were now sprouting everywhere—most prodigiously in societies that had aggressively rolled out neoliberal agendas (e.g. Raco 2003)—, the role and function of participation began to change.

This expansion and simultaneous transformation of participatory mechanisms and practices must be understood in the broader context of the neoliberal restructuring outlined above, which catapulted cities to the forefront of reforms and political strategies. The imperatives of competitiveness and flexibilization, as well as entrepreneurial governance, spawned new forms of social exclusion, which produced a fragmentation of urban citizenship. To deal with this, municipalities sought to expand local political citizenship by establishing more participatory governance, but they had to do so in localities that had become increasingly disempowered within the overall national structure (Roth 2002: 78).

While this expansion/transformation of participatory mechanisms and practices has been most pronounced in urban planning (Willinger 2011: 157; Selle 2011), it also occurred in other fields and was not simply a result of devolution and civic action stepping in where the state had withdrawn. Poletta (2016) highlights some diverse sources: "In Europe, the mandate to 'bring the EU closer to the people' by way of routinized citizen consultation" was a response to concerns that European integration would hollow out democratic accountability. In the US, involving stakeholders was seen as more efficient than relying on litigation; everywhere, new digital technologies, by lowering the costs of joining and coordinating groups, facilitated addressing "problems of scale that had long dogged briefs for participatory democracy" (2016: 233). The result of these trends has, in any case, been a proliferation of roundtables, citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, consensus conferences, planning cells, visioning exercises, and the like, around issues as diverse as energy grids, traffic planning, gentrification, development and big real estate as well as infrastructure projects, nuclear power and nuclear waste sites, aircraft noise and airport expansions.<sup>5</sup> While some argue that these varied direct-democratic formats

<sup>5</sup> Another source for the proliferation of novel participatory experiments within cities has been urban austerity, which has led to more urban areas falling into decline, disuse enjoy markedly more appreciation among citizens than among their political representatives who wield decision-making power (e.g. Bertelsmann Stiftung/ Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg 2014), it has become widely accepted, even among conservative politicians, that without the early involvement of citizens, particularly large infrastructural projects are no longer viable.<sup>6</sup>

Alongside the explosion of these varied forms of participatory practices, an infrastructure for organizing, running, and evaluating (the results of) these initiatives has emerged: a new institutional field of citizen participation in areas as diverse as urban planning and design, environmental conflict resolution, and poverty management. This field is populated by new professional groups such as design consultants and public deliberation specialists, who work in a variety of forms, ranging from volunteers to new firms that specialize in preparing, organizing, and evaluating participation processes on behalf of public or private entities that commission them.

Witnessing these trends, scholarship on participation has also begun to change. While the core features of the communicative turn continue to shape the mainstream of urban planning, some practitioners and theorists have grown concerned about the ways in which participatory measures appeared to become instrumentalized. They began to criticize communicative planning theories for ignoring the changing role of public participation within urban neoliberalization processes. Post-Marxist political theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2001), as well as Foucauldian poststructuralist accounts of de-centered power and governmentality under neoliberalism, provided ammunition to challenge the consensus-orientation of the communicative model. Critics pointed out how the assumptions of communicative planning theory mask underlying power relations and deprive marginalized groups of their most important tool: mobilizing for their particular interests (Fainstein 2000: 457–461; Beaumont and Nicholls 2008: 90; Flyvberg and Richardson 2002; Purcell 2009); some set out to develop more critical models, such as insurgent or activist planning (Miraftab 2009; Sager 2016).

and dereliction. These vacant or disused spaces have provided incentives for interim uses, where urban activists, artists, architects and municipalities have joined together to experiment with practical interventions to collectively produce participatory practices and makeshift cities (Tonkiss 2013). So far, such (usually small-scale) co-design processes of 'tactical urbanism' have not succeeded in creating sustainable alternatives or real challenges to the professional, expert-driven making of cities, even though they are widely discussed in progressive architecture and design circles as ways to democratize planning and decision-making (Mackroth 2015).

<sup>6</sup> Baden-Württemberg was the first German *Land* to pass a regulation for planning large infrastructure projects in the form of a "Guideline for a New Planning Culture."

Currently, participation has not only become widely accepted, but also firmly institutionalized in a variety of settings—as a legitimation of design decisions, as an element of the consultant's work package, or as a demonstration of 'procedural probity' on behalf of a developer or the local government. In the public sector and in the context of planning and urban development processes, mandated participation formats (such as providing information and holding hearings) are now regularly complemented by informal procedures such as roundtables or local workshops. While such informal participatory practices are not legally binding, they are broadly accepted as good practice. Many municipalities have published guidelines on citizen participation; the Berlin Senate even issued a handbook and municipal 'participation commissioners' have been put into place to coordinate these initiatives (www.netzwerkbuergerbeteiligung.de). The city of Hamburg launched a "Stadtwerkstatt" (city lab) as an umbrella organization for the informal participatory processes in the city, with the professed goal of going beyond the mandatory participation requirements of the BauGB. The speeches and documents reveal, as Rinn (2016: 192) shows, that these participatory processes were not intended to compete with the representative bodies and administrative agencies of municipal government, but to supplement them, leaving the institutionalized procedures of democratic decision-making and the function of formalized participatory procedures untouched. The mayor emphasized Stadtwerkstatt's purpose: to turn residents who had thus far seen themselves as merely "affected" into "co-producers" and "co-designers" of the public good (quoted in Rinn 2016: 193). However, as ensuing conflicts (as shall be seen in the third section) soon revealed, citizens' demands have gone well beyond co-producing the public good, which elected representatives have a prerogative to define.

Initially, most of this participation 'work' took place at the sub-local level, as part of territorially based revitalization programs, such as 'Soziale Stadt' ('Social City') in Germany, 'Single Regeneration Budget' (which later morphed into 'New Deal for Communities') in Britain, 'Développement Social des Quartiers' in France, or the 'Social Renewal' program in the Netherlands. These programs, which were instituted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, targeted localized deprivation not just with "bricks and mortar" (as during Fordism), but more importantly through area-based economic and cultural regeneration initiatives. Street-level offices (such as Quartiersmanagement in Germany) were tasked with involving local residents—citizens and non-citizens alike in neighborhood decision-making forums as well as in social and economic upgrading projects. They were supposed to foster 'community governance,' but the selectivity of those who would come to be involved has frequently been contested. The participatory strategies and instruments first honed within these programs to stabilize "problem neighborhoods" have meanwhile been adopted into the general repertoire of urban planning (Rinn 2016: 307), where they now constitute one of many in a vast institutional landscape of cooperative and activating programs and agencies.7

In the course of the expanded use of the participatory repertoire, local authorities and/or development bodies have increasingly taken to outsourcing the organization and implementation of participatory decision-making to private consulting firms. These new types of professionals deliver the moderating, mediating, and reporting tasks, according to the terms dictated by their respective commissioning bodies, in order to produce legitimacy, local ownership, or market-valued activities. Poletta has found that these public deliberation specialists "tend to conceptualize public deliberation as a kind of alternative to political contention, a sphere of civil and reasonable talk properly separated from the messy contentiousness of routine politics" (Poletta 2016a: 242). They follow professional norms that lead them to perfect their techniques to ensure that people with higher status do not monopolize conversations, to arrive at conclusions that capture common ground, and to help people to connect to their feelings and fears—but they do not question the purposes for which their sponsor sought democratic facilitation (ibid.: 238). In short, these professionals act as neutral brokers, not public advocates—and depend, at least for future jobs, on their sponsors. The actual decision-makers in planning and politics can often hide behind the moderators or facilitators who orchestrated these participatory events (Udall and Holder 2013: 71).

While many participants enjoy the experience of "having a voice"—even if it is defined as expression more than influence (Poletta 2016a: 243; Wagner 2016: 131–132), affected residents and advocacy groups frequently dislike the prefabricated participation models and consultation procedures, sensing that their purpose lies in generating legitimacy for predefined projects and their implementation, rather than in offering channels to address the concerns and suggestions of those (detrimentally) affected. Still, in some instances, these formal and informal spaces of participation allow the affected 'participants' to shape the possibilities of engagement and to envision and realize alternatives. The last section explores the possibilities and limits of contention within participatory processes.

<sup>7</sup> At the same time, "problem neighborhoods" are now—see above section on neoliberal urbanism—treated with the two-pronged approach of (curtailed) activation programs and repressive, workfare-oriented, and punitive strategies.

#### **Working with/Challenging Institutional Participatory Regimes**

As the preceding section has shown, participation has become increasingly complex, its meaning blurry, and its success or failure not easily measurable. It seems obvious that its workings must be evaluated not only on the scope and quality of the involvement of (formerly marginalized) actors, but also with reference to the ambiguous role it plays within neoliberal governance, and to the consensual, but also conflictual moments in participation. Several closely examined case studies of participatory projects in urban development in Berlin and Hamburg can illustrate these ambiguities.

In 2010, Berlin city officials initiated a novel participatory process to include citizens in the development of the field of the former city airport. Tempelhof airport was closed in 2008, after which the expansive area was left unused for nine months. As suggestions and demands by citizens' groups remained unheeded, approximately 5000 people attempted to occupy the space.<sup>8</sup> In response to growing public pressure, the city finally, after a year and a half, designated the field for public use as a park—as the movement had initially demanded—and simultaneously invited proposals for interim uses. Of 138 project applications, high-level politicians selected 25, which then were contracted to set up a variety of urban agriculture, youth and political projects (Mackroth 2015: 286). The integration of interim or "pioneer" users into the planning process constituted a qualitative expansion of the city's participatory repertoire, even if the participation of these 'co-designers' took place parallel to and disconnected from other forms of participation in the planning for and decision-making about new uses of the site. Both the call for proposals and the *Handbook on Participation*, which the Senate published in 2011, praised the novelty and the advantages of this form of "participatory and open development with interim and pioneer uses" (Mackroth 2015: 283). While the desire to enhance participation through pioneer uses was highlighted in these public documents, more internal (though publicly available) documents emphasized underlying economic motives such as enhancing the image and attractiveness of the vacant field (and thereby hopefully inducing some development) as well as the cost-effectiveness of this method of upgrading the area (ibid: 284).

<sup>8</sup> The authorities' initial response to the 'Squat Tempelhof' action on June 20, 2009, organized by various tenant groups as well as the Green Party, was far from an offer to participate in the planning process: Massive police forces arrested more than 100 protesters. Coercive measures were, as so often, parallel reactions to process the conflict over urban development (Herbig 2009; http://tfa.blogsport.de/presse/pressespiegel-2009/).

Aside from the pioneers, the Senate also employed a panoply of other participatory measures, inviting the public to participate in planning through randomized surveys, on-site visits, and assemblies in adjacent neighborhoods, among other initiatives. Additionally, citizens could submit their ideas online, and a series of participatory workshops were held for neighbors to discuss specific topics ranging from leisure activities to park design.

As the park and its pioneer uses enjoyed growing popularity, resistance against the Berlin Senate's plans to build new housing on one third of the field (including on land where the interim uses were located) intensified; in 2014, the group '100% Tempelhofer Feld' (founded in 2011 to prevent any construction on the field) launched a referendum to secure the site as public park, which gained the support of 64% of the voting population. Hilbrandt (2016) found that even though the participatory strategies employed in the Tempelhof case were deployed to seek compliance, displace conflict, and provide an interim strategy against the loss of property value in order to help market and brand the site (and thus legitimize predetermined economic rationales), participants nonetheless used the various terrains of deliberation to stage and express their dissent. To Hilbrandt, the Tempelhof case illustrates how (seasoned) participants can use such forums to monitor planning and gather information, to disseminate arguments among different political actors and engaged citizens, and to unite disparate and fragmented camps against the city's plans. In this case, they also managed to reframe planning debates and raise topics that were excluded from the original agenda, thereby envisioning and staging alternative forms of development.

However, while participation clearly can provide a platform for contestation, the claim that it is "a driver for political change" (Hilbrandt 2016: 13) might be going too far. The drivers, in this case, were the politicized initiatives and people who were "experienced in political protest" (ibid. 13). Other researchers have also found that only where specific conditions are in place can "insurgent participants" make exceptional use of participatory formats. These conditions include individual resources such as time and capacity, a willingness to share their political experience, and the presence of strong counter-movements (Polletta 2016b: 488).

A further case study relates to the efforts of "seasoned activists" to influence established participatory formats in the large-scale city expansion of Hamburg Mitte Altona. In 2011, activists tried to influence the development of a newbuild neighborhood on a disused former industrial site, by engaging with the participatory measures of the planning process. They brought their critiques and alternative suggestions (under the label "Altopia") into the participatory process provided by the city. A case study of this struggle (see Rinn 2016) traces how the group demanded a halt to the planning process and sought to turn the established citizen forum into a grassroots-democratic assembly. The activists demanded a moratorium and a restructuring of the planning process, as several problematic decisions had already been made—but it turned out that these demands were outside the scope of this participatory forum. Together with a diverse group of additional local interests (including small precarious businesses), the activists succeeded in appropriating the forum and turning it into a public platform for debate about a planning moratorium. While their actions received broad media attention, the government was not impressed by their demands. Existing political institutions (the department for urban development, the Senate, the majority within the urban development committee, and the city council) remained unmoved by the positions articulated through this institution of citizen participation.

Thus the "success" of this movement consisted exclusively in delegitimizing the participatory process that the city's project planners had established. The activists managed to disrupt its main function of legitimating the city's plans via citizen participation and simultaneously revealed the immanent limitations of such parallel participatory procedures. Since the *real* decisions about such development projects are not made in these participatory forums, they, in fact, serve more to frustrate the demands and expectations of participating citizens (Hedtke 2012). Implicitly, this practice also reveals that the claim by the "regular political institutions" to represent the citizens does not hold either.

Especially when analyzing the perspectives of both the engaged/participating citizens and the political-administrative actors (as Rinn has done), it appears that citizen participation in urban development embodies immanent and fundamental tensions. For city officials and administrators, the purpose of planning is to produce results that are rational, economically feasible, legally sound, socially effective, sustainable, and legitimated by representative procedures. From this perspective, citizen participation in urban development is to take place *next to* or *parallel to* the actual planning practice. Importantly, this practice is enacted in interactions between political-administrative actors, private planning firms, architects, and investors, which frequently entail discrete, non-public, negotiations. Investors and property owners have privileged access to political decision-making, which the authorities justify with their legal property titles, investment projects, or construction interests.9

Political-administrative actors view themselves as responsible for and representatives of the common good; and they view themselves as possessing the relevant competence, stemming from their professional and planning expertise.

<sup>9</sup> This is why real estate actors have no need to "participate"—a point activist groups often highlight (Rinn 2016: 284).

But simultaneously, given the exigencies of neoliberal urbanism and the ad hoc and flexible ways in which decisions need to be made, they rely on the ever-growing and ever-changing knowledge created within urban civil society. The ideas and demands of local residents and business owners do, in fact, aid in decision-making about specific pieces of land; their local knowledge helps define the space's potential—local knowledge that becomes available to the administrative actors through participatory exercises. In addition, the latter find the participatory structures and procedures useful because they help to avoid other (costlier) forms of conflict resolution, such as litigation or more disorderly forms of slugging it out. Participatory measures offer an alternative that allows for the transformation of potentially antagonistic conflicts into cooperative constellations.<sup>10</sup>

The expectations for co-planning of citizens invited into the process grate against the self-image of the experts in municipal departments, whose orientation to the technical, legal, and economic feasibility of projects tends to reduce participatory exercises to mere hearings and information sharing. Municipal actors know that they can no longer govern against urban civil society—neither against investors nor against powerful social groups. They are aware that, formally, planning falls within their administrative sovereignty, but from experience they also know that civil society's position of power prevents them from executing urban development "from above," because too many instances of such top-down planning efforts have failed spectacularly in the past—Stuttgart 21 is probably the most (in)famous example of such failure in Germany.<sup>11</sup> City (planning) departments are thus under constant pressure to defend their competence—against what in their view would be 'illegitimate' or 'irrational' interventions.

With the advancing neoliberalization of cities, municipalities themselves are increasingly only a junior partner to the special agencies created to design, steer, and implement development projects. They often sign away their own authority to these agencies and appear quite paralyzed by the (often huge)

<sup>10</sup> Also, many politicians realize that significant segments of the middle class today expect to be involved in the decision-making about their city. They will thus seek to position their city as one with a vibrant participatory culture.

<sup>11</sup> A mediation commission had to be established after massive protests and police violence disrupted construction of Stuttgart's train station development in 2010. The chair of this commission, Heiner Geissler, told the German weekly Die Zeit (2010) that the political consequences of the struggle surrounding the project were enormous: "The world is different after Stuttgart 21," adding that "no future government will be able to push through a project the way Stuttgart 21 was pushed through" (quoted in Novy and Peters 2012: 129).

investments expected, and the power of other stakeholders. The development agencies, which market the land, develop the projects, operate and manage the infrastructure and maintain the transport system—ostensibly on behalf of the public—, are in fact guided by the logic of private enterprises. So even where participatory measures and structures are in place, there continues to be a deficit in real democratic decision-making.

#### **Conclusion**

Given the evident ambiguous function of the pervasive use of participatory instruments in the contemporary city, the question remains whether these instruments can still be used in a productive, emancipatory, fashion. There is ample evidence that the participative work and residents' knowledge has by and large been usurped and made use of in ways not intended by the participants. All too frequently, the dialogue between different stakeholders and the mandate of 'public interest' are harnessed to incorporate and co-opt those dissident voices which remain. Moreover, the ideas and demands of engaged citizens—if they fall outside the frame set by politicians and planners—are ignored; even when politicians present themselves as mediators between investors and citizens, the latter's demands are not included in the plans, or the petitions for referenda are non-binding.

In spite of such pervasive biases in contemporary participatory practices, many have argued that participatory instruments can provide useful tools to create transparency, access relevant information, create counter-publics, and break through mystifications. Additionally, they may help progressive movements expand their social base, create coalitions with allies, and reach beyond the (frequently rather closed) sub-cultural milieus that many activist groups find themselves in. Under certain conditions, participatory practices can be used to politicize and intensify the conflicts between the different investors' and politicians' interests, on one hand, and affected or vulnerable citizens, on the other, and thus broaden the chances for movement success.

Given the structural pressures prevalent in neoliberalizing cities and the emergence and transformation of the political concept of participation over the last decades, we can read many case studies—not just the few presented in this chapter—as summons to attend more closely to the specific conditions under which these practices unfold. Whether participatory exercises can be subversive or whether they make people collaborate in their own exploitation depends not just on the format of the exercise, but also on the overall setting and the experience of participants. When activists choose to use institutionalized forms and spaces of participation, they must make sure that, simultaneously, pressure continues to be built on the street, where the rules and restrictions of the participatory procedures do not apply, and where demands can be more far-reaching. This will strengthen participating citizens' leverage to have their concerns taken seriously by the experts in the municipal departments who already represent the common good. The decisive factor for successful participation will, however, not only be whether development or regeneration projects are planned in a top-down fashion, but whether the rules of the game are changed—not just for the struggle at hand, but also for the next occasion, and the next site.

#### **Bibliography**


# **II Controlling and Mapping**

## 4 'Danger Zones': How Policing Space Legitimizes Policing Race

*Bernd Belina and Jan Wehrheim*

When a police officer decides to stop and search a person in a 'danger zone' in Hamburg, Germany, the officer is not required to give a concrete, plausible, reason. In most German cities, merely *being* in a 'danger zone' is sufficient cause for suspicion, and since the police are responsible for legally defining 'danger zones,' they can decide in which parts of the city the presumption of innocence will be abandoned. Our aim in this chapter is to critically discuss this kind of spatialized policing by asking what is achieved by the policing of space from the perspective of the police, and what the costs are from the viewpoint of justice and the rule of law. In doing so, we combine recent critical debates on two relevant trends in urban policing that exist largely in parallel: policing race and policing space. Drawing on the theoretical literature, and empirical studies from German and international criminology, geography, and urban studies, we argue that the increasing focus on policing space is counteracting efforts to reduce policing race. We argue that within the German laws of policing, as well as in policing practice, 'dangerous spaces' generate four effects. They objectify and naturalize the ideological 'dangerous spaces' of everyday life; they legitimize a proactive and selective policing; they increase the police's power to define what is suspicious; they (re)produce racialized social structures. In addition, and with reference to the main theme of this volume, we argue that the rhetoric of 'zero tolerance,' namely the active negation of tolerance in the realm of policing, is crucial to the spatialization of urban policing. We begin by discussing what we mean by policing race and policing space.

We use the concept of policing race to encompass those policing practices which focus on visible ethnic groups and the treatment of their members as potential criminals. Such practices can be rooted in individual officers' prejudices, the institutional racism of police organizations, in the general racism of society, or in the reproduction of interpretative patterns through self-fulfilling prophecies in everyday practices—or all four simultaneously. Policing race occurs in everyday policing practices, such as in interactions with citizens, street stops or the processing and categorization of reported crime, as well as in more structural aspects, such as policing tactics, strategies, technologies, and laws. Some of these phenomena are discussed widely in criminological literature, using different terminologies in different contexts, such as 'racial profiling' in the US and Canada, 'institutional racism' in the UK, and 'discrimination selon l'apparence' (discrimination according to appearance) in France (Glaser 2015; Jobard et al. 2012; Miller et al. 2008; Tator, Henry 2006; Waddington et al. 2004). In the German context, all of these concepts are used, partly in the original English (racial profiling), partly in German translation (institutioneller Rassismus, Kontrolle nach Hautfarbe—police checks based on skin color), with no consensus concerning terminologies (Belina 2016; Bruce-Jones 2015; Kampagne für Opfer rassistischer Polizeigewalt 2016; Künkel 2014; Lukas, Gauthier 2011). As these latter formulations carry specific meanings and evoke certain associations with national traditions of policing and criminology, we use the more abstract formulation of policing race to emphasize that we mean to refer to all instances in which race is the cause of selective policing, both on the everyday level, and in the way policing is organized.

In many countries, efforts have been made to reduce selective policing on the basis of skin color or ethnicity, by attempting to both reduce racially biased stops and searches and by integrating minorities into the police force. In the UK, as a consequence of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson 1999), sweeping measures were introduced to reduce ethnic disparities in police stops and searches and to push back institutional racism, though with limited success (Miller 2010; Shiner 2010). The ensuing report "became a template for police reform around the world" (Amar 2009: 576). It also influenced efforts by the police in Germany to reduce policing race, mainly reflected in the integration of minorities into the police force (Liebl 2009; Lautmann et al. 2010). Far less energy has been deployed in Germany to limit racially biased stops and searches. The legal scholars Tischbirek and Wihl (2013) argue that police checks based on 'skin color' are clearly unconstitutional, but German jurisprudence and policing are only now starting to actually rule and act accordingly. As recently as 2012, a controversial court decision, later overruled by a higher court, allowed the federal police to control train passengers based on their skin color (Drohla 2012). Discussions of and policies against policing race in Germany are a far cry from those in the UK or the US (McCrary 2007; Sklansky 2006). But since the early 2010s, social movements of people of color in particular, such as the *Campaign for the Victims of Racist Police Violence* (Kampagne für Opfer rassistischer Polizeigewalt 2016), were able to launch court cases and raise public awareness on the matter. One crucial strategy has been the use of test cases, which sparked discussions in the legal community, critical academic circles and the general public (Kampagne für Opfer rassistischer Polizeigewalt 2016; Belina 2016; Cremer 2013; Busch 2013; Tischbirek,Wihl 2013). As a result of these debates, there is shared knowledge in regard to policing race, in particular, that the German police is constitutionally, legally, and ethically obliged to act in a non-discriminatory manner; that 'racial profiling' is largely condemned by the general public; and that the experiences of visible minorities in Germany nevertheless bear witness to the everyday reality of racial profiling.

We use the concept of policing space to describe all policing practices that are based on the perception of specific qualities of particular spaces. The 'danger zone' mentioned earlier is a case in point: based on the police's perception and definition of a set space as 'dangerous,' that space could be policed in a different, more intensive, and—as we will argue—potentially more discriminatory manner. Thus, a person's whereabouts influence how they are policed. We argue that policing space tends to derive from social conditions—a process we discuss as spatial fetishism—which fosters discriminatory labeling and policing practices, despite legal and institutional efforts to reduce policing race. This argument, with a focus on the policing of urban spaces, will be developed through a discussion of 'space' in radical geography, the concepts of crime and policing in labeling theory, and their relationship in recent urban policing. Building on these discussions, we propose a classification system for 'dangerous spaces', namely those spaces which are treated in a specific way by the police because of their assumed dangerousness. To illustrate our argument, we will conclude by analyzing the 'danger zones' in Hamburg, and how they were used by the police in the period 2005–2010.

#### **The Social Production of Space, Spatial Fetishism, Labeling Theory and 'Dangerous Spaces'**

In critical social theory, 'space' was long understood as the opposite of history and social practice, or, as Horkheimer and Adorno termed it in *Dialectic of Enlightenment,* as "absolute alienation" (1997: 180). In the last forty years, the focus has shifted to the *social production* of space starting with radical geography (Harvey 1973) and the writings of Henri Lefebvre (1991[1974]). Space—both its physical materiality and its social significance—is understood to be the product of conflicting social practices and processes, each working toward certain ends, with more or less predictable (but often chaotic) outcomes. Building from this premise, a social analysis that takes space into account questions the role and relevance of the symbolic and material production of spaces as a means and strategy of social processes.

Here, particular attention must be paid to the ideological and practical effects of spatializing social issues while simultaneously disregarding the social production of that space. What does it mean when social phenomena are viewed as spatial—and are reduced to such? Such a mindset, wherein space actively 'acts,' has been criticized as 'spatial fetishism'—a mode of thinking that is "a variant of the analysis of society which reduces social relations to relations between things" (Quaini 1982: 165). Spatial fetishism connotes those arguments that state that physical spaces *per se* were the cause of social phenomena, such as when proximity to coastlines is used to explain economic development, or when the particular architectural features of housing complexes are made responsible for crime (cf. critically Belina 2013: 29–37; Smith 1981). In such arguments, specific social, economic or political conditions and struggles are abstracted. They make them appear, as Horkheimer and Adorno called it, "totally alienated." When a spatial perspective is favored over a social perspective, space takes center stage, distanced from social relations and processes. The phenomenon under study is no longer understood as social, and as the object and result of social practices, processes, and conflicts, but ostensibly stands, reified, outside of society and social change. Such a thought process is far from innocent: The reification of spaces has an impact on actual practices and thus can have social consequences, as we will discuss using the example of spatialized policing.

We can differentiate two ways in which the production of space and the ideology and practice of spatial fetishism are relevant for policing. First, the "representations of space […] of scientists, planners, urbanists, technocratic subdividers and social engineers" (Lefebvre 1991: 38) and (relevant to this chapter) of those tasked with urban policing, enter prominently into the organizational practices of policing that deal specifically with urban social problems. Representations of urban spaces influence the strategies, technologies, and ideologies of policing, as well as the law. As an example, consider how the idea of car culture fundamentally changed urban landscapes. Second, representations of space and the meanings ascribed to concrete material spaces influence the more structural aspects of policing, such as the introduction of 'danger zones', the use of crime mapping tools or the assignment of street officers to specific areas, as well as the everyday reality of policing 'on the ground', namely through the effects they have on the police's power to define.

After the reorientation of the field of criminology in response to labeling theory, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism (Lemert 1951; Becker 1963), the police's power to define began to be seen as crucial in the process of criminalization and the production of deviant behavior: "Nothing is inherently suspicious; it only becomes so when it is interpreted with the help of police priorities and viewed in the light of local knowledge" (Norris 2005: 364). The same holds true for the way in which the space-crime nexus is constructed by both individual police officers in their everyday practices and by the organization of the police in its tactics, strategies, technologies, and laws. Spaces are 'criminalized' in both contexts, either through the spatially fetishistic attribution of certain criminogenic characteristics to them or through the realization of such spatially fetishizing ideas in concrete policing practices. In such cases, spaces—and not practices, subjects or groups, all of which are more concrete than the abstract 'dangerous space'—become the starting point for policing.

Mitchell (1997) has previously discussed the materialization of policing space in policing strategies and in the law, demonstrating how local ordinances in US cities annihilated public spaces in order to drive out the homeless population (the majority of whom were African-American). Smith (1996; 2001) has also argued that this can be read as an aspect of the aggressive reclaiming of the city by the middle class at the expense of the poor and marginalized. Beckett and Herbert (2010) not only point out in detail how this was done in Seattle but also demonstrate how it did not contribute to a decrease in disorder. On a theoretical level, the broken windows theory (Wilson and Kelling 1982; cf. critically Harcourt 1998) assumes that public spaces that are populated by marginalized groups and/or show signs of so-called social or physical disorder result in serious crime—a perfect example of spatial fetishism, as spaces are expected to explain criminality. The broken windows thesis is at the heart of what became known as zero-tolerance policing, first practiced and propagated in New York City in the 1990s (Kelling and Bratton 1998; Dennis 1998) and then exported to other parts of the world (cf. Belina and Helms 2003; Dennis 1998; Künkel 2013; Müller 2016; Smith 2001). Nonetheless, the language of zero tolerance—which speaks directly to the overall theme of this volume—is only one way in which policing space has been legitimized and introduced into police practices. Policing strategies derived from this spatial fetishistic approach, such as zero-tolerance policing (which is always socially and spatially selective) or the practice of area bans, which prohibit certain individuals from being in certain urban spaces, are prevalent in many national contexts, including in German cities (Belina 2006; 2007; Belina and Helms 2003; Wehrheim 2006). A similar logic of the criminalizing segments of space is applied in various subfields of the geography of crime, environmental criminology, and in crime mapping (Belina 2006).

In terms of everyday policing practices, empirical studies have expansively demonstrated both the police's labeling of certain spaces as dangerous, criminal, or suspicious and the police practices resulting from this labeling. First, studies regularly stress the importance of the police's perception of spaces as a crucial context for understanding labeling practices. Rinehart Kochel et al. (2011: 499), for example, have pointed to the importance of the "socioeconomic and cultural context of the police-citizen encounter, usually represented spatially as the "neighbourhood" in which it occurs", and Capers (2009: 62) has criticized research on policing and race for failing to see how "methods of policing […] serve to limn out and maintain racialized spaces". In a similar manner, the crucial role of the spatial context in understanding when police officers label certain people as suspicious was already being elucidated in the German context in the 1970s (Feest 1971: 72–3) and then again more systematically two decades later (cf. the quotations by police officers in Reichertz 1992: 188). The (collective) perception of urban districts, as well as of individual streets, parks, and squares, can thus play a role in the police practice of criminalization. Jaschke, for instance, stresses that the police do not treat the entire Frankfurt district of Griesheim as a hotspot for crime, but only "Ahornstraße [Maple Street]—more precisely Ahornstraße starting at number 101" (our translation from 1997: 141).<sup>1</sup>

Second, the role of such spatialized assumptions can be seen, for instance, in a study on drug arrests in Seattle, where Beckett, Nyrop, and Pfingst (2006: 129) found a "concentration of enforcement activity in the racially diverse downtown area" as opposed to a "comparative tolerance of drug activity in predominantly white outdoor spaces and indoor spaces". Similarly, reviewing the practice of the NYPD between 2004 and 2008, Geller and Fagan found that "street stops for marijuana are more prevalent in precincts with large black populations, as are combined marijuana stop and arrest totals" (2010: 620–22) and that "stops are most prevalent […] where stops are justified based on suspects' presence in a 'high crime area'" (ibid: 622). Lynch (2011) interprets a similar spatial clustering of drug-related arrests in Cleveland, Ohio, as 'institutional racism'.

Other studies provide numerous examples of the police's active role in criminalizing neighborhoods: Chambliss' study on how police activities in African-American neighborhoods, including undercover drug purchases, random vehicle searches and a generally higher density of stops, makes "ghetto crime" a "self-fulfilling prophecy" (1999: 63); Meehan and Ponder's study of how police officers' proactive stopping of non-white motorists in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood was clearly tied to an "out of place" skin color (2002: 402); Herbert's reconstruction of the territoriality of the LA police and the way in which "officers tend to identify areas in terms of whether they contain dangerous suspects" (1997: 97), resulting in spatially selective patrolling. In a similar vein, reports from a large city in northern Germany assert that the police patrol a certain district more intensively because it is less "boring" there (our translation from Wehrheim 2009: 96).

From the existing literature, it can be concluded that individual police officers' perceptions of certain spaces, which form part of the context of processes

<sup>1</sup> This spatialization of suspicion has been upheld by the German courts: In justifying a Hamburg court's conviction for the possession of 0.5 grams of marijuana, the judge pointed out that the accused was not stopped by the police because of his skin color, but because of the location of his encounter with the police, in an area known for drug trafficking (taz 2016).

of criminalization, seem to add up to a continually self-fulfilling prophecy, a type of place-based "ecological bias" (Sampson 1986: 877). Referring to the German cities of Freiburg and Cologne, Köllisch (our translation with original emphasis from 2005: 283) argues similarly: "Looking at the settlement structure, juveniles from suburban residential areas have a significantly higher risk of being reported than young people who live in inner-city districts. […] However, […] this only holds for *non-German* juveniles. German juveniles from suburban and rural residential areas, in contrast, have a *lower* risk of being registered than their non-German peers".

### **Types of 'dangerous spaces'**

Drawing on these empirical studies, this chapter proposes a differentiation of two ideal types of 'dangerous spaces' (cf. tab. 1). On the one hand, the police can perceive a space as dangerous (in the sense of risky, criminal, criminogenic) and subsume all individuals in that space within this perception. On the other hand, the police can perceive a space as dangerous (in the sense of 'being in danger') precisely because space itself is not perceived of as dangerous, but as at risk, as individuals in that space are deemed out of place. This differentiation can help to explain what type of policing to expect in which 'dangerous space'.


**Tab. 1:** Dangerous zones, policing and different types of spaces

Following this differentiation, we can distinguish between different types of dangerous spaces. In certain urban spaces, the police regularly perceive the behavior as deviant and (potentially) criminal, and as such, individuals present in those spaces consistently trigger the police's suspicion and their controlling activities (ideal type 1). The police consider these spaces to be criminogenic because of the inhabitants who live there or the people who typically spend their time there. Any individual encountered in such a space can be regarded as deviating from the norm. In other spaces, it is precisely the deviation from the space-specific normality that leads to the assumption that 'strangers' or 'people out of place' will deviate from the norm (ideal type 2). As opposed to ideal type 1, where everybody is considered suspicious merely for being in a certain space, in ideal type 2, only certain subjects are suspicious, based on individual features such as skin color, age, gender that differ from the norms of the space they are located in. In "white" spaces, for example, being black is used as a "proxy for dangerousness" (Kennedy 1998: 136) and "racial incongruity" (Capers 2009: 65) between individual skin color and neighborhood expectations leads to the criminalization of visible minorities (Meehan, Ponder 2002). In ideal type 2 spaces, one can assume that individuals who deviate from the norms of the space will attract the attention of the police.2 For ideal type 1, research results show two different possible patterns of policing: in criminalized spaces, police practices are aimed at either enforcing universalized norms (subtype 1.a) or at tolerating space-specific norms (subtype 1.b). Feest (1971) encountered subtype 1.b, for instance, in the "quiet outer district", where offenses were taken more seriously than in the "congested inner district", conveying that space-specific norms or interpretations of norms were at work. The findings of Busch and Werkentin (1992) also point in this direction: In spaces where the police consider deviations to be normal, or where the policemen are overworked, there is less enforcement of norms.3 In contrast, according to Sampson (1986), Chambliss (1999) or Herbert (1997), there are cases of subtype 1.a (zero-tolerance policing), in which certain norms are understood to be universal, and are enforced everywhere. In these cases, the police do not accept place-specific norms and intervene in the name of universal norms. An almost classic example of the difference between subtype 1a and 1b can be found in the ways that the police actively control the possession of illegalized drugs in


African-American communities (1a) versus on white university campuses (1b) in the United States (Chambliss 1999). Whereas there is a strong tendency to accept the place-specific norm that 'everybody takes/has taken drugs' on predominately white university campuses, this is not the case in predominately African-American communities, where drug laws are the main driver for the criminalization of residents—and of young black men in particular (Christie 2000). Current trends in criminal policy (Garland 2001; Wacquant 2009) result in the increasing use of 'dangerous space' subtype 1a to criminalize socially marginalized groups indirectly through the space which they inhabit. What Jonathan Simon (2007) famously calls 'governing through crime'—governing marginalized groups through their criminalization—becomes 'governing through crime through space' (Belina 2006), with space and spatial fetishism becoming the means of selective criminalization.

#### **'Danger zones' in Hamburg, Germany, 2005–2010**

The police practice of designating certain parts of a city as 'danger zones' has proliferated in Germany since the mid-1990s (Wehrheim 2006). 'Danger zones' (*Gefahrengebiete*), also known as 'dangerous places' (*gefährliche Orte*) in other cities, are clearly delimited spaces in a city in which individuals can be stopped by the police without cause. In Hamburg, a city-state of 1.75 million inhabitants, this particular rejection of the presumption of innocence in certain spaces was institutionalized and legalized with an amendment of the Police Act in 2005.

Hamburg has a long history of spatialized criminal and urban policies, and the city can be considered a national trailblazer in this regard. Beginning in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of short-term area-bans (*Platzverweis*, whereby a person is required to temporarily leave a specific location) and long-term area-bans (*Aufenthaltsverbot*, whereby a person is forbidden from entering a geographically defined area for a period lasting from several days to several months) were issued in Hamburg. Also, due to the availability of a rich data set, Hamburg is the first German city for which a detailed mapping of the danger zones is publicly available.<sup>4</sup> In 2010, the local police also for the first time provided information about the officially given reasons for the implementation of the danger zones.

<sup>4</sup> http://www.grundrechte-kampagne.de/map/node [last access at 30 Jul 2011].

#### *The Use of 'Danger Zones' in Hamburg, 2005–2010: An Overview*

Since 2005, thirty-eight new danger zones have been established in Hamburg, of which three were in effect in 2010. A crucial factor in the designation of certain areas as danger zones is police awareness of the local context, referring primarily to the assessment of the chief officers of the local precinct. When looking at the spaces in which the police are permitted to stop people without cause, very heterogeneous constellations are visible. Beginning with the labeling of spaces as dangerous, it becomes clear that ostensibly dangerous zones do not necessarily overlap with spaces that are particularly prominent in crime statistics. There are spaces with below-average levels of crime which are nevertheless designated as danger zones. Regardless of registered crime rates, the motivations behind designating certain zones as dangerous—curtailing drug trafficking, for example—indicate that the label does not necessarily denote an increased danger of becoming a victim of crime, as drug trafficking is a typical example of a so-called victimless crime. Danger zones thus appear first and foremost as spatial representations based on police assessments. The production of these spatial representations alters what is expected of people and activities in these spaces.

These expectations then provide the justifications for designating a space as dangerous. The reasons most frequently cited by the police are a drug-related crime (in fourteen of the thirty-eight cases), followed by (left-wing) political demonstrations (six). Other reasons include football games (five), theft related to vehicles (four), violence (four), property damage due to fire (three) and domestic burglaries (two). Accordingly, the duration of the designation as a danger zone varied between a few days (demonstrations, football games) and several years (drug offenses), and included the possibility of a recurring designation (on weekends in anticipation of brawls at clubs and bars). The size can also vary from a subway station, the area surrounding the route of a demonstration, a park, to several contiguous residential areas. The spaces defined as danger zones can also diverge in their urban functions (residential, recreational, entertainment, traffic, shopping, political expression), and in the social composition of the individuals usually present in these spaces, a factor influenced by the functionality of the spaces, their location in the city, and their social structure.

There are also recognizable differences in the categories of individuals defined by the police as particularly worthy of stopping without cause for suspicion. These were made public for the first time in 2010 (Bürgerschafts-Drucksache [Official Record of the Hamburg City Parliament] 19/6229).<sup>5</sup> In

<sup>5</sup> All official records of the Hamburg City Parliament are available online at: http://www.buergerschaft-hh.de/parldok.

the case of justification in relation to drug crimes, the focus in certain spaces is on individuals who "can be considered to belong to the drug scene on the basis of their appearance and/or their behaviour".<sup>6</sup> At political events, the criterion used is "individuals who seemingly belong to the left-wing milieu." Individuals who are presumed to belong to a specific group (such as football supporters or members of biker gangs) are commonly targeted, for instance in the district of St. Pauli, known for its nightlife. The labeling of individuals who warrant stopping is particularly sweeping in spaces where such a blanket policy is justified by thefts, generalized violence, or damage to property. In these spaces, police attention generally focuses on groups of more than three people, males over the age of 15, or on individuals with other specific characteristics, such as the carrying of a backpack. To be able to assess the significance of danger zones in Hamburg in detail, it is important to connect the length, size, function, justification, and categories of individuals stopped to the social structure of the areas in question.

#### *Types of Danger Zones in Hamburg*

As a series of examples will illustrate, danger zones are an example of spatial fetishism realized in and through policing. The large housing development of Mümmelmannsberg in the district of Billstedt was designated a danger zone from 16 February to 24 April 2006. Based on its social structure, all of Billstedt can be considered an underprivileged district (all data on city districts from the Statistisches Amt für Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein [Statistical Bureau of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein] 2010). In 2009, around one-third of residents were living on welfare. The proportion of inhabitants with a so-called "migration background" (officially defined as individuals who immigrated to Germany after 1950, as well as their descendants) was 47.2%. Presumably, if available, the figures for Mümmelmannsberg would be even more telling.

"Thefts from vehicles" were cited by the police as justification for the designation of a danger zone surrounding the housing estate. In the two months of its existence, the police carried out 410 identity checks; in 111 cases, they also inspected items carried by the individuals checked. In no case was further

<sup>6</sup> These presumably include signs of ill health and poor hygiene, though in the descriptions of the (illegalized) drug scene and alcohol scene, which is not a punishable offence, merge imperceptibly. Furthermore, experience with the policing of drug milieus suggests that it is also true in German cities that skin color is a criterion. Suspicion is ethnicized in the form of racial profiling on the basis of everyday expectations, experience and racial stereotypes (cf. FFM 1997).

action taken. Since the explicit category of suspicion for these random checks was "men over the age of 15", it is highly plausible that a substantial number of underprivileged men of non-German heritage in Mümmelmannsberg experience a higher probability of criminalization solely on the basis of the area where they happen to live or be present in, their gender, and their age. In the classification of dangerous spaces developed above, Mümmelmannsberg, therefore, falls into type 1.a, in which the normality of a specific space ostensibly deviates from a norm, which is then enforced, in this case, against all men above the age of 15.

The increased probability of criminalization, engendered by a spatially legitimized and justified process, leads to high rates of discrimination, as becomes even more evident in the Allermöhe housing blocks in the district of Bergedorf (also in Hamburg). Here the proportion of welfare recipients is 22% and of individuals with an immigrant background, 52%. The danger zone was put into place on 5 December 2006 and was justified at the time with "acts of violence". In the period from July 2008 to 30 March 2009 alone,7 Hamburg police carried out the following activities: they stopped 7,468 individuals, searched 922 individuals, instituted 225 short-term area bans, arrested 19 people, and initiated proceedings against 153 people. Again, the danger zone was used to stop large numbers of passersby, solely because of the criminalization of that space. In view of the social structure and the categories of suspicion here, those affected include 16- to 25-year-olds in groups of more than three, as well as those under the influence of alcohol or who behave in a 'conspicuous' manner. Considering "acts of violence" was the justification for designating the dangerous zone in the first place, it is worthwhile to look at the number of cases of assault and battery registered by the police in Allermöhe, which, after the danger zone designation, did not decrease but rather, with great fluctuations, increased from 128 cases in 2006 to 180 in 2009. Although the reasons for the increase in assault and battery cases are unclear, the overall crime rate in Allermöhe has noticeably decreased since 2008.

Earlier in this chapter, it was argued that increasing control based on crime statistics is likely to produce even higher crime rates. This self-fulfilling prophecy thesis becomes particularly evident in the case of drug-related crime, a classic example of an offense that is only detected through policing, and one that is relevant in spaces of type 1.a and 2. In recent years, the middle-class district of Ottensen has been gentrified and can be considered a type 2 space, where the police do not perceive all inhabitants as potentially dangerous but

<sup>7</sup> Police data are only available for this period. All details from Bürgerschaftsdrucksachen 19/848, 19/2110, 19/2659 and 19/2812.

deem some people to be out of place. A danger zone—justified with reference to drug-related crime—was established there from 2004 to 2008. Until mid-2005, very little policing was done,<sup>8</sup> and correspondingly few offenses were recorded in the crime statistics. By contrast, from the second half of 2005 to the second half of 2007, the Hamburg police patrolled the district intensively.9 In comparison to 2004, the number of drug-related crimes registered rose by 57%. In 2007, the police reduced the number of random checks and the number of cases registered dropped by 49%. On 11 June 2008, the danger zone designation in Ottensen was repealed. In 2008, 133 cases of drug-related crime were registered—only eighteen cases lower than the figure for 2004, when a drug-related crime was originally cited as the motivation for the danger zone designation.<sup>10</sup>

In the case of danger zones in more affluent residential areas, such as the public park in Eilbek or the subway station in Volksdorf (where the danger zones are much smaller than those in disadvantaged neighborhoods), it can be assumed that there is greater police sensitivity, and that they can be classified as type-2 spaces, as there is no evidence that brawls at clubs and bars or drug trafficking are more prevalent there than in other city districts. While in disadvantaged districts such as Billstedt, Bergedorf, or Wilhelmsburg policing focuses on the (male) residents of the district themselves, it appears that in more wealthy areas, such as in Ottensen, the individuals stopped by the police tend to be non-locals, defined as social or cultural strangers (for a discussion of urban strangers, behavior and social control see: Wehrheim 2009).<sup>11</sup>

Another form of type-2 spaces are areas where direct economic interests are involved, such as the danger zone on Jungfernstieg, *the* upscale shopping street in Hamburg, where the absolute level of registered crime is comparatively low. It is likely that the motivation for establishing a danger zone there had to do with boosting consumption and strengthening local economic policy by


driving out drug trafficking, which is assumed to disturb the 'feel-good factor' necessary for consumerism.

In the district of St. Pauli, the area around the *Reeperbahn*, a street that is home to Germany's most popular red-light district and a nightlife hotspot, has been designated as a danger zone. It is the prototypical type 1.a space where controls focus on 'conspicuously high-spirited' individuals and groups of more than three people—many of whom will probably be stopped without a concrete reason. The consequence of such practices is that each year tens of thousands of people are stopped by the police, usually without an obvious cause. Such spot checks may become a quotidian and discriminatory experience for certain people—in this case, especially exuberant individuals under the influence of alcohol—in certain spaces.

In summary, for all of the examples given above, the definition of specific danger zones varies under the influence of local sensitivities and desires to control specific behaviors. Social issues specific to the spaces to be policed play also an important role. What these diverse spaces have in common is that the social issues in question tend to recede behind the policing of space once those are designated as danger zones. In this manner, the abstraction of space disguises the social selectivity of the kind of policing that occurs in these spaces and that is legitimized through these spaces. Policing race is naturalized by way of spatial fetishism.12

Nevertheless, more detailed qualitative research is needed, as the available data does not provide sufficient information as to how the police proceed in districts that are not declared as danger zones. It also remains unclear what lies behind the term 'criminal offenses', what further criminal proceedings are involved, how actual policing on-site is accomplished, and what the significance of those visible features that allegedly point to ethnic origin might be.

#### **Conclusion: The Effects of Spatialization and 'Spatial Fetishism Realized'**

On the basis of the theoretical and empirical background outlined above, four effects of spatialization can be identified. First, there is the objectification and naturalization of 'dangerous spaces'. It is no longer the social but rather the spatial dimension—in short, something abstract, physical, objective, and natural—that functions as an explanation for the social phenomenon of 'crime'. Spatial fetishism is manifest in its practical application by the police, creating

<sup>12</sup> The same holds true for policing based on assumptions about class.

the basis for further effects. The second effect is the legitimation of proactive and indirectly selective policing by means of the production of spaces: 'Belonging to a left-wing movement' or 'carrying bags/backpacks' do not *per se* legitimizes police activity; neither do categories such as 'male, 15–25 years old' or 'group of more than three people'. Instead, it is the spaces where such individuals are present (and encounter the police) that justify the controls. Only by reference to an objectified 'criminogenic' space can the policing of tens of thousands of people in a single city—potentially affecting hundreds of thousands merely because they are in a particular space—be legitimized. If the Hamburg police and the Department of Internal Affairs were to declare, as a matter of principle, that all men or all people wearing backpacks are to be stopped and searched, protests would certainly follow. Yet the declaration of a 'danger zone' is barely noticed by the majority of the population. The idea of criminal spaces nullifies the presumption of innocence. The scandal of institutionalized social-selective policing disappears into space; and with it, the tendency inherent within it to police race disappears into space as well.

The spatialization of control must thus be classified as part and parcel of a general orientation towards prevention which gives more power to the executive branch of the state apparatus (Garland 2001; Krasmann 2003; Simon 2007; Wacquant 2009; Zedner 2007). The third effect of policing space is precisely the increasing influence of the executive, as the police's power to label increases. On the one hand, the police play a decisive role in the definition of danger zones, in which situational knowledge and awareness are deployed to justify their establishment. On the other hand, it is their responsibility to make decisions once patrolling in danger zones. They decide who looks suspicious enough to be stopped. Thus, the police single-handedly produce the spatially uneven levels of registered crime which are then used to criminalize spaces, making crime rates and 'dangerous spaces' a self-fulfilling prophecy. The ostensible dangerousness of a space is confirmed by the police activity; crime figures rise precisely because the space has been declared dangerous and is now being policed accordingly. The structuring of policing practices by means of spatial representations and their interpretation of material space leads to "targeted policing ('organized suspicion') and 'explicit' definitions of situations that drastically raise the risk that definable social groups will be defined officially as delinquent" (our translation from Keckeisen 1974: 70). It is precisely this spatial abstraction, stemming from the social dimension that reproduces social stratification (and is thus the fourth effect). Through criminalization, social structures are (re)produced.

Based on the available empirical literature on policing space and current developments in criminal policy, it can be assumed that spaces in German cities populated by marginalized groups, visible minorities, and individuals with an immigrant background, as well as other groups that are stigmatized as 'dangerous', will increasingly be policed based on the assumption that everyone in these spaces is potentially a criminal or engaged in criminal behavior. With reference to the classification proposed here, it can be surmised that as a result of a new orientation toward prevention and the import of American strategies and slogans such as 'zero tolerance' and the broken windows thesis (Künkel 2013), type-1.b spaces will become increasingly obsolete in German cities, to be replaced by type-1.a spaces. Unlike the outcomes of earlier studies, a *de facto* acceptance of normality that differs from the norm in 'deviant' city spaces will become less likely, and in its place, spatially justified discriminatory policing will increase. In this fashion, the trend towards policing space thwarts any effort to curb policing race.

#### **Bibliography**


## 5 Behind the Walls of Paris: The Inhabited History of Space in the Parisian Banlieues

*Tania Mancheno*

#### **Introduction**

This chapter illustrates the productive relationship between space and violence through an analysis of Paris's urban history. The emphasis lies on an interpretation of the urban planning of the *banlieues* as a central component of French colonial and national history.<sup>1</sup>

By bringing together the socio-economic production of urban space (Bourdieu 1976 and 2000; Lefebvre 1976) and the (post)colonial history of space in France (Dikeç 2002; Fanon 1965 and 1991), this chapter uncovers the physical and ethnological impossibility of a reciprocal encounter between the periphery and the center, from a historical perspective. Manifested since the sixteenth century in the urban planning of the French capital, this spatial asymmetry, as well as the sociological frontiers produced by it, will be described not as an objective nor as a static fact. Rather, my geo-ethnological analysis seeks to invert the social meaning and historical value inherent to the dichotomous model of the urban center versus the periphery, by arguing that the later do not constitute the margins but are instead central to the conception of modern historiography and national history. In this sense, the Parisian banlieues reflect French national history while simultaneously decentering the center of Paris from national historiography. To this end, this chapter engages in an interdisciplinary reconstruction of the dialectic relationship between the city and the modern nation, whereby the 'national body' is spatially constituted and normatively delimited.

Pierre Bourdieu's (1976, 2000) social theory of the field (*champ*) proposes a spatialization of society in which actors are localized in differentiated positions according to the capital they possess. Moving beyond Marx's definition

<sup>1</sup> This chapter is a shortened and revised translation of the paper, originally published in German as *Raum und Gewalt: Eine geo-ethnologische Analyse der Pariser banlieues*  (Universität Hamburg, IPW, Forschungsstelle Kriege, Rüstung und Entwicklung, 2011). The German version includes images of Saint-Denis and maps of Paris from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.

of capital, Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital visualizes the social architecture that determines an actor's social position within a respective society: "Most of the properties of cultural capital can be deduced from the fact that, in its fundamental state, it is linked to the body and presupposes embodiment" (1986: 48). According to Bourdieu, the state embodies the accumulation of cultural capital in its national form. The cultivation of the nation, i.e. the national *Bildung* presupposes the individual labor of incorporation, inculcation, and assimilation.

The 'embodied state' (Bourdieu 1986: 48) is also materialized in the body of the 'investor,' namely the body of the national citizen: "This embodied capital, external wealth converted into an integral part of the person, into a habitus, cannot be transmitted instantaneously." Hence, the constitution of the national body implies a problem of communication, which materializes in the absence of a reciprocal encounter between those bodies considered national and those foreign bodies that are understood to be lacking in cultural capital.

The distribution of cultural capital takes on numerous forms and fragments the social field. In this sense, Bourdieu understands the social field as composed of partially autonomous spaces, each operating under the logics of the capital that is 'proper' to it (Bourdieu 1976: 129). The unequal distribution of cultural capital reproduces the unequal position of actors within the national body, as well as various, irreconcilable forms of habitus. Symbolic capital, which results from the unequal embodiment of cultural capital, is the most intense form of social differentiation (Bourdieu 1976: 131; Mancheno 2011: 17).

Following Bourdieu (1989; 2000), the expression of the unequal allocation of capital—the habitus—functions as a register of meaning that reflects asymmetric forms of national belonging. The cultural hierarchy among habitus creates a hierarchy of power. The fragmentation of society mirrored in the spatialization of social relations is a political question framed in terms of symbolic violence (Mancheno 2011). By applying Bourdieu's social mapping to an analysis of the Parisian capital, it is possible to consider the symbolic hierarchy of its urban space. The city becomes a catalyzer for historical developments, and, more specifically, for social issues and crises. Further, by illustrating the spatial distribution of cultural and symbolic capital, the city as a space for the display of urban violence becomes visible. Building on Frantz Fanon (1965, 1991), the phenomenon of violence is understood here not as a disturbance to the civilized order, but as an ongoing process that reproduces the logics of the colonial administration of non-white individuals within national boundaries. The colonial architecture of the color-line is thereby layered onto Bourdieu's social topography.

In his introductory chapter to *The Wretched of the Earth*, "Concerning Violence" (1991: 36–37), Fanon describes urban colonial planning: "The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police stations." In the colonial urban space, "the policeman and the soldier" are positioned as gatekeepers, protecting the interests of the Metropole. They are "the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression" [who] "by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct action maintain contact with the native and advise him by means of rifle butts and napalm not to budge."In his analysis of colonial control over urban mobility, Fanon (1991: 37) argues that: "the agents of government speak the language of pure force." He continues: "The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace." In this sense, the soldier and the policemen are "the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native." Fanon notes that by describing this colonial violence inherent to the urban order "we will at least be able to reveal the lines of force it implies".

Applying this approach to an analysis of Paris, I argue that riots do not constitute the source of urban violence. Instead, the goal of my critical reconstruction of the city's history consists in interpreting Parisian urban planning as a manifestation of symbolic and (post)colonial violence. It is this violence that is the source of riots. This historical approach allows us to invert the significance of the center of Paris for the national narrative with that of the Parisian banlieues.

This inversion is carried out, on the one hand, through a short description of the disturbances that took place in 2005. The events of 2005 positioned the banlieues at the center of a national and international public debate on national security and postcolonial integration (Wacquant and Body-Gendrot 1991). To paraphrase Hito Steyerl (2012), since the violence is 'captured,' as the shootings by the French police are shot by the camera, the bodies of the periphery become—in a perverted manner—bodies of national significance. The riots thereby transgress not only the hierarchy of meaning between the centrality of the city and its unknown peripheral spatiality but also the anonymity of the inhabitants of these 'zones.' The banlieues are no longer the urban space associated with public indifference and historical ignorance but have instead become visible.

The riots make visible the bodies of national citizens, which are traditionally marginalized from the French national narrative. The non-white (dead) bodies of the victims, their embodied experience (habitus), and their habitats are no longer marginal, or outside the realm of the known, as suggested by the concept of *Banlieusard*. 2 The riots position 'those' bodies, which were traditionally conceived as foreign to the national body at the center of the national debate on citizenship and national belonging. In other words, by contesting the urban civic order of the city, the disturbances pose the crucial political question of "who is the body embodying the subject of rights?" The riots thereby recreate the subjects representing 'the' national body.

However, my analysis does not consider the events of 2005 to be unique. Similar episodes of violence have taken place in the banlieues since the 1950s and continued after 2005. The events discussed here are therefore exemplary of the repetitious nature of racial crime and colonial trauma in Paris, forming a constitutive element of Paris's geography and French history as a whole, as well as of Europe's multicultural-postcolonial setting. Moreover, almost fifteen years after the events in question, the criminal trials against individual police officers are still ongoing; the testimonies of the families, relatives, and neighbors of the victims are thus not yet part of the (forgotten) archive but remain still very much alive.3

In order to describe the inversion in the hierarchy of meaning in the urban order of the city, I propose the metaphor of the 'biography of urban space' (Mancheno 2011). This approach to the analysis of space seeks to intersect the political and social history of the city with its inhabited history. A focus on the reconstruction of the inhabited history replaces the homogeneous anonymity of the urban space of the banlieues with the subjectification of the space (habitat) and the spatialization of the inhabited experience (habitus).<sup>4</sup> From this perspective, the settlements outside the center are understood as


testimonies of (post)national history rather than the vestiges of a defective urban infrastructure.

Approaching the city as a social space (Lefebvre 2003: 84) allows for an interpretation of the fragmentation of urban space—into a center and a periphery—in terms of a normative geography. This conceptualization of urban/ social space reflects the reality that the city embodies possibilities of social configuration and social design, but also opportunities for (social) mobility. This implies that the city is not only a colony but also a spatialization of social imaginations and deeds (Lefebvre 1976). Conceived within this social topography, the city not only integrates but also excludes. In that sense, the city can be simultaneously understood as a social construction and as the spatial imprint of society. In Lefebvre's words:

[T]he city and the country develop a new relationship in and through the mediation of a third term—the state that has the city as its center. Although the city and the country can no longer be separated, this does not mean that they have somehow been harmoniously superseded. They each survive as places assigned to the division of labor within a territory. Morphologically, this relationship (in the modern state) results in a shapeless mixture, in chaos, despite the administrative order and spatial logistics of the state. (2003: 84)

Hence, urban space "acts as a map for the direction of movement" which orients the national citizen within the 'body of belief' and social costumes that compose a society (Lynch 1996: 125).

A reconstruction of the urban history of the Parisian suburbs must begin with a conceptual reconstruction of the term *banlieues*. My focus lies on the northern *Département* of the greater Paris region (*région Parisienne*) of Seine-Saint-Denis, which in recent years has mostly been rendered visible through cartographies of urban violence. These geographies of fear and anxiety, traced by the police and regularly propagated by the national and international media,<sup>5</sup> reflect a normative understanding of the city that, as will be shown, corresponds to a larger urban history of violence, intervention, and transgression. In

<sup>5</sup> See: Wikimedia Commons 2005: *Extent of 2005 Paris suburb riots as of Friday*. From 2005 to 2017 several cartographies of urban violence circulated by the major media channels. The illustration of the "districts affected by major disturbances" in 2005 by the *BBC News* marks over 20 areas (within and outside Saint-Denis). Since 2005, the right-wing newspaper *The Daily Express* has used this cartography in several editions. Most recently, the identical topography of violence reappears in the article "Paris Riots Mapped" (McFadyen 2017).

short, through the semantic legacy of the banlieues, I will elaborate upon the significance of Parisian *departments* at 'the other side' of the walls of French history. The chapter closes with a reflection on the study of urban disturbances from a decolonial perspective—by which I mean an approach that recognizes the racialization of violence and allows for a critical reconstruction of the cartographies of violence and of those concepts, such as the banlieues, that also nurture ontological hierarchies within the society while mapping sites of colonial and postcolonial urban violence in the Western city.

#### **Historicizing urban violence**

In November 2005, France declared a state of emergency. This exceptional political measure was instated as a reaction to several urban disturbances that had started in Clichy-sous-Bois and soon expanded to other neighborhoods in the same district (including Aulnay-sous-Bois, Sevran, Bondy, Montfermeil, Neuilly-sur-Marne, Bobigny and Le Blanc-Mesnil). Over the course of the following three weeks, several riots took place in other cities in continental France such as Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse and Strasbourg.

The escalating violence was depicted as a "disease."<sup>6</sup> The images of plundered public buildings, burning cars and blocked streets, which quickly circulated around the world, gave the impression of a civil war occurring in the political center of Western democracy. Then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy signaled his intention to stop the riots by "cleaning up the streets."7 Yet, the spiral of urban violence had a much older starting point. As such, the riots were not an infection but rather a symptom.

Chronologically speaking, the acts of vandalism were reactions to an earlier urban crime. The disturbances began after two young French citizens, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré were killed in their own neighborhood while attempting to circumvent an unexpected police search. The riots were a reaction to a


crime caused by the actions and behavior of the state's public servants towards non-white nationals. Nonetheless, the initial crime, as well as the identities and names of the victims, is, for the most part, omitted from the narratives of urban violence reconstructing these incidents. In short, mapping the riots renders the crime invisible. This means that the visualizations of urban violence actually hide a much older cartography of violence, traceable only by entangling both the initial crime and the riots.

Understanding urban violence as an expression of violence—instead of as a source of violence—entails a definition of the city as the stage on which violence unfolds. The city is a space that (re-)produces historical tensions between the center and the margins. The urban periphery not only represents a lack of significance for the national narrative (represented by the center) but also contains and protects it. In other words, the urban margins manifest the center's finitude. The banlieues thus constitute more than the negation of the Parisian center.<sup>8</sup>

Parisian urban planning is constituted by antagonistic reciprocity, which translates into social history as the embodiment of the social margins of French society in the collective postcolonial condition of the French citizens inhabiting the banlieues (Iveković 2015; Body-Gendrot 2004).It is therefore not a coincidence that the riots marked the beginning of a crisis of integration at the core of the French society. As Iveković suggests:

The question, which was initially announced in France in 2005 as the question of the banlieues, was enlarged in 2006 to the question of the city center and of the youth in general, and also of the new generations. The question of the banlieues, without being a simple 'aftereffect,' a 'consequence' of French colonial history (which took place between 1954 and 1962) leaving behind the 'what to do with the 'islands' question,' is however the colonial question, which presents itself to us as the postcolonial question (2015: 13–14; own translation).

The 2005 events illustrate how the opposition between the urban center and the banlieues mirrors a social fragmentation of French society, which reflects colonial, and therefore, intolerable and unbearable frontiers between citizens (Iveković 2015).

<sup>8</sup> In a recent documentary produced by Frédéric Wilner: *Paris-Berlin, destins croisés* (2015), white French historians describe the many urban enclosures of the city that were erected between the sixteenth and the twentieth century to protect it from German penetration. They also discuss some of the expressions transmitted through Parisian oral history referring to 'the Zone.' Unfortunately, the documentary offers neither testimonies nor any ethnographical work with the inhabitants.

Illustrating the synthesis of spatial distances and cultural foreignness, the Parisian geography traces the spatialization of a colonial historical exclusion. From this perspective, the events in question are not a state of exception. Moreover, they respond to and are inscribed by, the history of racism in the French society that is again manifested in the urban planning of the Parisian metropolitan area (*Aire urbaine de Paris*<sup>9</sup> ).

The riots challenged the classic Greek and Roman figure of the citizen: The citizen as national, the citizen as the inhabitant of the city (Iveković 2015: 18). The urban and social segregation of postcolonial subjects is a colonial strategy of exclusion from the cultural rule, which, while allocating identity and differences, also associates the 'Other' with a problem for 'the' domestic interest. As Body-Gendrot violently puts it:

[T]he dangerous Others are ethnic minorities with or without the nationality of the receiving country, confronting other marginalized groups such as hooligans, skinheads or xenophobes. France has constructed a 'peril' out of urban male youths—the subtext being poor, Muslim and of post-colonial origin (2004: 4).

In 2006, the double-crisis surrounding the limits of the political body was addressed by the public policy formula of "hosting better, for a better integration" ("*mieux accueillir pour mieux intégrer*") (Costa-Lascoux 2006). The humanitarian and urban meanings of hosting linked domestic, national, borders with external and European ones.

The spatial-colonial wound in both political bodies (the city and the nation) became the main agenda item of the opposition political party Les Indigènes de la République ('Indigenous of the Republic')*.* Created immediately after the events of 2005, in the Parisian banlieues, the party problematizes from a decolonial perspective the colonial violence inherent to the 'management' and 'administration' of French citizens marked as foreigners. Through their political struggles and writings, the party successfully altered the liberal and multicultural political language in French politics: Concepts used for making reference to non-white nationals, who are *read* as foreigners, changed from individuals who possessed a 'migrant background' (issu(e) de l'immigration) to those with a postcolonial condition (issu(e) de la colonisation).<sup>10</sup>

<sup>9</sup> This geographic designation, adopted in the 1990s, incorporates the banlieues within Parisian administration. Note the semantic affinities to the terminology of Metropolitan France. Both are geographic delimitations that recentralize politics and the state's realm of influence.

<sup>10</sup> For an introduction to the decolonial political agenda of the party, see Houria Bouteldja's publication *Les Blancs, les Juifs et nous. Vers une politique de l'amour révolutionnaire* (2016). The discussion on national belonging set into motion by *Les Indigènes de la République* connects the historical relationship between colonialism and migration, thereby contesting France's monoculturality just as the nation's assimilatory narrative.

In a similar manner to the rupture in the national urban order caused by the disturbances, the self-designation 'Indigenous of the Republic' disturbs the homogeneity in the French national narrative. Used first as the colonial-legal category for designating colonial Algerian subjects, the name 'Indigènes' signals to the diachronic presence of colonial patterns of orientation and social mobilization in the French society. The party's rhetoric emphasizes on the transnational character of French history by denouncing the postcolonial condition of non-white and non-Christian French citizens, who are constantly 'managed' through discussions on 'integration' and 'assimilation'. The party understands the urban violence behind the walls of Paris as being the result of racial violence and traces parallels between the habitat and habitus of the urban suburbs with the structural dependency of the French colonies and postcolonial territories of France d'Outre Mer to France métropolitaine.

The continuity from French colonial history to today's urban violence is intensified through the pathologization of violence, used by the media and the government to disqualify the political and historical meaning of the riots as irrational acts of violence and to reduce their impact on society (Iveković 2005). From this perspective, the spatialization of social alienation manifested in the banlieues illustrates the social position of French citizens who, due to their reactions, are depicted as the barbarians within French society. Young non-white male bodies are, once again, associated with an Orientalized incompatibility with the West (Mancheno 2015). In Iveković's words:

The 'unexpected' appearance of suddenly visible revolted bodies and of their direct, unmediated violent action beyond language cannot at all be received as carrying political claims within the existing public space. It is a *wild* demand to topple the existing hegemony and replace it. (2005: n.p.; emphasis added)

The disorder in the suburbs subverts the colonial order dictated by the citycenter insofar as the confrontations (their noises and threating images) visualize the colonial history in the urban planning of the city. The expressions of violence are postcolonial confrontations of power. As Mustafa Dikeç's states:

When seen from this perspective, the question ceases to be one of 'crisis of the suburb' as such, and becomes, rather, a question of injustice produced and reproduced by social and spatial dynamics. The question, in 124 *Tania Mancheno*

other words, becomes one of the structural dynamics of domination and oppression with the production of space at its core. (2000: 93)

In this vein, following Bourdieu (2018)11 and Lefebvre (2003: 84), it is possible to argue that the urban space reveals a specific social structure and societal design. The geography of Paris thus offers evidence of the architecture of French society*.* Nonetheless, evidence is a dangerous concept here: By using it, we no longer know whether the revealed social structure within an urban space was already present before one had begun to look for the empirical proof of its existence. In such a case, the results of the research would be no more than a verification *(Überprüfung)* or the discovery of coincidences between presuppositions and empirical evidence resulting in a mere tautological reassurance *(Bestätigung).* This paradox is also present in one of the most essential questions within this analysis: Does urban space produce social space, or is it rather social space that creates urban space? Which one should be considered first?

Since there is no order of precedence or priority available, the challenge consists of thinking about society and urban architecture in a synthetic manner. Interpreting urban planning alongside the social construction of society allows for a historicization of the space of the city. In other words, it enables us to treat urban space as a source for historiography. An exemplar of such a synthesis is visible in the history of France, in the conceptual history of the banlieues and in their place in the postcolonial society. In short, the banlieues summarize the marginality of colonialism in the national French narrative.

#### **On stones and walls of meaning: The 'lieu du ban'**

According to Henri Lefebvre (2008), urban space is treated as antithetical to nature insofar as it results from social production and consumption. Urban space is an order constituted by social meaning, which extends as far as the meaning possesses validity in its respective territoriality. The linguistic specificity of the names given to the urban suburbs of the European capital, so as the associations created between the spatializations of the city and the identities of the inhabitants, reflect the specificity of the colonial/national history.

<sup>11</sup> Bourdieu (2018) offers an interpretation of the Parisian social geography. Yet, he focuses only on the center of Paris and the Seine as the natural frontier dividing the 'Left Bank' from the 'Right Bank.' For a discussion on the much larger architecture of French society, see Mancheno 2011.

In the French context, the concept of *banlieue* is applied to those municipalities that are located outside the city center but are nonetheless constitutive of the metropolitan area.12 Despite their inclusion under the umbrella of public administration, the banlieues logic by permanent neglect. The inclusionthrough-exclusion paradox framing the relationship between the city center and the banlieues is a constant in the history of this space of meaning.

The space that gave birth to the banlieues is known in Paris's urban history as *La Zone* (the Zone). The blurriness of this term immediately testifies to undistinguished territoriality that resulted from a metaphorical and physical lack of housing in Paris—an artifact of the city urban history since at least the eighteenth century. First, the city-walls installed in 1784, and then the *Thiers wall* impeded the city's growth until 1919.13 While these walls were conceived of as preventive measures erected for both the regulation of commerce (and contact), and the protection of the city from invasion, the other side of the wall reflects the unofficial side of the official story: The banishment of Sinti and Roma peoples as early as 1536, who had previously occupied the city center in provisional housings (Asséo 1994). Displaced in a phenomenon known as ostracism, people migrated together with their constrained and temporary housing, translating their habitat to the other side of the walls.

In a social geography that can be traced back to the Middle Ages, the Church played a significant role: The gates of the city, such as the gate of St. Denis build in 1672, regulated access to the city, prohibiting it at night. As individuals of differing confessions were banished from the Parisian center (Viollet-Le-Duc 1875), these gates also began to act as normative frontiers fulfilling the political function of homogenizing the local population.

The history of Paris's urban margins is a history of the geographical spillage of the center into the margins. Today, the gate of St. Denis is a monument within the center of Paris, although its inclusion in the urban landscape did not correspond to a decrease in the historical significance of the city gates. Instead, together with the expansion of the urban area, the distancing between the center and the margins becomes more significant.

<sup>12</sup> The official French definition states, "Les communes qui ne sont pas villes-centres constituent la banlieue de l'unité urbaine." It is contained in the study prepared by the Public Security Services (*services de sécurité publique centralisées*) created by the French police for the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Territorial Development (2005).

<sup>13</sup> The conception of the city wall is illustrated in the *Plan de la circonvallation de Paris*  published in 1789, the enceinte is illustrated in the *Carte des fortifications et environs de Paris* (1845).

In the eighteenth century, another layer of meaning was added to the fortified enclosure of Paris' center: Inside the walls of the city, Eugène Haussmann reshaped the meaning of Frenchness through his modernization of Parisian architecture, while outside the city walls, a precarious habitat was being created by those temporary workers and their families who could not afford to live in the new Paris, and were thus displaced to the other side.<sup>14</sup>

Along with the city center's expansion, the urban margins grew. Between 1872 and 1896, the number of Paris's inhabitants increased by almost 50 percent. Yet, "while the population of the central *arrondissements* grew by only 7.1 percent during this period, the outer districts experienced a rate of growth of 103 percent" (Shapiro 2015: 42–43). The persistent and powerful logic of banishment of 'illegal' commerce from the center to the margins known first as *La Zone* would come to produce the nineteenth century's biggest European suburb—in French, the *bidonville*. This densely populated and precarious area would eventually be renamed the banlieues, and the inhabitants of this social space would thereafter be treated as a disposable community (Iveković 2005).

Derived from the French expression lieu du ban, meaning a place to reject or to denounce in public disdain (*rejeter et dénoncer au mépris public*), the banlieues were a concept used to denote the zone behind the walls or the suburban zone, where the city's order no longer applied. The walls marked the urban and social frontier of the city: Behind those walls the law was void.

The banlieues became a space for those who have no place in the community, the disenfranchised, and those unrecognized as members of the civilized city—in short, for those who faced the impossibility of being part of the political community. Behind the walls of Paris, the inhabitants shared a sense of ex-communion, a shared sense of absence, of non-belonging, since the social meaning circulating inside the walls cannot be appropriated without crossing the frontiers of its finiteness. In short, the banlieue is the banishment-place; the banlieue is a place of collective and nameless exile.

The frontier between 'Paris within the walls' and its banlieues marks a social distance that creates not only completely different social spaces but also antagonist ones. The banlieues exist as the negation of Paris's order; the meaning of its social space is the meaning of Paris's *ex negativo.* In this sense, this urban cartography reflects Fanon's analysis of the urban space, wherein he connects the colonial order of the European city with the urban disorder of

<sup>14</sup> Through documented testimonies and newspaper articles of the nineteenth century, Ann-Luise Shapiro (2015) offers a significant biographical analysis of the urban protests in Paris, which were organised by workers for better housing. These include the organised irregular occupation of residences inside the city centre, which were highly condemned by the police.

the colonized world. Fanon (1991: 39) describes this "world divided into compartments, this world cut in two" as the difference in the inhabited experience. "The zone where the natives live is not complementary to the zone inhabited by the settlers. The two zones are opposed, but not in the service of a higher unity. He then contrasts the difference in urban space in an illustrative manner:

The town belonging to the colonized people, or at least the native town, the Negro village, the medina, the reservation, is a place of ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are born there, it matters little where or how; they die there, it matters not where, nor how. It is a world without spaciousness; men live there on top of each other, and their huts are built one on top of the other. The native town is a hungry town, starved of bread, of meat, of shoes, of coal, of light. (ibid.)

The city walls have traced the frontiers of French political belonging for more than a century. Even today, Paris *extra-muros*, the banlieues, stands for the place associated with potential danger for the city and its social order. Whereas the (center of) Paris (*intra-muros*) is a metaphor for the centralization of political, colonial and intellectual power, Paris *extra-muros* represents hostility and even enmity. In that sense, the banlieues are inevitably related to barbarism and violence. Correspondingly, the center responds to the Fanonian cartography of the 'white city' (1991: 38):

The settlers' town is a strongly built town, all made of stone and steel. It is a brightly lit town; the streets are recovered with asphalt, and the garbage cans swallow all the leavings, unseen, unknown and hardly thought about. The settler's feet are never visible, except perhaps in the sea; but there you're never close enough to see them. His feet are protected by strong shoes although the streets of his town are clean and even, with no holes or stones. The settler's town is a well-fed town, an easygoing town; its belly is always full of good things. The settlers' town is a town of white people, of foreigners.

This urban geography—which divides the metropolitan area of Paris into social spaces either 'outside' or 'inside' the city, and 'inside' and 'outside' the law—reflects that, "[i]n reality, we do not live in a neighborhood, but rather inhabit a social hierarchy" (Kotanyi and Vaneigem 1995: 96).

#### **The Postcolonial Façades of the banlieues**

After World War I, the spatial dimensions of the banlieues changed dramatically. Between 1921 and 1926, more than one million people immigrated to France and settled near the big cities. Migration from other corners of France and Europe created a housing and infrastructure crisis, which was, paradoxically, solved by establishing several programs encouraging labor-force immigration. After World War II, migrants—most of whom came from the French colonies—were 'invited' to come to the metropole in order to rebuild and modernize the nation. The banlieues were rapidly rebuilt as a cheap shelter for the coming workers.

In 1950, five million migrants were living in France. However, housing policy did not anticipate long-term social integration. Characterized by a Fordist architecture, the banlieues of Paris were organized with an emphasis on functionality, rather than communal life.<sup>15</sup> The urban architecture reflected the transitory presence of labor migrants. Uniform, linear buildings organized private spaces and private needs in a singular, massive way and guaranteed social control over each worker entering and leaving the residences (Vidal 2006; APUR 2017: 9).

First presented at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867 (and again in 1889), the social housing project did not include plans for public spaces, cultural possibilities or economic independence for the new districts. Despite its huge dimensions, the residential project was built without formal competition among urban and architectural concepts. The result was the *Grands Ensembles*, the construction of several rows of uniformly tall buildings covering an area approximately ten miles long surrounding the city-center of Paris. The buildings were originally referred to by the abbreviation HBM (*habitations à bon marché*),<sup>16</sup> French for cheap residences. Since 1949, they are called HLM (*habitations à loyers modérés*), meaning residences of moderate rent (APUR 2017: 9).

<sup>15</sup> For a description of the urban history of the banlieues in the twentieth century see: special issue of the magazine *Manière de Voir*: banlieues. Trente Ans d'Histoire et de Révoltes, published by *Le Monde Diplomatique* (2006). See also: Mancheno 2011.

<sup>16</sup> For a recent official study see the publication of *Atelier Parisien d'urbanisme* (APUR) in: *Les Habitations à Bon Marché de la ceinture de Paris: étude historique* (2017). The renewed interest in the banlieues, and the significant interventions of public policies and projects of urban regeneration (*réhabilitation urbaine*) have reactivated the uses of metaphors of the body and disease for the analysis of the city. The study shows that nowadays the interest in huge urban projects is framed by the debate on climate change and the regulations of CO2 emissions.

While the city-wall was demolished for their construction, the banlieues clearly marked different degrees of belonging to the nation between its inhabitants and the Parisians. In this sense, the demolition of the walls erected new frontiers.

Today, the racialization of urban space is clearly delimited in the possibilities of mobilization (migration and transition) from the social and urban margins into the urban and political body of the nation (Vidal 2006). The administrative cartography of the *Unité urbaine de Paris*, which is territorially equivalent to metropolitan Paris, constitutes itself through substantial differences in the transportations systems. Whereas the metro and buses interconnect the urban center, the mobility of those people who live in the banlieues and work in the center is still dependent on the precarious RER train. Moreover, panographic images of Paris show that the city-wall has been replaced by the ring road called *ceinture périphérique*.

The constrained mobility of Parisian geography is an essential component of the genealogy of violence that has its polycentric origins in colonial history. The restrained mobility of non-white individuals, the 'colored infrastructure' of the plantation, is reconstituted in the urban planning of the city and *embodied* in the 'last rows' of public transportation. This colonial continuity stretches from the absence of public spaces in the planning of monocultural plantations in the French colonies to the lack of public space in the HLM in the banlieues of Paris. Connected through the function they fulfill, the plantation and the suburb are spaces for the management of the production of life. This continuity thus visualizes the inhabited history of space in terms of its productivity and not as dignified housing.

Reconstructing the history of the Parisian suburban space through its inhabited history allows for an exploration of the layers of meaning that compose the stigmatized habitat-experience. The biography of the banlieues is illustrated in the ostensible untranslatability of this French urban concept (Wacquant and Body-Gendrot 1991). The singular name reflects the limitations and measures that compose this national and colonial inhabited experience.

At the same time, the continuity in the racialization of space from the plantation to the suburb can also be traced through the collective struggles contesting these orders. In this context, the supposed 'irrationality' diagnosed in the act of burning cars during the disturbances of 2005 should rather be described as a manifestation *inscribed* in the history of resistance against racialized urban mobilization.17

<sup>17</sup> Note the possible association between the burning cars and the motif of burning down the plantation, which is central to the imaginary of the Haitian revolution during the painful process of national independence from French colonial rule. For a description of the social architecture of the plantation in Haiti during the colonial period, see Buck-Morss 2009.

The racialized cartographies of the city restrict national belonging and citizenship. As Dikeç notes,

It is, therefore, possible to suspect that term[s] [are] used to legitimize repressive measures taken towards the suburb [...]. *La Politique de la Ville* has functioned largely as a policy of containment; first, by legitimizing repressive measures and surveillance techniques, and second, by turning political claims into disturbances. In other words, by turning voices into noises. (2002: 93)

From this perspective, the banlieues constitute a metaphor for the urban and political containment of the city, for the definition of civility and citizenship, and for the limits of the definition of 'being French' (Fanon 2008: 68). The concept of the banlieues functions as a metaphor for the contingency of national narrative(s): It contains the urban space of the city and materializes the limits of the national body. In that sense, it is a space of meaning that offers a significant source from which to engage in a post-national reconstruction of French national history, in a decentering of the national history of the city, and in a historicization of urban violence.

#### **Conclusion**

This paper suggests that considering urban architecture and planning along with the social construction of society allows for a historicization of the space of the city. The semantic history of the banlieues offers a methodological entry point to the political history and the postcolonial character of this urban space.

Historicizing urban space in terms of a field of contestation requires us to include the particular urban trauma of having to fear for one's own life in a confrontation with the police/the state. From this perspective, the riots are not events that occupy the city in an illicit manner. Rather, the disturbances hijack urban mobility and capture public attention, thereby preoccupying the immobilized and indifferent citizen and the state. Understood as the outcome of violence enacted by the center towards the suburbs, the urban disturbances not only articulate a negation of the marginal status of the residents of the banlieues but also act as a catalyzer for an almost ritualized transgression of the hierarchical value of counter-spatialities: *Paris et ses banlieues*.

Both manifestations of urban violence—the crime committed by the police and the riot—take place at the margins of the city and imply the movement and migration of bodies. While the presence of the police requires a displacement of the state from the center into the banlieues, the victims were running back to their homes. The police ran after children who were themselves running from the police toward safety. In urban districts characterized by a lack of public services, the presence of the police is already an intrusion that generates mistrust, suspiciousness, and fear among the inhabitants.

Situating the crime within this cartography of power has several implications: On the one hand, the interpretation of the cycle of violence visualizes Paris's social geography, while the literary meaning of *mobilization* adds movement to the fixed cartographies of control and fear. The mobilization of marginalized bodies sets into motion a migration of meaning. This enables a historicization of the alienating experience, which is central to the inhabited history of the banlieues. On the other hand, the biographies of the victims are not circumstantial to the history of violence within the Parisian banlieues. The interrupted biographies of the victims are representative of the colonial violence committed by the state against non-white citizens, who remain marked as postcolonial nationals.

By redirecting the historical-national significance of the urban center towards the events in the Parisian urban periphery, the invisible bodies become visible. These bodies are responsible for protecting the comfort of the center and guilty of spinning the urban and civil order out of control. Hence, their political presence challenges the national narrative from which they are traditionally excluded. The urban disturbances challenge the ontological division of the national body into 'the good white citizen' (the public servant) and 'the uncivilized Arab and Black individual.' In that sense, while such a hierarchical cartography functions as a guidepost for condemning the crime, the crime also reaffirms, in a Fanonian sense, the geographies of ontological difference.

Moreover, the interpretation of the riots as a symptom instead of disease allows for contestation of the temporality through which the state seeks to frame the events. Although the state of exception suggests a discontinuity of the public order, this cycle of violence is not an unusual phenomenon: Precisely this succession of events—from the initial crime to the proliferation of riots remains constitutive of the history of the Western city since 2005. However, my attempt was not solely to include the disturbances as a prism of the history of violence in the postcolonial city but to argue that it is fruitful to engage in a reconstruction of the cartographies of meaning and power that continue to enable the repetition of such spirals of urban violence. Iveković (2005: n.p.) points out:

When the government reactivated the law about the state of emergency, passed during the Algerian war in 1955, the French learned that colonial legislation had never been abrogated. It is no surprise, since, after what was felt like an amputation (Algerian independence), there has never been a renegotiating of a new social and political project for postcolonial France. It makes us think that France still needs to be decolonized, and Europe too. All the colonial generals still have their avenues in Paris, and history teachers have recently been asked to stress the 'positive aspects of colonization.'

Is it possible to imagine moving the Eiffel Tower from the 1st *arrondissement* to the many places named in commemoration of French colonial history— Saint-Denis in Algeria, Réunion, and the Parisian banlieues? Would that move be an act of treason—against both French national history and to the urban center? At a minimum, it would mean a translation of both, and the spiral of urban manifestations of violence demonstrates how such a transgression is necessary for attaining freedom in the post-national city.

#### **Bibliography**


## 6 Spiriting Away the Bad Urbanite: From the Topkapı Bus Terminal to the Panorama Museum 1453

#### *Julia Strutz*

In this article, I wish to narrate the story of the almost complete erasure of Istanbul's former main bus terminal. It used to be located in Topkapı just outside the Byzantine land walls and, as a monument, has provoked major debates about national identity since the founding of the Turkish Republic. Topkapı as a cluster of walls, bus stations, and informal markets—was symbolic for the entry of rural migrants into the city, thus making this space a symbolic counterpoint in the creation of national identity. Instead of the usual urge to highlight one specific past more than another, the focus of this article is on collective forgetting and the almost complete removal of memory. Forgetting, or spiriting away, a place tells us something about the places and people we do not want to see and be.

The bus stations in Topkapı were part of a cluster of informal spaces that can be understood as an immoral landscape. The term landscape describes the representation of a space perceived as a whole, although in reality, it may be rather fragmented. Its borders are sharp, constantly negotiated and reproduced, despite not necessarily following existing administrative borders. John Berger (1971) and Raymond Williams' (1973) critiques of landscapes as replicators of an exclusively Western tradition of seeing and perceiving underline the necessity of interrogating the ideological function of landscapes as a reflection of the norms and values of socio-economic elites. Qualifying landscapes as moral or immoral thus provokes questions of what is made visible, what and who is hidden, who has access, and what kind of action is possible and permitted.

This article is divided into three parts: Following a reflection on the relationship between space, citizenship, and national identity, the changing memory of Istanbul's land walls is delineated. This is contrasted with the unruly activities in the terminal and the informal markets inseparably connected to the walls. Finally, this article will reflect on the impossibility of becoming good citizens and urbanites in light of demanding and changing ideals of national identity.

Topkapı denotes a gate in the Byzantine land walls encircling the historic core of the city to its West. The gate was demolished with the opening of a radial highway to the city center in the mid-1950s, which destroyed parts of the famous Roma neighborhood Sulukule. The entertainment quarter connected to the Roma people and Sulukule continued to irritate local authorities until it was eventually knocked down in 2006 and completely rebuilt.<sup>1</sup> The walls themselves have a long history of decline and neglect, housing the homeless and the "illicit". Between the walls and the bus station(s), diverse flea markets regularly set up shop. Finally, the bus stations numbered between three and four: one for bus journeys inside the city (minibüs), one for journeys with a destination in Anatolia (Anadolu otogarı), one for journeys with a destination in Thrace (Trakya otogarı), and an international bus station. When a new bus station was opened in the slightly more peripheral location of Esenler in 1994, the bus stations at Topkapı were successively closed down. The void they left was filled with the so-called "Kültür Parkı" (culture park) opened in 2009. Between neat lanes of flowerbeds and fountains, it houses a Panorama Museum that displays the conquest of Istanbul in 1453 right where the wall was overcome and an open-air museum where traditional "Ottoman houses" can be admired. Both the "Kültür Parkı" and the Panorama Museum have recently attracted the attention of researchers (Ünsal 2015; Karaman 2016), and the sites have been widely celebrated. Most interesting here is not the culture park itself, but what it replaced.

The success with which traces of this immoral landscape of land walls, ramparts, flea markets, and bus stations have been erased is intriguing. As of yet, it has so not been dealt with in the academic literature, nor can traces be found in libraries and archives. Even the newspaper archives of the huge dailies *Milliyet* and *Cumhuriyet* contain only a total of three articles.2 Private collections and informal archives hold some pictures and memories of the place: Answering a call via Facebook and Twitter (re-tweeted by an account with more than 25,000 followers and twice by accounts with a special urbanist readership with around 6,000 followers each), people suggested a number of Facebook groups, Twitter accounts, and online forums. In these informal archives, users shared their private pictures and memories of the flea market and the bus station—and often expressed their relief that these places were gone. The most useful source was a forum on the webpage "wow turkey", where enthusiasts of old buses and trucks exchange pictures—often against the background of Topkapı. In this situation of collective forgetting, one is forced to hold on to even tiny and rather blurred traces.


#### **Heritage, citizenship, and ethics**

Before sharing the results of this quest into a lost memory, it is worthwhile to frame the relationship between heritage, nationalism, citizenship, and ethics as it is posited in this paper. It is well-established that heritage and heritage policies are a cornerstone of nationalism and national identity in (critical) heritage studies (Lowenthal 1985; Smith 2006). The political decision to preserve, erase, or rebuild specific buildings or landscapes is intertwined with an ideal citizen who would feel exalted by and affiliated with the common national past. Thus, not only institutions, such as schools (and their textbooks), but also the materiality of urban spaces is a powerful means to instill national identity (Çınar 2005: 102). For this reason, Sharon Macdonald calls heritage the *"material substance of identity"* (2006: 11).

As fierce conflicts about national identity and the ideal citizen continue in Turkey, heritage politics continues to be heavily contested (Berktay 1993; Navaro-Yashin 2002). The main cleavage divides the Kemalists, who lay claim to the secular, modernist, and populist founding principles of the Turkish Republic and its founding father, Mustafa Kemal, and conservative proponents of greater Islamic influence in the state's organization. Over the past two or three decades, many observers have noted the changes occurring within the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Istanbul concerning what they considered common heritage. Subsumed under the term Neo-Ottomanism, these scholars describe the return of references to Islam and the Ottoman Empire, thereby eclipsing traces of Kemalist modernism (Çınar 2001: 365; Walton 2010). Since the beginning of the twentieth century, political elites have tried to replace the multi-religious imperialism of the Ottomans with Turkish nationalist, secular, modernist symbols (Bozdoğan 2001). Full of vengeance, the AKP has reversed the complete negligence of the Ottoman past performed by Kemalist modernizers (Öncü 2007: 236) and—with great indifference—favors everything that seems vaguely Islamic. This includes the victory of the Ottoman army over the Byzantine Empire and the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, sparking a "Golden Age" that has been remembered favorably by religious-conservative circles since the 1950s (Tanyeli 2007). In the past decade, however, styles and epochs have been fancifully and absurdly mixed together. Design elements from the Seljuks (1037–1194) and Ottomans (1299–1923) eras are combined and celebrated as the new vernacular, while rediscovering a love for tulips (to date they have stood for the exuberance and immorality of eighteenth-century palace culture) and the late nineteenth-century Sultan Abdülhamid II (known as a despot). The AKP has nationalized Islamic symbolism and Islamicized national symbolism. The land walls are one example of heritage that could not be nationalized without being Islamicized first.

Without negating the harsh changes that this new imagined common past engendered in a city like Istanbul and its inhabitants, nationalism in heritage politics is a trait that was passed on from the Republic. Then as now, experts unequivocally agree that heritage is important because it helps to establish a healthy historical consciousness and a national identity (Tekeli 1991: 94); it is indeed only the protection of their common past that "*saves a society from nomadism*" and *"binds together individuals"*. 3

(National) identity is strongly linked to a moral regime. In her analysis of textbooks, Füsun Üstel shows how Republican modernism preaches a shared moral code and an understanding of the good life (Üstel 2009: 174). Afet İnan, one of the adopted daughters of Mustafa Kemal and author of these textbooks, claims that what united Turks, and made them unique and superior to other nations, was their common morals or ethics (Üstel 2009: 224). Üstel points to (urban) public space as an important medium to instill 'Turkish' morality in Turkish citizens (Üstel 2009: 72, 83). These textbooks instruct students not to spit on the streets and not to speak or laugh aloud in public, but to feel proud at the sight of the good public services offered to them and to be exalted by historical artifacts. Public space since the early Republic has thus not only been a stage for a new modern way of life (Bozdoğan 2001), but also for a morally good life. The morally upright modern citizen is formed via the everyday use of city space. Appreciation for common heritage in public space is not merely modern behavior, but a moral duty for all citizens. The field of heritage politics consequentially operates less with a code of aesthetics (beautiful or ugly) or knowledge (right or wrong), but with moral codes (good or bad) (Tekeli 1991: 89). The immoral landscape of walls, flea markets, and bus stations and how they have been treated by heritage politics will illustrate this point further.

The link between the idea of the land walls as moral landscapes, national heritage, and moral nationalism is then created by ethics as an instrument to analyze the formation of the citizen. My approach to ethics thus differs from the philosophy of Aristotle, Kant or Levinas in that it does not aim to propose or recommend a code of conduct for living. Through a Foucauldian reading, it rather attempts to understand debates about good or correct conduct as a technique of government and of the self (Foucault 1982, 2005). Ethics thus becomes a tool to work through the mechanisms of how citizenship and the imaginary of the good citizen are created and the ways urban space is implicated in this process.

#### **The Immoral Landscape of Topkapı**

The fortifications of Constantinople include a land wall on the Western fringe of the city, the present-day historic core of Istanbul. Although under the Ottomans they no longer served to fend off attacks, they were kept and continuously repaired. When national identity and its past became a pressing topic during the nineteenth century, the land walls, as well as many other Byzantine remnants, entered the debate about heritage, as did pre-Ottoman historiography in general (Göksun 2011; Ousterhout 2011). At the turn of the century, the Byzantine past increasingly began to stand for a cosmopolitan, multi-religious, and decadent Empire, and as something that could be arranged in the (then still rather new) binary system of West versus East, Islam versus Christianity, and traditional versus modern. Were the Byzantines the forefathers of the Ottomans and therefore also of the Turks? Or did they symbolize the negative or (respectively the positive) influence "of the West" on "us"? (Yıldız 2014) In the late Ottoman Empire and the early Republic, only a very tiny avant-garde was indeed interested in Byzantine history, and although they held key positions in education, interest in the history of Byzantium remained basically a hobby of Istanbul elites. The founding of the Republic in 1923 did away with anything Ottoman and invented Anatolia as a mythical homeland of the Turks, supposedly a Turkic tribe from Central Asia with links to the Hittites and the Sumerians (Gür 2007; Houston 2005; Yazıcıoğlu 2007).

While archaeology gained importance in the 1920s and 1930s, it did not include the archaeology of the Roman, Hellenistic, and Byzantine periods (Özdoğan 1998). An openly-held discussion about the nascent nation's relationship to this heritage was likely to spark controversial debate. It was less risky just to make no decision at all. The land walls in Istanbul symbolize the indecisiveness of the nation-state project in relation to its Byzantine remains. They are, as Jean-François Pérouse calls them, "an impossible urban memory" (2003). They were not demolished but stayed where they were, left to decay, incorporated into new buildings or hidden behind them. Until the mid-1980s, the slow disappearance of the walls was a convenient solution. The French city planner Henri Prost, who was commissioned in the mid-1930s to develop a master plan for the city, determined that the sea and land walls should be repaired where it was still possible (Cumhuriyet 1936). When in 1952 the directorate for development at the municipality of Istanbul, similarly, wanted to grant a building license on Sulukule street—a street which followed the course of the wall on the inner side—the heritage board intervened by stating that *"the walls are a monument of world renown"* (cihanca malum eski eserdir).<sup>4</sup> In its answer, the municipality did not challenge this statement, but insisted that this could only apply *"in case the wall still remained standing"*. According to the municipality, those parts of the wall that were *"ruined by time, constitute rubble"* (taş yığını) only. And indeed, the heritage board permitted the municipality to continue their plans on the condition that they leave "*enough distance*" to the wall. This example shows not only how state institutions cooperated to circumvent their own legislation, but also that the wall appeared basically useless as heritage when it was no longer standing strong.

The land walls produced a void both in terms of national affiliation and in a material sense. The border they once drew, between the city and its periphery with its graveyards and agriculture, was maintained even though the city had long exceeded these borders and categories. The ring road that was built alongside the walls reinstated the border and probably influenced the site selection for a new bus station in the immediate vicinity of the city in 1971.

The void left by the state and its nation-building project was quickly appropriated by the Istanbul of rural-urban migrants (Roy 2005) and their informal economy and housing networks. The wall is "thick" as Franck Dorso (2003) calls it. With its double ramparts and the moat, it offers various opportunities for invisibility and illicit activity. The thick wall is a shelter for street kids, glue-sniffers and the homeless, a home for the poor, a hideaway for couples, a business opportunity for drug traffickers and storage space for junk dealers. It is thick enough to house large numbers of migrant drummers who camped between the walls during the months of Ramadan (pic. 1). Finally, the fertile ground of the former moat is perfect for growing vegetables and has for centuries housed the gardens that fed the city. Despite the obvious dependence of Istanbul on the activities located there, the land walls came to symbolize a place where the "bad citizen" dwells and therefore also an "immoral place" (Dorso 2006).

This situation only changed in the 1980s when the land walls began to be thought of as a tourist attraction and were put on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985.<sup>5</sup> In order to place the walls on the tourism map, renovation work

<sup>4</sup> This and the following quote are taken from an unnumbered folder called "yazışmalar, Surlar, Karagümrük" in the archive of the heritage board (encümen). The letters were exchanged in December 1952 and bear the numbers 57570 and 57614.

<sup>5</sup> Following the military coup in 1980, Prime Minister Turgut Özal, in close cooperation with the Mayor of Istanbul Bedrettin Dalan, initiated a program of economic liberalization and integration into the world economy, including institutions like the IMF and the UN. They ceded import-substitution policy that had long kept Turkish the manufacturing and industrial economy alive. This singled out Istanbul as a prime location for the service industry in the country and thereby, not least, furthered tourism to the city.

was initiated in 1986 that cleansed the walls of the humans that depended on it. Not surprisingly, the displacement of the bad citizen caused much less debate than the renovation of the walls themselves. Archaeologists and Byzantinists heavily criticized the renovations for destroying more than they actually preserved. As the tenders were handed out in piecemeal fashion to a number of different firms that neither agreed on standards nor were experts for this kind of renovation work, the result was an undignified (Pérouse 2003: 6) bricolage.

What the walls were expected to mediate in the late 1980s and even more so after the AKP won the local elections in 1994, was not the memory of grand Constantinople, Byzantine heritage, or even their age of roughly 1500 years. Previously triggered by the preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Conquest of Constantinople in 1953, nationalist-conservative, pro-Ottoman circles had long worked to alter the heritage identification of the walls from Byzantine to Ottoman. As the conquest was re-enacted in Topkapı, actors carried cannons up the wall and someone posed as heroic Ulubatlı Hasan, the soldier who reportedly put up the "Turkish flag" on a tower at Topkapı. With this very early example of neo-Ottomanism, not the walls themselves, but the events of their conquest by the Ottomans began to be remembered. The aim, therefore, was less to renovate them faithful to the original, but to underline the achievement of conquering the invincible city. The Islamist architect Turgut Cansever proposed in 1996 that the stones of the land walls should be in the form of *"bulky, large-scale, cut stone blocks"* (iri, büyük boyutlu, kesme taş bloklar), to contrast with the walls of the graveyard (which he had proposed to re-build) made of *"rubble stone"* to show the modesty of the Muslims buried there (Cansever 1998). The Istanbul land wall with its evenly cut and shiny stones resembles the world of Neuschwanstein and Disneyland, where brave soldiers fight glorious wars and the modest Muslim frees the city from the moral decay of Byzantine rule.

The renovation work done in the 1990s and 2000s are thus less the result of ignorance, but a provocation (Pérouse 2003: 7). The AKP could either demolish the walls—as was proposed in AKP circles right after their election in 1994—or use them to symbolize something besides Byzantium. It still took the AKP and their Islamic-nationalist predecessors fifty years to change the symbolism of the wall from that of a Byzantine land wall to one conquered by a victorious Ottoman army. It proved considerably harder to rid the walls of their association with informality, migration, and illegality. The recycling or rather up-cycling of the memory of the bus stations was especially complicated.

#### *Topkapı rezaleti***<sup>6</sup> —the disgrace of Topkapı**

Since in the 1950s, bus companies had used the thoroughfare and the ring road that cross at Topkapı as a hub. Over the course of the 1960s, Topkapı developed into a huge national bus transfer site (*Cumhuriyet* 1964). The erection of a new official bus terminal there in 1971 coincided with an enormous increase in bus-based transportation in the country. While in 1960, 24% of all trips in the country were still undertaken by train and 72,9 % by car or bus, the percentage of train journeys shrank to only 7,6% and road-based travel rose to 91,4% respectively by 1970 (Evren 1994). The four bus stations at Topkapı became the central hub of an extensive, international, network of bus routes (de Tapia 1994) in the late 1970s and 1980s. Basically everyone who arrived in Istanbul during this time inevitably did so at Topkapı. The demand for bus journeys exceeded the capacity of Topkapı even before the station was opened; this would remain a chronic problem. A new bus station in the slightly more peripheral Esenler, opened in 1994, was to share the same destiny.

Arrival in the legendary city was all but welcoming. Istanbul has three spaces symbolizing arrival in the city: The nineteenth-century Western traveler would arrive through the port and invariably describe their arrival by boat as spectacular and mystic (Eco 1999). Haydarpaşa train station still offered a dignified arrival for rural migrants who came to work in the city's new, state-led, factories in the 1950s and 1960s. The Topkapı bus station was the space of the arrival for the second wave of rural exodus in the 1970s and 1980s. Witnesses invariably describe the long hours they had to wait in traffic jams just to enter and exit the stations, the filth and the stench beleaguering the station, and the mess (*kesmekeş*) of buses, ticket offices, street vendors and passengers. The following memory by M. Ali Sade on the wowturkey.com webpage on March 16, 2009, about the station for buses to Thrace (*Trakya otogarı)* is typical, although—for him—nostalgia seems to already outweigh disgust.

Somehow the entrance and exits, the parking lots for buses and the offices of the companies often changed. The public toilet that was there was world-renowned for its filthiness. Those early-riser cafés in the back were places where you could wait for morning by paying every fifteen minutes for tea that tasted like tar. (…). The bus station was famous for buses that somehow didn't leave although their time of departure had come, for its talented crooks that sold bus tickets to people that were

<sup>6</sup> "Topkapı rezaleti" or the disgrace of Topkapı are the words of Atilla Yalçın, the Vice-General Secretary of the municipality (Milliyet 1993a).

just passing by or who didn't mean to go anywhere at all, for the mobile grilling stalls of unknown meat, for lahmacun [a.k.a Turkish pizza] allegedly made of cats taken out of a bag with caution, for its sellers of peppermint, and for its beggars, cheaters and pickpockets. Equipped with those jacketed gas lamps that were the technical wonder of these years or small camping cylinders, mobile stands were strolling around like fireflies all night selling everything that comes to mind. The Thrace bus station was quite a different world.7

An entire business district of informal trading activity joined the bus stations. Peddlers and sellers from numerous shacks with ever-changing locations created this commercial district, which encroached on the empty spaces in and around the station and into the land wall. This "flea market", "garbage market" or "cheap Grand Bazaar", as it was also called in reference to the touristy Grand Bazaar in the city center (Dorso 2003), offered affordable products and employment for the poor. Despite continuous police intervention since the 1970s, it was probably, until very recently, Istanbul's largest informal market: "Everything from artificial teeth to the busts of the famous, from bras to cinematographs" (Milliyet 13.09.1971, p.1), electronics and pirated copies of music, but also collectibles, could be found in the flea market in the wall.

In the few newspaper articles available, this cluster of the flea market, bus station, and walls is portrayed as a hub during public-religious holidays (*bayram*). Unlike the rich Istanbulites who could afford to travel abroad, the bus station during *bayram* was packed with migrants on their way to their relatives in the villages (*Cumhuriyet* 03.10.1964). Before their journey, they would go shopping for new clothes to wear for *bayram* and gifts for their families (Yenerer 1990). Just behind the bus station, the municipality erected a place to slaughter cattle for the Eid holiday (*Cumhuriyet* 21.08.1983).

As the space of their symbolic arrival in the city, and one that served

<sup>7</sup> Original quote transl. by the author: "Giriş ve çıkışları, otobüs park yerleri, yazıhaneleri her nedense sıklıkla değiştirilirdi. Hele ki burada bir umumi tuvalet vardı ki pisliği dünyaca meşhurdu. Arka tarafındaki sabahçı kahveleri 15 dakikada bir zorunlu gelen zift gibi çaylara para ödeyerek sabahı bekleyebildiğiniz mekanlardı.(…) Saati gelmesine rağmen bir türlü hareket etmeyen otobüsleri, yoldan geçenlere, hiç bir yere gitmeye niyeti olmayanlara bile otobüs bileti satabilen yetenekli değnekçileri, ne eti olduğu belli olmayan seyyar ızgara tezgahları, kediden yapıldığı iddia edilen çanta içinden özenle çıkarılan lahmacunları, keskin nane satıcıları,dilenci ve dolandırıcılarıyla yankesicileri çok ünlüydü. O yılların teknoloji harikası olan gömlekli lüks lambaları ve küçük piknik tüpleriyle aydınlatılan ve akla gelebilecek her şeyin satıldığı seyyar tezgahları gecenin her saati bu bölgede ateş böcekleri gibi dolaşırlardı. Trakya garajı apayrı bir dünya idi."

their needs, in particular, the bus stations symbolize the Istanbul of the rural immigrant. Following disinvestment in agriculture and the state-led industrialization of urban centers, rural immigrants established themselves in Istanbul from the 1950s onwards. Since then, Istanbul has doubled in size every decade until the 2000s. With no state effort to steer the population influx, newcomers often collectively satisfied their need for housing (*gecekondu*), transportation (*dolmuş*) and cheap consumer goods (*işporta*) themselves (Keleş 1984; Tekeli 1994; Kıray 1998; Erder 2001). Popular culture makes a distinction between *halk* (the people, the masses) and *vatandaş* (the citizens) (Özkan 2008: 101)—the citizens being Istanbul elites, who live in modern apartment buildings and work in white-collar jobs. Most importantly, they claim to know what urbanity is and how a good urbanite behaves and loves his or her heritage. The people, by contrast, may not be urban enough; morally, however, they have not yet been spoiled by the city and are thus—in this regard—superior. The opening scenes of the film *Mavi Mavi* (1985) contrasts the veiled women and shoeshine boys of Topkapı's bus station with scenes of the *vatandaş*: lightly dressed women on the beach, women drinking whiskey or with babies in expensive strollers. *Mavi Mavi* is a film about the impossible love of a truck driver at the Topkapı bus station (İbrahim Tatlises, a famous singer, who is also the film's director) and a rich Istanbul girl (Hülya Avşar, another famous singer). The truck driver is part of the people—hardworking, honest, and brave—while the Istanbul girl is corrupted, abusing the pure feelings of the truck driver. *Mavi Mavi* thereby repeats a common storyline in Turkish cinema, especially of those films that broach the issue of "mass migration" to Istanbul (Yıldız 2008: 93). The *halk* in this genre of film dwells in the *gecekondu*, the informal housing settlements on the fringes of the city. When the girl in *Mavi Mavi* wants to see the truck driver, she tries to find him not in his *gecekondu*, but in Topkapı. The bus station, just like the *gecekondu*, thus becomes the home of the common people. It served as an interface between rural and urban culture, a place that is perceived as more rural than other parts of the city.

In the film *Aslan Pençesi*, shot twenty years earlier in 1966, one can still sense the opportunity the recently established bus station offered many newcomers. It tells the story of a rivalry between two gangs of migrants who wanted to do business in Topkapı. Topkapı is portrayed as a dangerous world ruled by the mafia, but our hard-working, honest, hero resists all temptations. Although he is no longer doing physical labor, he still leads the cowboy life of truck drivers and is happily married to a rural beauty. His successor, however, becomes corrupted, drinking alcohol and having extramarital relationships. At the end, everyone is dead. As much as Topkapı was a place of opportunity for the migrant, it also bore the risk of falling into the clutches of immoral Istanbul. In Topkapı, different moral conceptualizations clashed and were perceived as an immoral place from both perspectives: It symbolized the filth, crime, chaos, and informality that the *vatandaş* hated so much, and a danger to the moral integrity of the *halk.* Topkapı characterized the bad urbanite; it was a *"shame"* (Cansever 1998: 40); and had to vanish as quickly as possible.

Although the new bus station in Esenler had been built before their tenure, the AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (as mayor of Istanbul) took credit for the demolition of the stations. Starting in 1993, a park (*Milliyet* 1993) to replace the bus stations was discussed. On the site of the *Anadolu garajı* (Anatolian station), an Ottoman open-air museum or a pavilion (otağ) to exhibit garments and weapons from the conquest was also debated as a possible solution (*Milliyet* 1994). The graveyard that gave way to the *Trakya otogarı* (*Milliyet* 1995) was to be re-established. The work on the projects replacing the bus terminals started in Topkapı in 1999.

#### **Bad urbanites**

Clearing the area of the markets, the bus stations, and people was not as easy as anticipated. With the exception of the Cooperative of International Passenger Transportation, who refused to leave Topkapı and pay the higher prices due at the new station until the police forced them to (*Milliyet* 1994a), outspoken resistance was rare. Yet, silent opposition or quiet encroachment as Asef Bayat (1997, 2000) calls it, continues. Again and again, the police forcefully evicted bus companies and vendors and tore down buildings (Dorso 2003). However, street kids, glue-sniffers, and trash collectors invariably returned; minibuses still leave from Topkapı; shacks have been re-built and the "chaos" continues (Kaya 2004; wowturkey 2004). The walls, too, remain an eerie place, where the *vatandaş* dares not to enter. They continue to witness crime scenes and house illicit activities (*Sabah* 2014; *Milliyet* 2015a).

The language used in the news coverage about this quiet encroachment regularly identifies the "other" as a perpetrator. Yet, society—the imagined Turkish citizen—is made responsible for damage done to the wall, historical buildings, and for the poor condition of the whole area. It is "our" *"social callousness"* (toplumsal duyarsızlık) (Ҫiftçi 2015), that made the walls *"ownerless"* (sahipsiz) and left them in such *"heart-breaking condition"* that *"it is drawing the reaction of the Istanbulis"* (*Milliyet* 2015). Bus stations and flea markets such as those in Topkapı should not be too close to a heritage site, which supposedly demands more dignified behavior. The existence and persistence of the bus stations and flea markets in this area is a stain on Turkish national identity.

Despite the fact that the municipality and other state authorities could easily be made responsible for the situation in Topkapı, the blame is instead laid on the inhabitants, who do not behave according to the rules of the city. It is less the authorities' duty to protect heritage than citizens' responsibility to treat their heritage properly and behave in ways deserving of this heritage. The discourse about Topkapı thus stands in a Republican tradition that emphasizes the citizens' duties over their rights (Kadıoğlu 1998: 10).

Although symbolically the hype surrounding the Panorama Museum and the narrow green lanes of the *Kültür parkı* are AKP space, the removal of the bus station was supported by all political elites. The elitism of the Kemalist modernizers did not allow for much concern for the livelihood of immigrant Istanbul. Even those who tend to associate Istanbul with cultural and religious diversity and cosmopolitan tolerance perceive immigrants as aggressors against their lifestyle (Öncü 2010: 216). Conservative and Islamic movements have served as a mouthpiece of the immigrant community since the 1950s. In 1994, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won the election for mayor of Istanbul with a campaign focusing on those excluded from global Istanbul (Bora 1999). With its moderate Islamism, good governance consultants, and populist message, the AKP has, for some time now, managed to better respond to the needs of migrants to cities and to mobilize their electoral potential (Işık andPınarcıoğlu 2002; Tugal 2008; Yavuz 2009). Once in power, the AKP abandoned the idea of politics for the poor and participated in the erasure of migration in Istanbul—starting with Topkapı. What the AKP offered—in contrast to other elites—was an alternative memory to fill the void the Byzantine land walls' heritage left in Turkish national identity. Instead imperfect citizens who do not manage to behave according to the imperatives of the city and its heritage, the AKP at least now gave migrants a chance to feel like the sons and daughters of a victorious, benevolent, conqueror.

Surely, little of Topkapı's everyday reality leaves much to be desired. The good urbanites and those aspiring to become good urbanites conspire to forget this place and its past. The immoral landscape of Topkapı, however shows, perhaps more clearly than any other place, that it is indeed impossible for someone to exercise their duty as a good citizen. To use the bus stations in Topkapı is not a question of choice, but a necessity for anyone traveling by bus to or from Istanbul. Only the "real Istanbullus"—the small minority of people with ancestors born and raised in Istanbul—did not travel by bus to visit relatives in other Turkish cities. Thus, it was not only individuals from the margins of society that depended on Topkapı; "the other" is—paradoxically—the great majority.

From the perspective of ethics, this perpetual effort to become another, a better, city and society with better urbanites without ever reaching this ideal, seems like a form of asceticism. Not a quick spiriting-away of the bad urbanite, but a painful exercise in and around Topkapı teach Turks how they are not supposed to be. The difficulty and partly even the impossibility of becoming the ideal citizen is further impeded by the continuous quarrel about the nation's identity and its common heritage. To live up to one's heritage is understood as a civic duty without an existing, consistent, state policy to protect it. Although the significance of a monument may change, from the wall as an impossible, "non-Turkish," memory to a memory of its conquest by the brave Ottoman-Muslim army, elites have participated in the self-perpetuation of this ethical dimension throughout the modern history of the country.

#### **Bibliography**


Le Monde Turco-Iranien, 26, online: http://cemoti.revues.org/34. [accessed 26 Oct 2019].


Zainab Bahrani et al. (eds.): Scrambles for the Past. A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753—1914. Istanbul: SALT, pp. 181–212.


# **III Defending the City**

## 7 Practices of Commoning and Urban Citizenship<sup>1</sup>

#### *Pelin Tan*

Creating collective political action in the urban space is not about the organization or the event itself, but about co-existing and functioning together to achieve commoning. This is rooted in a reconsideration and realization of the practices of collaboration, alternative economies, autonomous networks, self-organization and surplus strategies, all of which differ radically from the reality of the neoliberal policies and logics of production currently forced upon us. As such, commoning not only has a different discourse platform than the right to the city but also a different practice, encompassing efforts of collaboration, collectivity, assemblies that relate to alternative economies, unlearning pedagogies and trans-local solidarities.

#### **A Question of Right to the City**

The events of Gezi Park and the Taksim Commune resistance were a social phenomenon, based on several previous urban movements, local struggles, heterogeneous acts of resistance and forms of solidarity within the urban space of Istanbul. Gezi Park and the Taksim Commune resistance clearly presented the peak of an urban struggle that had been developing in different parts of Istanbul and within various ethnic and economic communities in urban neighborhoods. The resistance platforms established in these neighborhoods in both the center of the city and on its outskirts were put under pressure by urban policies that had been transformed by the ruling AKP party and local municipal governments since 2005. Since the Gezi resistance in 2013, these neighborhoods have collaborated with urban researchers, academics, artists, journalists and others concerned with urban injustice (including Mahalleler Platformu, Sulukule Platformu, Sulukule Atolyesi—Alternatif Proje, the Istanbul Chamber of Architects, Herkes İcin Mimarlik, Dayanışmacı Atölye, İMECE-Toplumun Şehircilik Hareketi and Müştereklerimiz)2 in order to gain

<sup>1</sup> This chapter is based on previous publications by the author, Tan (Derive, 2008), Dirk Gebhardt, Andrej Holm, Eds. (2011), Andrea Phillips,Fulya Erdemci Eds. (2012).

<sup>2</sup> Numerous meetings and assemblies were organized. For example, Osman Kavala and

visibility, legal aid, and media coverage, as well as expand opportunities for alternative urban pedagogy. These collaborative micro-networks sparked practices of commoning in urban Istanbul; these initiatives also provided platforms for negotiation and airing conflicts. Although the discourse of a "right to the city" (see Lefebvre 1996; Lefebvre 2003) differs from claiming the commons and creating daily practices of commoning, both discourses were present in many meetings, demonstrations and urban struggles in Istanbul.

Since 2005, the government of Turkey has strengthened its control over the use, design, and development of public space through increased central administration and the implementation of urban policies, including the privatization of public spaces, evictions, and the forced expropriation of property, initiating a wide-spread phenomenon of state-led gentrification and urban transformation. The government not only established specific administrative agencies, such as TOKİ (*Toplu Konut İdaresi Baskanligi*, the Housing Development Administration) but also passed laws on land transfers and state-led urban transformation.3 It is a state that justifies, normalizes, and governs through laws of exception; it controls cities and urban spaces. The recent law on Disaster Risk Management gives full control to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanism and TOKİ to transfer property, agree on terms, and decide what should be demolished. Although TOKİ is a state agency tasked with building social housing complexes, it also collaborates with municipalities as a private company in urban clearance projects that replace poor, ethnically diverse communities with increasingly middle-class neighborhoods. All actors involved in such building activities can be viewed as local versions of a broader neo-liberal movement, which David Harvey has argued, "generates a complex reconstitution of state-economy relations in which state institutions are actively mobilized to promote market-based regulatory arrangements (Harvey 2006: 102)." As part of their plans for urban clearance and rescaling, the state, alongside secondary actors such as developers and real estate agencies, has introduced urban policies that allow for the displacement of inhabitants (shifting their ownership and property rights) and the use of Istanbul's image as a marketing tool for local and

I organized a meeting at DEPO in the Tophane district in Istanbul, inviting scholars, activists and neighborhoods' representatives: Social-economic Impacts of Urban Transformation (with Neil Brenner). July 11–13, 2008, Istanbul, Tütün Deposu, organized by Pelin Tan and Osman Kavala (report available upon request).

<sup>3</sup> The state's policies—not only in terms of housing (see the recent discussion of forced design and planning for Taksim Square in Istanbul and the public demonstration against it)—have increased segregation and a normalization and thus legitimization of aggressive urban land policies.

foreign investors, thereby manipulating urban fears (of terrorism, earthquakes, attacks on personal safety and the like).

Beginning in the 1970s, it became possible through the manipulation of urban and economic policies to legitimize *gecekondu*<sup>4</sup> areas (see Turkun 2014) and connect them to capitalist productions of urban spaces, or to expand the city with 'enclaves' or 'gated communities.' In a form of continuity, the 2000s witnessed the emergence of large-scale urban transformation projects (such as the Tarlabası neighborhood, Maltepe area, Sariyer district, Sulukule neighborhood among others) under the banner of 'urban development' which legitimized the demolition and reconstruction of existing neighborhoods through abstract discourses of urban fear, ecology, cultural heritage, and earthquakes.

The introduction in 2005 of the Urban Transformation and Renewal Policy, Article 5366, which grants municipalities full control over urban renovation and development (and thus the legitimization of recent urban transformation projects), sped up the many projects planned for Istanbul. The policy allows municipalities to define places or districts in Istanbul as "urban transformation areas," allowing for control over property rights, urban planning, and architectural projects. The law opens the way for the immediate expropriation of any property, be it housing, land, or urban space—especially in the historic parts of the city. This immediate expropriation was designed for state use in emergencies, such as war or natural disaster. In Istanbul however, the law was applied to implement new state-organized urban projects (Islam 2011). The application of the law thus functions as a tool for the transformation of urban space and property under legal conditions in which any kind of municipal act (demolition, property transfer, eviction) can be justified, rendering it part of Giorgio Agamben's notion of the state of exception. As he describes in *Homo Sacer*, the state of exception is a legal formula for creating a new law that normalizes the zones of indistinction, which justifies and regulates the relationship between sovereignty and space (Agamben 2001).<sup>5</sup> The Istanbul


Chamber of Architects and the Istanbul Chamber of Urban Planners have filed numerous court cases against the municipality in order to protest against the law. In June 2010, another article was introduced which allows for land to be transformed in both the center and peripheries of Istanbul: Article 73, part of the Law 5393, grants municipalities the right to operate and transform both planned and unplanned land between five and five hundred hectares in size.<sup>6</sup> The latest 'earthquake' policy was revealed in 2012; it justifies the demolition of any building or urban area in order to guarantee a secure, protected physical environment against natural disasters.

Beyond the manipulation of urban and construction policies, it is important to understand how ideological forces combine to transform state policies for the social and economic benefit of the state and local municipalities. For example, the current investment boom in housing and real estate in Turkey is the direct result of the relationship between the ruling conservative pro-Islamist AKP party and its community, which is in the process of creating a new middle class, supported by new social housing projects, property transfers, and housing construction. Urban researcher Ayse Çavdar argues that housing projects such as Başakşehir present a new urbanism for a new middle-class pro-Islamic society (Çavdar 2008; Çavdar and Tan 2013).

This joint venture between the state, construction companies, developers, TOKİ and local municipalities engaged in new urban policies that included processes of urban clearance in the neighborhoods under their jurisdiction. These neighborhoods, however, had diverse geographies, social structures, and community identities, and thus suffered differently in response to the process. The diversity of these neighborhoods would have required not only localized urban policies, but also specific organizations and ways of solidarity.

Carl Schmitt's theory of the state of exception, Agamben claims that "being-outside" and "belonging" is the "topological structure of the state of exception, and only because the sovereign, who decides on the exception, is, in truth, logically defined in his being by the exception, can he too be defined by the oxymoron ecstasy-belonging." (Agamben 2005: 35) In relation to space or topos, an 'exception' is thus a practice of hegemony of de-territorialization exercised precisely by territorialization; a form of practice of exclusion by exercising inclusion. As Agamben argues, "since there is no rule that is applicable to chaos; chaos must first be included in the juridical order through the creation of a zone of indistinction between outside and inside, chaos and the chaos must first be included in the juridical order through the creation of a zone of indistinction between outside and inside, chaos and the normal situation— the state of exception" (Agamben 1998: 19)

<sup>6</sup> Article 73, https://webdosya.csb.gov.tr/db/nevsehir/editordosya/5393%20say%C3%84 %C2%B1l%C3%84%C2%B1%20BELED%C3%84%C2%B0YE%20KANU NUN%2073\_maddesi.pdf

François Pérouse, an Istanbul-based critical urban researcher, was the first to point out these differences, running to sites in the act of being demolished and documenting the process (Pérouse 2007). To further exemplify the difference, I offer a few examples from my experiences between 1999 to 2012.

The Tarlabası district encompasses a few neighborhoods located in Taksim-Beyoğlu (in the center of Istanbul). Today, the population of the district consists mainly of immigrants from Anatolia, who were forced to migrate due to the intense Kurdish-Turkish civil war of the 1990s in eastern and south-eastern Anatolia. Moreover, undocumented Ethiopian, Afghan, Nigerian migrants, and asylum-seekers, fleeing civil war and border conflicts, have also settled in Tarlabası (Pelin 2004). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Tarlabası's inhabitants were mostly members of non-Muslim communities reaching back to the Ottoman Empire. Since 1999s, the district has been characterized as rundown, heterogeneous, poor, and home to a 'socially unacceptable' (meaning ethnically diverse, mixed sexualities and the like) community. This has resulted in many urban clichés, describing the area as unsafe and a hotbed of terrorism. The population is mostly employed in the informal service sectors, presumably in Taksim-Beyoğlu (Lanz and Esen 2004). The Beyoğlu municipality has collaborated with TOKİ and GAP, a construction firm, to transform this district for the upper classes, justifying the changes with reference to a renewal and renovation plan.

When the municipality began the process, using the force of Article 5366, they contacted property owners in order to buy their buildings and flats for below market value. Only later were inhabitants informed of this, when the construction firm joined the joint venture and signed the agreement on 4 April 2007. In order to clarify their dwelling rights, and to act against the process forced upon them by the municipality, the owners established the Association for Solidarity with Tarlabası Property Owners and Renters. The Association managed to halt the agreement process between the municipality and the owners, forcing them, along with GAP, to take the rights of the inhabitants into consideration before proceeding. Tarlabası is one example of a run-down, ethnically diverse 'ghetto' area: The municipality not only wanted to improve the physical condition of the built environment by rebuilding facades and flats for the upper classes but to change its entire demographic make-up, replacing the current population with a more homogeneous, richer class of citizen.

In 2008, inhabitants of the Basıbüyük district—mainly women—demonstrated in the streets of their neighborhood for the first time in response to Article 5366. Housewives took to the streets to resist the police, who were waiting with tear gas to attack the inhabitants (Ögünç 2008). Basıbüyük is a former *gecekondu* district, situated on a hill in Maltepe (in the east of Istanbul) with a view over the Bosporus—an area that used to be at the periphery of the city. Seventy-three percent of the population of Basıbüyük voted for the AKP in the recent election, pointing to conservative, right-wing political leanings within the population. The political identity of this district differs in comparison to other neighborhoods in that it cannot be defined as an ethnically diverse, leftist minority neighborhood. This post-*gecekondu*-area was legitimized through the installation of infrastructure (electricity, water, gas), which the local municipalities have slowly increased in each election since 1984. TOKİ planned to build social housing in an undeveloped area of Basıbüyük for 6,500 families there, as well as luxury houses on the rest of the land. TOKİ offered these families a very low price for their previous dwellings and forced them to sign a mortgage agreement for the new 'social' housing, creating a situation wherein families would receive less for their existing properties than they would have to pay for the apartment flats built by TOKİ. Many in the community refused to accept the agreement, resulting in street conflicts and resistance against the municipality and the police, which continued for months. Still, negotiations continue.

Established in 1980, Ayazma is a very ethnically diverse neighborhood (also the result of forced migration), situated near the Olympic Stadium. Almost all inhabitants were pushed out of the area when the municipality began destroying housing on February 1, 2007. Nearly 880 houses have been destroyed in the neighborhood, and 650 families were forced to move to another housing project built by TOKİ, Bezirganbahçe, which most of them were unable to afford. Some families moved back to their homelands; some turned to their relatives in other parts of Istanbul, while others try to survive in tents in Ayazma.

The Gülsüyü-Gülensu neighborhood located on the east side of Istanbul is one example of successful resistance against the local municipality. Also, a former *gecekondu* area, the district was included in a list of urban transformation projects drawn up by the municipality. The inhabitants were not consulted. Upon receiving an official letter from the municipality, they collected 7,000 signatures and brought thirty-two court cases in protest. Furthermore, the inhabitants established the Gülsüyü-Gülensu Neighborhood Association along with the Platform of Istanbul Neighborhoods Association (a collective that unites neighborhoods under threat of state-led urban transformation). Many of these migrant families moved to Istanbul in the 1970s, and the recent generation is strongly united within a leftist political community.

A further example is Sulukule, which is often mentioned in the Turkish media because of its ongoing dwelling rights campaign, although it is now fully destroyed. Replaced by a kitsch form of 'Ottoman' housing, the district, on a historical peninsula, had been settled by the Gypsy community since the Ottoman Era and was now forced out and displaced. Under Article 5366, state authorities decided to demolish settlements in the district on 13 December 2006. Inhabitants had been offered TOKİ social housing in Taşoluk, a new district 35 kilometers to the northeast of Istanbul.

In general, ethnically diverse and poor communities face increasing social segregation from the rest of the urban society. They also have to deal with instability over the future of their homes and, through a process of 'enclaving,' with the ghettoization of their living places. Furthermore, 'double poverty' is a real issue, as the inhabitants are mostly connected to the informal service sector and represent the so-called flexible labor of the urban economy. When communities are displaced far outside of the city, they consequently lose their jobs and are forced to spend more money on transportation, which they can least afford. Thus, 'social housing' became a motto for the state (TOKİ and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanism) and a justification for the pursuit of profit through land and property and for social segregation.

#### **Counter-Cultural Spaces?**

The examples above represent different outcomes and types of resistance, dependent on the background of the district and its inhabitants. What about urban movements or the 'right to the city' discourse? In general, the discourse of a 'right to the city' is based on property rights in urban movements in Istanbul. Many campaigns and collaborations with academics, NGOs, independent activists, journalists, and artists have taken place, in particular before the Gezi resistance. Cultural events, artistic interventions, research projects, and campaigns have tried not only to create public awareness but also to provide the right information to the public about what is going on in Istanbul's neighborhoods.

However, are ongoing urban struggles and discussions enough to prevent the activities of TOKİ, the local municipalities, and the police in urban spaces? Poverty, low levels of education, and various other reasons still prevent the emergence of solidarity among oppositional urban activists.7 Questioning the reasons behind the weakness of oppositional civil movements in the urban sphere in general, and in the neighborhoods—such as Ayazma—fighting against state-led urban transformation projects, in particular, Pérouse cites the instability of the local population (due to forced migration), the low profile of

<sup>7</sup> For example, most older Kurdish residents are both illiterate and do not understand Turkish, making it difficult to understand the official letters they receive from the municipalities.

their employment (informal precarious labor), the distance to the city center, the complexity of ownership, and the lack of a communal identity (Pérouse 2016).

Sulukule is one of the best-known examples of cultural and artistic interventions initiated by a heterogeneous group of people from different fields: "Sulukule Platform" is a non-hierarchical body of interdisciplinarily-engaged activists and inhabitants. A number of architects and actors from different fields initiated the interdisciplinary platform *40 Gün 40 Gece Sulukule* (40 Days, 40 Nights Sulukule), which received the support of various NGOs and universities, and launched public activities to defend the district and its people. The platform also collaborated with lawyers at the Istanbul Chamber of Architects to prevent the activation of the policy by taking the case to court. On 17 May 2007, a mutual protocol was signed between the parties involved or interested in the case including universities, municipalities, NGOs, and the initiators. Collaboration and organization at a neighborhood level are possible, especially for the initiation of temporary events and the use of local networks, which not only helps the settlements to participate but also allows for the inclusion of heterogeneous protagonists. Furthermore, various forms of civil organization were established, including media activism, blogs, and digital communications, inviting citizens from different fields to participate in cultural/artistic events in the neighborhoods. For example, since the Tarlabası Association broke off contact with the Beyoğlu municipality, and rejected their unreliable proposals regarding ownership in 2009, the Association has collaborated with urban researchers and academics, spreading public awareness in the media.

The ongoing activities in the neighborhoods might also influence institutional discussions about what 'culture' and 'social identity' mean in a segregated urban sphere. As a rule, universities, cultural institutions, or the 2010 Istanbul European Capital of Culture project have presented a hygienic, normalized urban culture that ignores heterogeneous elements within society and acts against any kind of oppositional political agenda in favor of representational multiculturalism. Because of this, this coalition between neighborhoods that are under the threat and pressure of Article 5366 has preferred to collaborate with local urban collectives, independent researchers, academics and artists, which it considers the most effective protagonists.

Sulukule Platform was established through workshops held by the inhabitants of Sulukule with activists, academics, and students in 2006, and subsequently organized an exhibition in collaboration with Hafriyat, an artist-run space, that documented the entire process of the neighborhood's eviction in May 2009. Beyond a collection of official documents linked to this process, the exhibition included alternative urban plans and the platform's press archive; the exhibition featured documentaries, paintings, craft projects, and, in particular, work that was created in collaboration with residents and children who were victims of this urban transformation. Another critical intervention into the process of urban transformation was the *Istanbul Map* project in 2007, initiated by artists and urban researchers/activists involved with the neighborhood struggle (Harvey 2012). The project produced critical cartographies of the privatization of urban space. The map (supplemented by explanatory typography) presented the situation of various neighborhoods in several urban areas of Istanbul. The map clearly showed the urban projects in their entirety and the eviction process that resulted, revealing current urban conditions and warning of future problems that threaten the general population of Istanbul.

In addition to this neighborhood, other resistance movements and debates have criticized and demonstrated against state activities, such as the public dispute surrounding the demolition of the AKM, an opera house in Taksim Square, or the movement to protest the transformation of the Emek Theater in İstiklal Street into a shopping mall, which was dispersed with teargas and water cannons by police forces in March 2013. These incidents of urban struggle and activism converged into a larger urban movement based on the demands of a heterogeneous group of people. The discourses gained in solidarity, moving toward larger demands for a right to the city through direct participation in urban making.

The Occupy movement boosted the experiences and discourse on the commons and followed the right to the city discourse. Indeed, I would argue that the urban movement boosted by the Sulukule Platform and other neighborhood struggles led by Istanbul's Chamber of Architects and Chamber of Urban Planners expanded into a larger discourse on the commons throughout the Gezi resistance and occupation. Since the 1960s, urban resistance, collective riots in the streets, and the occupation of parks and squares in order to criticize capitalist society and protest authoritarian governments, has proven to be the only concrete political collective action available. As David Harvey explains, in reference to Lefebvre's "revolutionary moment": "reinventing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power over the processes of urbanization" (Harvey 2012: 4). In terms of urban centers, Harvey also remarks that "there is an impulse towards and longing for its restoration which arises again and again to produce far-reaching political effects, as we have recently seen in the central squares of Cairo, Madrid, Athens, Barcelona" (ibid.: xvii). Thus, collective power that raises its visibility and action in urban space creates its own heterotopic urban space –the moment when the public collectively re-inhabits and re-claims the urban space despite internal differences.

The case of Gezi Park exemplifies a new urban space of conflict where collective power exercises its action and re-forms the meaning, the commoning, of the space against urbanization. The heterogeneity of the public, the types of passive resistance against police force and the common consciousness of claiming everyday life via the space of a park, and against the neoliberal urban system witnessed in the Gezi Park movement share similarities with other urban movements such as the K21 (Stuttgart 21) protest or the continuing anti-nuclear protest after the tsunami in a park in Tokyo. However, the spontaneous 'coming together' at Gezi had its source in the accumulation of other local movements in various neighborhoods of Istanbul, in the anti-nuclear protests in Turkey, in protests by the Istanbul Chamber of Architects, the Istanbul Chamber of Urban Planners, and the Taksim Square construction, among other related movements. Beyond calling the authorities to a space of participatory grassroots urban decision-making or to the space of radical democracy, these parks and squares of urban resistance are also spaces for the radical formation of citizenship. Conflict urbanism and urban uprisings can also be read as hopes against urbanization and a moment of 'irruption,' where heterogeneous public appears spontaneously—in line with Lefebvre—to engage with the possibilities of collective action to create something radically different.

#### **Urban Pedagogy and the Practice of Commoning**

How can self-organized, self-regulating networks and collective structures such as the urban Occupy movements inspire economic models, especially where the generation and redistribution of wealth are concerned? And how can the urban spaces in which these networks and structures emerge, under exceptional conditions, serve as 'common knowledge' based on the practice of 'commoning'?

According to political economist Massimo De Angelis, "Commons is a means of establishing a new political discourse that builds on and helps to articulate the many existing, often minor, struggles and recognizes their power to overcome capitalist society" (De Angelis and Stavrides, 2010) He defines three notions in order to explain the commons not only in terms of the resources that we share but as a way of commoning, that is, a social process of 'being common': the way in which resources are pooled and made available to a group of individuals, who then build or rediscover a sense of community. Food sociologist and activist Raj Patel also focuses on how food is part of social movements and has created different forms of solidarity, such as the Black Panther movement's breakfast for children, or the People's Grocery or the Via Campesina (Patel 2008). He defines the commons as "how we manage resources together."<sup>8</sup>

<sup>8</sup> *Slowfood Terra Madre Meeting 2010*, panel discussion on social systems and transformations with Serge Latouche and Raj Patel, 23 October 2010, Turin (notes from the presentation of Raj Patel by the author).

But his argument is not only about managing and sustaining food growing and sharing but also about how food-related movements should act in solidarity with other movements. Thus, the concept of 'commons,' as understood here, holds a sensitive position within any given community or public, especially in contested territories or cities subject to the threat of the neoliberal destruction of their built environment. Negotiation and the resolution of conflicting values are key to such commoning practices. As Stavros Stavrides argues, more than the act or fact of sharing, it is the existence of common grounds for negotiation that is most important. Conceptualizing commons with reference to the public does not focus so much on similarities or commonalities but on exploring the very differences between people on a purposefully instituted common ground. We have to establish grounds for negotiation rather than grounds for affirming that which is shared. (Hilal/Petti and Weizman 2013). Palestine-based collective *Decolonizing Architecture*, Al-Masha refers to 'common land' instead of 'commons': "The notion of Al-Masha could help re-imagine the notion of the common today. Could this form of common use be expanded by redefining the meaning of cultivation, moving it from agriculture to other forms of human activity? [...] How to liberate the common from the control of authoritarian regimes, neo-colonialism and consumer societies? How to reactive common uses beyond the interests of public state control?" (ibid: 180) In the activities of Decolonizing Architecture, the 'common' differs both from the dualism of public and private space. Decolonizing Architecture (DAAR) is based in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank; their practice, which draws on the field of architecture, focuses on the reality of Palestinian refugees creating common spaces and perceiving the notion of the 'camp' as a potential space beyond neoliberal citizenship and the dichotomy of public versus private space. Commoning practices require creating models of criticality connected to new forms of social relations and commoning. Examples of this can be seen in the organization of discussion groups, collective actions, urban movements, and general assemblies. From this perspective, their work can be seen as a research method for a practice of commoning—of being in common. What is central to the meaning of 'commons' is not what we own or share or produce in terms of property, but rather 'social relations' that are closely connected to everyday life (Gibson-Graham 2006).

Commoning practices enforce 'collective' effort (and collective action) and forms of living and production. According to J.K. Gibson-Graham:

'Collective' in this context does not suggest the massing together of like subjects, nor should the term 'action' imply an efficacy that originates in intentional beings or that is distinct from thought. We are trying for a broad and distributed notion of collective action, in order to recognize and keep open possibilities of connection and development (Gibson-Graham 2006: 9–10).

Collective action requires the ethics of a community economy. In fact, it is more an act of ethics of locality that meets the needs suggested by our everyday knowledge and the experience of safeguarding our livelihoods in both urban and rural spaces (Stavrides 2016). The relational network established as a result is more of an instant community that chooses to think and discuss together, rather than a normative structure. Self-organization is not a simple hierarchy based on certain labor activities and their division but, conversely, a work/labor structure that allows one to be a farmer in the morning and a graphic designer in the afternoon. To reiterate Stavrides: collaboration is not about affirmation, but negotiation (Herkes Için Mimarlık). It is about debating critical issues in an urban space, where space itself is a pressing and compelling concern.

#### **The Gezi Park Resistance**

The Gezi Park resistance experience was about collaborating, moving in solidarity despite our differences, conducting voluntary work, and creating a non-partisan, yet democratic platform. And, it was about friendship. Prior to the crackdown on the Gezi Park protests on 15 June 2013 by the government, food, beverages, and provisions were managed by self-initiated groups. A vegetable and flower garden were set up in the park. All individual and collective initiatives were based on a voluntary labor exchange however, it went beyond the general principle of exchange labor as in practice the protesters did not understand themselves as 'volunteers.' For being a 'volunteer' both exceeds and diminishes this new form of working together, as the 'voluntary' in labor represents the very source of the power of collective action.

The Istanbul-based collective *Architecture for All* (Herkes Için Mimarlik)9 created architectural drawings of in-situ and instant architecture in Taksim Square and Gezi Park and along the barricades, including a temporary mosque, a mobile food collective, which used simple materials and a tent, and an ever-expanding open hospital (Occupygeziarchitectur). More often than not, performative architecture is experienced during a 'state of emergency,' under conditions of conflictual urbanism, instant architecture, and practices of radical

<sup>9</sup> Together with the Istanbul Chamber of Architects, *Architecture for All* (Herkes Için Mimarlik) had already started a campaign against the state, engaging in public demonstrations in Gezi Park and Taksim square in 2012.

spatial resistance. These relational resistance structures led *Architecture for All* to create the *occupygeziarchitecture* initiative10 that proclaimed: "We need new definitions for architecture in situations when architecture is removed from architects. Each unique structure that we encounter in the streets and Gezi Park has its own in-situ design and implementation process (see bak.ma)." Another example of alternative visual actions by a collective was *Videoccupy*, an initiative of video activists that was formed on 2 June 2013 in Gezi Park. *Videoccupy* aimed to visually record memories and to archive the resistance process between 27 May and 31 July 2013 by collecting recordings with devices such as iPads, phones, and video cameras and assembling an archive of the collected material. Using video and creating videograms as an emancipatory device, not only during the Gezi resistance but also in everyday lives, the effort was not to show and to represent but to produce the potentialities of the action of 'I see.' *Videoccupy* dispersed all over Turkey to produce archives of social and political movements from past to contemporary struggles, from Gezi Park to the Tekel Workers protest in Ankara in 2010. The open-source digital archive bak.ma functions as a container for visual memory of struggle and solidarity (Critchley 2012). *Mustereklesme Aglari* is another initiative that came out of Gezi Park and continues to draw digital maps to reveal the state-led projects of corruption and oppression. *Müştereklerimiz (Our Commons)*, a group of activist academics and researchers, which was active during Gezi Park, continues to rigorously organize meetings, publications, and assemblies to comment on urban Istanbul.

Urban and critical spatial movements consisting of self-organized collectives are part of translocal networks that create rhizomatic dissemination and surplus. At the same time, the Occupy movements in different cities have introduced a realm of communal practice of difference that has mobilized existing collective resistance practices. The anti-globalization protests following Seattle, which continued with the Occupy movements, are characterized by unique forms of solidarity, translocal networks and various types of transversal knowledge and pedagogy. Actions by *Herkes Için Mimarlik* and other visual-based networks continue to create alternative networks, assemblies, and discourses on commons from different disciplinary perspectives.

In conclusion, drawing on my experiences and the discourses of urban movements prior to the Gezi Park resistance that later dissolved into commoning practices, I would emphasize the need for alternative economies, unlearning pedagogies and uncommon assemblies. As the philosopher Simon Critchley (2012: n.p.) argues:

We can talk about Occupy. Occupy is not revolution—it is rebellion —but it is very interesting, and it has made a very different set of political tactics available. Occupy is something very familiar to many of the people on the anarchist Left. [...] I believe in a low-level, almost invisible series of actions, which at a certain point reach visibility and then really have an effect. As Gramsci would say, politics is not a war of maneuver or frontal assault on power. It is a tenacious and long-lasting war of position. This requires optimism, cunning, and patience.

Similarly, for Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (2014), Occupy movements are characterized by taking pleasure in the other body, and empathy for other alliances. In my opinion, we cannot and do not speak of a new activism anymore; we can speak of an uncommon knowledge that we create, a new instituting power and collective labor. This can be linked back to the practice of Decolonizing Architecture and the intention of its participants to question the 'commons' from the perspective of Al-Masha: the form of research "is collective, relational and active." In this context, in my view, concepts such as 'participation,' 'agonism,' 'hegemony' that we often use in radical democracy practices, are transformed into more layered, conditional and foundational negotiations that question our values, relations and ways of commoning in our current societies and cities.

#### **Bibliography**


the Social: Art, Property and Spatial Justice. Berlin: Sternberg Press/SKOR, pp. 309–322.


*Online Sources:*

TOKİ: www.toki.gov.tr/english [accessed 27 May 2019].


Herkes Icin Mimarlik: https://herkesicinmimarlik.org [accessed 27 May 2019].

Occupygeziarchitecture: occupygeziarchitecture.tumblr.com [accessed 27 May 2019].

Videoccupy—bak.ma [accessed 27 May 2019].

Article 73, which is part of the Law 5393 (approval date 2004): https://webdosya. csb.gov.tr/db/nevsehir/editordosya/5393%20say%C3%84%C2% B1l%C3%84%C2%B1%20BELED%C3%84%C2%B0YE%20KANUN UN%2073\_maddesi.pdf [accessed 27 May 2019].

## 8 Resistance and gift-giving: Gezi Park<sup>1</sup>

#### *Ömer Turan*

For 15 days in June 2013, İstanbul was a rebel city *à la* David Harvey. Protestors occupied Gezi Park, in the city's center, with the aim of undermining government plans to build a shopping mall in the park. The protests started with a specific demand, the invalidation of the plans and the protection of the trees. Soon, these demands were coupled to more general concerns about the brutality exercised by police forces and demands to curb it. The Gezi Park protests were first and foremost about reclaiming the public sphere (Göle 2013). They had a greater number of participants than any other protest in the recent history of Turkey. In this sense, it was an episode of contention, where the boundaries of the public sphere, urban space, and democracy were to be redrawn. Since then, immense literature on Gezi protests has been produced. The major debate in that literature surrounds the question of whether the Gezi protests were based solely on middle-class participants. Some sociologists have emphasized the middle-class nature of Gezi protests (most notably Keyder 2014; for a more nuanced analysis see Tuğal 2016: 259); while others have pointed to the inadequacy of reducing Gezi protests to a purely middle-class event (Yörük and Yüksel 2014; Saraçoğlu 2015). This article follows a less-traveled path to a discussion of the Gezi resistance, by focusing on the 15-day period at Gezi Park before the police intervention, and analyzing how the resistors made their alternative concrete, by looking at gift-giving experiences at the park. It proposes interpreting the alternatives provided by the Gezi Park resistance in terms of gift-giving relations, which run contrary to the relationship forms upon which today's market society is, for the most part, based. Ultimately, this article maintains that gift-giving relations were a major component of the Gezi spirit and that features like generosity, altruism, and even spontaneity left their mark on the Gezi process.

<sup>1</sup> A different version of this article was first published in Toplumsal Tarih, see (Turan 2013).

#### **Background**

The proposed rebuilding of the Taksim Topçu Military Barracks was first publicly announced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the eve of the June 2011 general election. Plans for Taksim included the pedestrianization of Taksim Square through the rerouting of traffic underground and the construction of a shopping mall inside the rebuilt Military Barracks in Gezi Park.

Erdoğan took nearly every opportunity to claim the reconstruction of the Military Barracks as his own project, and demonstrated a keen insistence on carrying it out: On 1 June, when protestors reentered the park in protest, he stated, "The Taksim Military Barracks will be rebuilt here as an exact replica of the original; there will be a shopping mall here."2 Ten years after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) became the ruling party, the project Erdoğan pursued so doggedly was the reconstruction of the Military Barracks—to be used as a shopping mall. His unwavering position on this project was similar to his staunch support of the Taksim Mosque project, which he had championed during his term as mayor of İstanbul. In fact, the transition from a mosque to a shopping mall in the form of a military barracks can be seen as one of the most interesting signals of the AKP's accommodation to the establishment. As a result of this alignment, through the process of being absorbed by the system (Tuğal 2009), Erdoğan and the AKP have begun to defend a consumption-oriented spatial order for Taksim. The Taksim Mosque project has been understood as a type of conquest of a neighborhood known for its churches and cosmopolitanism—or, in the jargon of the Welfare Party (RP), it is "a neighborhood bereft of mosques" (Bora 1999). While the 2010s Military Barracks project was disconnected from this logic of conquest, the emphasis on this project cannot be understood without considering Erdoğan's political past. Through the Military Barracks project, Erdoğan simultaneously realized two goals articulated in his Islamist heritage political project. As we shall see, this revitalization project is, first, revanchist in intent; it is a kind of vengeance for the 31 March Incident of 1909 (or the counterrevolution of April) during the Ottoman period. Second, it reflects Erdoğan's desire to implement a project that reflects his denunciation of the single-party era (1923–1946), particularly the National Chief period (1938–1946), during which İsmet İnönü acted as both President of the Republic and permanent party chairman.

Understanding how the Military Barracks project can be interpreted as an act of revanchism against the 31 March Incident of 1909 is a useful place to start. An armed insurrection against the newly established constitutional regime (Kansu 2000: 77–125), the incident's instigators included lower-ranking soldiers and younger members of the religious circles (students of the dervish orders). The foundation of their grievance could be found in the secularism of the Young Turks, who were members of the Committee of Union and Progress, the political party responsible for the 1908 constitutional revolution by the Unionists. In the end, having disrupted life in İstanbul for 11 days, the insurrection was crushed. The Taksim Artillery Barracks, which had played an important part in the uprising, was severely damaged by the cannon fire of the "Action Army," who had been brought in from Thessaloniki. With the deposing of Sultan Abdülhamid II, known for his despotic ruling style, the influence of the Young Turks grew further. With the post-insurrection exile of Abdülhamid, who they considered the leader of the movement, Turkish Islamists witnessed their own defeat on 31 March. As such, this revitalization project is a partial move to redress this defeat, by restoring the honor of the barracks destroyed by the Unionists.

Another dimension of this project, which involved both destruction and plan for reconstruction, must also be emphasized. A major element of the AKP's political imagination is the disquiet it feels towards the undeniable secularism in Turkish society. An essential component of the AKP's political imagination hinges on belonging to Islamic civilization, understanding Turkey's secular reality as the result of a top-down state project of modernization. According to this paradigm, secularism in society is the consequence of past repressive state practices. To the degree that this political perspective does not acknowledge that a secular form of living would have also been possible if society had evolved on its own, it seeks out examples of obliteration—akin to those carried out by the Soviets against churches—in the spatial history in Turkey, despite the fact that no comparable history of destruction in Turkish history exists. On the contrary, the rare tearing down of mosques came during the Democratic Party period (1950–1960), known for its efforts at taking corrective measures to counter the authoritarian tendencies of secularism, which had received broad social support.

It is here that the history of the Taksim Military Barracks, stretching from the 31 March Incident to its demolition in 1940, becomes significant: One of the components of the Artillery Barracks was a mosque, which was heavily damaged in 1909 and then completely razed in 1940 (Alkan 2013). Within this context, the Military Barracks revitalization project can be understood as a corrective measure, launched by a political platform that has always been skeptical of modernization projects, aimed at undoing the changes in the urban space wrought by the top-down modernization of urban space.

Moreover, the AKP's revitalization project was meant to challenge and undo the republican urban design for İstanbul. During the single-party period, French urban planner Henri Prost was commissioned, in 1936, to design the master plan for İstanbul. The Prost Plan, executed in 1939, shaped the urban space of İstanbul for many years to come. Unquestionably, the focal point of the early republican urban design for İstanbul was Taksim Square (Uluengin and Turan 2005), wherein the Prost Plan envisaged "Taksim Republic Square" as part of the reorganization of public squares in the city. The first step was the demolition of the old Taksim Barracks, which had been used as a stadium during that period. The land obtained by knocking down the barracks was set aside as a green space, referred to as "İnönü Promenade" (İnönü Gezisi) in the Turkish of the time.3 The Democratic Party government changed the name of the park from İnönü Promenade to "Taksim Gezi Park" in the early 1950s.

Featuring the Atatürk Statue (erected in 1928) and the Atatürk Cultural Center (the opera house), Taksim Square functioned as an official space through the use of state symbols. Nevertheless, as people interacted with this space, the features originally ascribed to it were partially corroded, and a number of other meanings came to be attributed to the square, significantly undermining its designation as official space. Chris Houston (2013; also see Houston 2015), who studied the historical anthropology of political activism in İstanbul between 1977 and 1980, stresses that the creation and transformation of space, both symbolically and physically, was performed by a wide range of social actors. These actors included political groups, legal and illegal organizations, and ordinary city dwellers. Following Henri Lefebvre's *The Production of Space*, Houston argues that spaces built on the axis of official symbolism can become representational spaces as a consequence of political activists' interest in any given space. Political activists have a general inclination to leave their political mark on the urban space, through practices such as rallies, demonstrations, slogans, pennants, and graffiti. Taksim Square has been shaped in this way through annual May Day celebrations beginning in May 1976. The official symbolism of the square and the symbolism of different politics at the May Day celebrations, and at other rallies held there, form an assemblage. From time to time, they turn into an invisible layer of the official symbolism. In the process, Taksim Square has become the site of several unresolved massacres. After two people were murdered there in attacks during protests against the United States Sixth Fleet (which had dropped anchor on the Bosporus) on 16 February 1969, a remarkable part of the 1968 student movement in Turkey, Taksim Square became known for its "Bloody Sunday." In the aftermath of the 42 fatalities on 1 May 1977, Taksim Square would forever be remembered

<sup>3</sup> During the construction of the park, gravestones from a recently demolished Armenian cemetery (the Surp Agop cemetery) were used (Nalcı and Dağlıoğlu 2011).

for "Bloody May 1st" (Mavioğlu and Sanyer 2007). In short, Taksim Square is not only a space of official symbolism; it is much more. It is impossible to understand the Gezi Park resistance, without considering the conversion of Taksim Square from an official space to a crucial representational space of political action.

Erdoğan aims to purge this image of Taksim Square from political memory. To the extent that he is revanchist in his orientation towards Gezi Park, he is reductionist with respect to the history of the space. Erdoğan abridges the park's history, pretending as if the demolition of the barracks occurred while it was actively in use by the military, with a park subsequently built in its place.<sup>4</sup> This reductionism stems from complete neglect of a further phase of the spaces' existence—the Taksim Stadium. In reality, however, in 1921, prior to the founding of the republic, the heavily damaged barracks were rented by a private individual and its courtyard turned into a stadium with the addition of an 8,000-person seating capacity tribune (Alkan 2013). Consequently, it is possible to understand the demolition in Taksim as the razing of a stadium, including the building of a replacement stadium built in Dolmabahçe on the Bosporus, rather than the demolition of military infrastructure. Ultimately, revanchism requires a reductionist reading of history.

#### **The World of Gift-giving**

The Gezi Park resistance must be understood within this historical and political context. The resistance was formed through the convergence of people with very different grievances, but who shared two explicit objections, namely an opposition to the cutting down of the trees and the transformation of the park into anything other than a park, and a clear opposition to police violence (which had been a characteristic of the May Day celebrations held in Taksim in the years in which it had been officially prohibited). Harsh police interventions, which included the use of tear gas and water cannons, had also been deployed during the 2013 May Day celebrations, in the march held in support of the Emek Cinema (7 April 2013), and against the Çarşı Group, the fan group of the Beşiktaş football club, as they were walking to İnönü Stadium to watch a match (11 May 2013).<sup>5</sup> These two grievances would become the foundation of the four

<sup>5</sup> For the role of Beşiktaş fans during the Gezi Park protests, see (Turan and Özçetin 2019).

<sup>4</sup> "Başbakan Erdoğan: Topçu Kışlası'nı Yapıyoruz," *Radikal*, 6 June 2013.

main demands on the five-item list prepared by Taksim Solidarity.<sup>6</sup> However, on Friday, 31 May 2013, when the number of protestors mushroomed dramatically, certain grievances addressed directly at the government were added. Some were broader, targeting the government's authoritarian interventions, while others were more specific, targeting government attempts at curtailing non-conservative lifestyles through restrictions on the sale of alcohol and the imposition of abortion regulations. As the crowd grew, different political groups also joined the protestors. Consequently, the resistors who occupied the park on 1 June were extremely diverse.

Opposition to the felling of the trees and the desire to preserve the park fueled the anti-shopping mall sentiment of the protestors. However, how is the protestors' dissatisfaction with the capitalist system to be understood? It is unlikely that there was a universal antipathy to capitalism among the protestors. Just as with Ellen Wood's emphasis (2005: 138) on the substantial number of the demonstrators opposing globalization at the 1999 Seattle protests who were not anti-capitalist and consisted of people who thought that the harm caused by the capitalist system could be overcome by regulating companies, a significant number of those who entered Gezi Park after the protests did not identify as anti-capitalist. In fact, in some cases, even the slogans used by the protestors were incapable of articulating this new set of circumstances. Herein lies the main argument of this article, that the alternative that arose in the park might be understood by referring to discussions on gift-giving in the literature of anthropology.

One of the seminal works in this field is Marcel Mauss's *Essai sur le don* (*The Gift*), published in 1924 (and last reissued in 2000), which continues to shape the discussion on gift-giving. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mauss's essay was the first-ever attempt in the history of ethnography to transcend empirical observation and to reach deeper realities: "For the first time, the social ceases to belong to the domain of pure quality—anecdote, curiosity, material for moralizing description or for scholarly comparison—and becomes a system, among whose parts connections, equivalences and interdependent aspects can be discovered" (Lévi-Strauss 1987).

Mauss's starting point was the concept of obligation in gift-giving. He notes that in different civilizations, "exchanges and contracts take place in the form of presents; in theory these are voluntary, in reality they are given

<sup>6</sup> The five demands of Taksim Solidarity were: (a) Gezi Park must stay a park. (b) Governors and police chiefs, and anyone who gave orders for the violent suppression of the protests, enforced or implemented such orders must resign. (c) Teargas and similar instruments must be prohibited. (d) Detained citizens must be released immediately. (e) All meeting and demonstration bans effecting any squares and public areas must be abolished.

and reciprocated obligatorily" (Mauss 2000: 3). The source of this obligation must be understood not by focusing on individuals but rather on collectivities. Collectivities, as a level of analysis, also help to understand what Mauss means by "system of total services." He does not limit exchange to property, wealth, or economically useful things. Acts of politeness, rituals, military services, dances, festivals, and fairs are also part of an exchange. Within the system of total services, exchanges are voluntary in the form of gifts, "although in the final analysis they are strictly compulsory."

Mauss observes obligation in three processes: to give (*donner*), to receive (*recevoir*), and to reciprocate (*rendre*). For him, this obligation is valid both in the *kula* ring on the Trobriand Islands, analyzed by Bronislaw Malinowski in the 1920s and in the potlatch system of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the United States. According to Mauss, the essential meaning of potlatch is to feed and to consume. These tribes, living on the islands or on the coast, spend the winter having continual festivals and fairs. This is also when the tribe assembles (Mauss 2000: 6). The essence of the potlatch is the obligation to give (Mauss 2000: 39). Within the potlatch system, the members of the tribe must reciprocate for the received gifts. The source of that obligation, which forms the foundation for the cycle of giving, receiving and reciprocating and is based on the belief that the exchange of gifts produces an abundance of riches, is the force of *hau* (a term in Maori). This force creates a bond between people. Mauss understands *hau* as the gift-giver exchanging a part of themselves with someone else. On the same basis, "in this system of ideas one clearly realizes that one must give back to another person what is really part and parcel of his nature and substance, because to accept something from somebody is to accept some part of his spiritual essence, of his soul," and "to retain that thing would be dangerous and mortal" (Mauss 2000: 12).

In *L'esprit du don*, Jacques Godbout (Godbout 1992; Godbout 1998) follows in Mauss's footsteps to investigate gift-giving in the modern age, suggesting that the market and the state operate through secondary sociality (*socialité secondaire*), and gift-giving is taking place in person-to-person relations, including family, neighborhood relations, and friendship, which all correspond to primary sociality (Godbout 1998: 16). Mauss emphasizes gift-giving in ancient societies as a universal phenomenon affecting the entire society. Similarly, Godbout also sees gift-giving as typical in modern societies. He maintains that gift-giving is not an exception in modern society but instead a bond with an impact on the totality of social life.7 Items and actions, based on

<sup>7</sup> David Graeber (2001: 161) notes that this is a common emphasis of members of MAUSS group (Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales).

reciprocity and mutual trust, that are outside of market exchanges and that cannot be enforced by law are nonetheless essential for social life. By considering a lengthy list of social acts, including time given to voluntary associations and organ donation, Godbout (1998: 207) concludes that gift-giving is still vibrant.

Godbout (1998: 96–97) notes six common features of the gift, which are observable in contemporary society. The first is the stranger, who "plays an important role in modern society, where gifts to strangers and to the unknown occupy a special place" (Godbout 1998: 96). On the one hand, the logic of the state and of the modern economy eliminate relationships entirely by engaging with people through a formal logic—in short, treat everyone like a stranger. On the other hand, gift-giving practices function within a logic which mitigates that which is foreign. The second feature is freedom; here, Godbout diverges from Mauss, insofar as he argues that Mauss's emphasis on the obligatorily reciprocated gift misses an important feature of the modern gift. Godbout's disagreement with Mauss can be explained through the third feature—disinterest. Godbout maintains that there is a dimension of disinterest within the gift, that is to say, "the gift is often given without thought of return." The fourth feature is spontaneity, which ties the experience of gift-giving to "the impulse of the hearth," meaning that gift-giving is about something more than the rules (and will be discussed in further detail below). The fifth feature is debt. When Godbout discusses debt, what he is referring to is not mercantile debt, but a totally separate phenomenon. The sixth feature is the return. Godbout differentiates his understanding of return from the standard idea of reciprocity for the gift. For him, when thinking about the return, one has to distinguish it from objects and actions in circulation, namely market relations and relations between people. The six features of modern gift-giving outlined by Godbout accentuate why the logic of gift-giving is different than the rationale of capitalist market exchange.<sup>8</sup> Although the logic of the markets incorporates some of these six features (such as the stranger, for instance), several of them significantly different from a market players' way of thinking and interacting.

Godbout also argues that the act of speaking includes the logic of giftgiving. Several acts of speaking aim at an informational exchange or the giving of directions. However, many types of conversation have no utilitarian dimension: When two people are chatting about the weather, the main idea is to give and then reciprocate that speech. For Godbout, the drive to give is as powerful as

<sup>8</sup> While reading Godbout's emphasis on divergence between the logic of capitalism and the logic of gift-giving, it is possible to hear the echo of *The Great Transformation*, where Polanyi (2001: 92) discusses pre-capitalist societies in detail which are dominated by the principle of reciprocity, and where the idea of profit is banned.

the drive to receive when it comes to understanding human behavior. Giving, reciprocating, generosity and, hence, the lure of gift (*l'appât du don*) are as powerful as receiving, appropriating, egoism and the lure of profit (*l'appât du gain*) (Godbout 1998: 19). As such, Godbout concludes that gift-giving, without an expectation of reciprocity, is part of modern society.

Reviewing these two contributions to the literature on gift-giving enables us to draw two conclusions: First, in contemporary society, certain social relations cannot be understood within a utilitarian framework, since the world of gift-giving must be seen in terms of social ties unrelated to material interest or advantage. As Godbout states, there are no free gifts, without an obligation of reciprocation—although there is more to gift-giving than calculated thinking (*le non-calcul*). Second, it is necessary to remember Lévi-Strauss, who emphasizes that while commercial transactions bring tangible results, the same cannot be said for exchanges of gifts. Goods in gift-giving are not only economic commodities, but also instruments of influence, power, sympathy, status, and emotion (Lévi-Strauss 1996). Useful here is Barry Schwartz's argument regarding the identity-generating role of gifts, wherein a gift generates identity for both the giver and the receiver. Gifts are tools for both establishing self-definition and transmitting to others what you have in your mind (Schwartz 1967).

#### **Gezi Park and the World of the Gift**

Gift-giving in the Gezi Park resistance will be traced here through observations made in Gezi, interviews published in magazines, and most importantly, indepth interviews.9 First, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by gifts and to stress the distinction between gifts and solidarity at the level of personal use. In the days of the Gezi resistance, when going to places experiencing police violence, most people carried items to counter the effects of tear gas, like Vicks vaporub (a menthol-based decongestant), water laced with Talcid (an antacid), and milk, as well as first-aid supplies in amounts greater than they could personally use. These supplies were distributed to the resistors. When a protestor uses her Vicks and then shares it with another protester, this corresponds to solidarity. If someone leaves ten bottles of Vicks at Gezi—when

<sup>9</sup> Several in-depth interviews were conducted for this study, and the present article incorporates ten of them. In order to hear different voices from Gezi Park, three markers were taken into consideration: gender; politically active vs. less politically active; time spent at the park vs. less time spent in the park.

they themselves are not using this first-aid material—for other protestors, this corresponds to a gift. At this juncture, I recall an incident at the park: On a rainy day, the police were spraying tear gas on demonstrators on the side streets in Beşiktaş, a neighborhood near Taksim. When demonstrators took shelter under the eaves of a building, people began to throw raincoats and umbrellas from the upper floors of the apartment building across from them onto the street. The demonstrators thanked them, taking the raincoats and umbrellas. Similar stories, of individuals providing food and beverage support to demonstrators, can be told in many different cities. Such support—since it is not for personal use but rather given to meet the needs of others—does not correspond to a need for solidarity, and must for that reason be categorized as a gift. This support is characterized by what Godbout called spontaneity (*le caractère spontané*), typifying a common feature of the gift in contemporary society. According to Godbout (1998: 97), "it is essential that every gift contain an element of spontaneity (*un élément de spontanéité*) that sets it apart from the rules and ensure that it is not experienced as a phenomenon that is entirely willed".

An umbrella thrown from a window represents precisely this kind of spontaneity in gift-giving. Another crucial aspect of the gifts given during the Gezi Park resistance is their pure use-value, and lack of market exchange value. Echoing Marx, use-value cannot be quantified, whereas exchange value is determined by market forces and is expressed in terms of numbers, namely price. For Marx, capitalism disentangled exchange value from use-value. In other words, according to the logic of the markets, the exchange value of an item is not always derived from its use-value. An item with great use-value might have little exchange value. Observable at Gezi were gift items that only had a use-value, disentangled from their exchange value. This distinguishes the Gezi gifts from gifts in everyday life since a large number of gifts in everyday life are inseparable from their exchange value. A gift, due to its price, might be part of a status exchange or be directly convertible to its price and exchangeable within the market. This, of course, was not the case for the Gezi world of gifts.

Of supreme importance to understanding the context of resistance at Gezi are the barricades. In a considerable number of interviews, interlocutors stressed the role of the barricades at the entrance to the park, which made it possible for protestors to move into Gezi Park. For example, Oğuz<sup>10</sup> says this about his entering the park:

<sup>10</sup> Anonymized. He is 30 years old. Playwright and actor. He described himself as person who does not care about the left-right divide, who tries to be honest (*dürüst*), and who is dissatisfied with several things.

Gezi would have been impenetrable if it hadn't been for the barricades. This is the truth. What's more, there was a genuine organized struggle there. If it hadn't been for that organized struggle, it wouldn't have been possible to succeed in Gezi either. For example, I felt quite uncomfortable about this during what went on there. People have said, 'there shall be no political groups, no banners or the like.' But we have to accept one thing—I can't. I had never erected a barricade in my life. I had never confronted the police. I had never fought with them… I don't know how to do this. But there are those who do know—they know how to build a barricade. And because they built them, Gezi could be won.

Ali11 stresses the role of the barricades in the same way. According to him, just as when fires are lit, people get excited, so too when barricades are erected, people are filled with energy and a feeling of power. In *Networks of Outrage and Hope*, Manuel Castells elaborates on the role of barricades in social movements, noting that barricades have little defensive value. Their real value is in creating an "in and out", an "us versus them." Hence, he maintains that barricades help to defy the bureaucratic norms of the use of space (Castell 2012: 10). Barricades at Gezi Park had a similar function, indicating the boundary of Gezi. Without this boundary, it would have been impossible to formulate the conflict at the park. Several protesters at the park shared the belief that the park could not be won without confrontation. It can be argued that the power of the protestors that entered Gezi on the first day was drawn less from their numbers than from the strength of the barricades. For example, the cancelation of a rally, which the Republican People's Party (CHP) had intended to hold on Saturday, 1 June, and the eventual rerouting of rally participants to Taksim led to an incredibly large gathering there. This decision gave the government a legitimate reason to withdraw the police, a detail which was neglected in conversations in the park, publications on the subject, and in the in-depth interviews I have conducted.

In light of this background, I now turn to the details of gift-giving experiences at Gezi. Based on Ali's account, it is clear that gift-giving relations in Gezi began before the 31 May police assault on the tents keeping vigil there:

I wasn't aware at the time that this would turn into an insurgency, but I had brought food with me anyway. I took almonds, dried fruit and nuts. I took a few things to the people staying in the park, to the people

<sup>11</sup> Anonymized. He is 29 years old. Engineer. Research assistant at a university. He does not care about world-views. He is unhappy about income inequality and wars.

staying in the tents. I understood the importance of eating there. I took napkins, wet wipes. The more I could take there, the better off the crowd of people there would be. Perhaps, too, it would make it possible for even more people to join the people who would spend the night there.

Ali purchased the items he took to the park from cooperatives that had formed to sell food and other needed items. A pool for donations to pay for the items was also created nearby—individual donations to this pool made gifts possible and can also be considered a form of a gift. Once again, the spontaneity of the gift appears in the formation of this kind of support pool.

Ali talked about how a group with experience in with previous earthquakes had begun to serve dinner after entering the park:

For example, the food I ate on the first day was really funny. I had stuffed eggplant; they served something that resembled a stuff eggplant sandwich… The stuffed eggplant was inside a plastic bag… It was great. The stuffing was good, too. The sauce on the rice inside was very nice. Moreover, I had soup in the plastic bag. The first dinner I had in the park was hot.

Ali's first dinner and his other experiences on the first day of Gezi resistance make clear that, from the very first day of the resistance, gift-giving had a direct impact on the events in the park.

From the first day, countless people brought provisions for the Gezi kitchen. Meanwhile, various organizations and groups were setting up stands and most of them hung up a 'needs list.' There was a needs list in the kitchen as well, and individuals shared these lists over social media, as well as trying to direct the people around them. Buğday12 mentions how people who could not be present in Gezi, especially those who worked, would go to the park in the evening, and to make up for not being able to stay, attached great importance on the gift. The gift also had a special function for people who for various reasons were unable to go to the park at all. Buğday explains:

My mother, she's an old woman. She didn't want to go there herself. But working through me, she organized a friend of hers there. That friend bought loads of groceries and came drenched in sweat. She gave them to me at the subway exit: 'distribute these,' she said. … There was fruit

<sup>12</sup> Anonymized. She is 34 years old. She works for a company as an education specialist. She defines herself as a "person of nature."

juice, bread, sandwich buns, milk, and so on… there was also fruit. A little of everything.

What we learn from Defne<sup>13</sup> is that gift-giving relations were present at the stands set up by the organizations:

There weren't any problems regarding food, because everyone was always bringing something from home and sharing, or the organizations were getting together to see to it that there was food and beverages available. ... One afternoon, I was sitting at the [political group's] information table. Two elderly women came to the table. They were carrying plastic bags. They left fruit that had been washed and placed neatly into containers on the table. They had been prepared with great pains. They chatted with us a bit and then left. We put the fruit on the table and offered it to people who were passing by. Besides, the information tables set up by the organizations were like meeting points for unorganized people there, or at least that is the role we ascribed to them.

The protestors at Gezi were able to live in Gezi Park and meet their dietary needs for days, often without spending any money. The kitchen located next to the infirmary stayed open for the entire 15 days that the protestors remained in the park; long lines formed in front of it. Most of the stands which opened in the park distributed tea, cake, cookies, and water to people. Not only political organizations and associations but also individuals set up stands around the fountain of the park. One scene, noted on 8 June 2013, was repeated over and over again at many stands. At this particular, well-prepared, food and beverage stand, a crew was frying eggs in a pan using a picnic stove and serving them. No detail was overlooked, from the aluminum foil wrapped around the burner to the tomatoes and olives prepared with olive oil and oregano to accompany the fried eggs. The result was a meticulous presentation on a paper plate. One woman, who one could surmise from her attire to the way she spoke clearly stemmed from a privileged background, approached the stand and asked for the fried egg. When the experienced crew handed her the plate, she asked, out of entrenched habit, "how much?" When the woman was told that they did not take payment, that the food was distributed for free, and that anyone who wanted it could have it, it is difficult to describe the surprise on her face. She looked at the plate, then at the people preparing the food, and, thanking them,

<sup>13</sup> Anonymized. She is 25 years old. Undergraduate student. She defines herself as a socialist. She is a member of a political youth organization.

left. These examples demonstrate how the individuals and groups voluntarily distributing food to Gezi occupiers did not have any expectation of reciprocity. It therefore seems possible to conclude that this was a moment of gift-giving. These examples are also an opportunity to revisit Godbout's disagreement with Mauss. These modern gifts, without the notion of obligatory return, justify Godbout's framework of gift-giving, rather than Mauss's model.

For fifteen days Gezi Park was envisioned as a place where, to a large extent, cash was not used. The expelling of peddlers from the park further reinforced the idea that it was a 'place where money is not used.' The 'revolution market,' set up on the square side of the park and (despite the accent on market in its name) did not accept payment, putting up a sign reading "donations accepted/free to anyone who wants," which reinforced the atmosphere of a place where there is no need for money. In conversation, most people in Gezi mentioned a spirit of give and take at the park. Of course, transforming Gezi Park into a "place where cash is not used" does not imply a disengagement from capitalism. What made this possible were the practices of gift-giving. In addition, the environment created by the protestors at the park offered a distinctive experience to the long-term homeless residents of the park.

Gezi Park did not just have tents keeping vigil and stands to distribute food. Life in the park was organized by an array of different units since no one could predict how long the occupation would last. From the way in which units like the library, the informal infirmary, and the fire brigade operated (and the experiences protesters had with them) that they were primarily organized within a framework of gift-giving relations. The library established when people began to donate books. In a short period of time, it became one of the most frequented places in the park, which resulted in the expansion of the library area. A kind of indirect bartering system was in effect. It was not necessary to leave a book in order to take one, and people staying in the tents would take a book and then leave it again. In addition, visitors to the park could take books to keep for themselves. Gift-giving relations were also practiced at the infirmary. Doctors and other health professionals donated their time; supplies were collected via donation networks. Beyond this, non-healthcare workers also volunteered their time at the infirmary.

Gift-giving relations were also seen in the fire station organized inside Gezi. Above all, volunteers donated their time. A fire brigade is a preventive effort, but at the same time, it exemplifies a stance against violent forms of resistance. They placed water barrels up and down the street at twenty-meter intervals. Their aim was to neutralize the gas bombs thrown by the police during street protests. Most groups in the park disapproved of this approach, believing that the tear gas thrown by the police should be thrown back at them. Some groups saw throwing stones at the police as legitimate self-defense. Dirim14 explains the gift-giving relations in the content of the fire brigade:

First, we asked for sand and sacks. We got these through acquaintances. Then we prepared a needs list and showed it to passersby. Someone said that he would buy a bucket and shovel, and he brought it. On the following days, another protestor took care of the fire extinguishers. As they were used, empty ones were replaced by full ones. Out of nowhere, we had 80–90 fire extinguishers. A friend of mine brought four walkie-talkies from his own workplace. We are probably the only people other than the civilian police who had walkie-talkies. Gas masks, fire-resistant safety helmets, and gloves also arrived. After a while, we got rid of our needs list. Enough supplies for everyone had come.

What is the spirit, or *hau*, of the gift-giving relations observed in Gezi Park? To answer this question, the reciprocity of these gift-giving relations must be taken into consideration. First and foremost, the spirit that accompanies gifts needs to be connected to the extraordinary nature of the situation. A considerable number of the gifts referenced here were conceived of and organized within the context of police interventions and the extraordinary conditions of the attempt to preserve the park. It is vital to evoke two observations made by the sociologist Cihan Tuğal: First, the positive circumstances which helped bring about the rise of the Gezi movement were not as instrumental to that rise as the opposition expressed to the two grievances—the cutting down of trees and police violence (Tuğal 2013: 15–16). Second, one of the crucial features of the movement was its orientation toward the creation of a desired world in the here and now. In other words, for the Gezi spirit, here and now has utmost importance. Thus, the Gezi resistance was not based on future-oriented goals but rather on the practices/actions carried out in the present (Tuğal 2013: 24). By observing the barricades, the public park, and shared meals, Tuğal (2016: 260) concludes that the Gezi revolt provided a non-commodified space. Here one must recall Marx's famous formula from *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." For Marx, the nineteenth-century revolution did not have the option to take its language from past experiences, simply because Marx understood nineteenth-century revolutionary movements as moments in which the revolutionary content surpassed the language available to it, as the poetry of old revolutions was not enough to protest the ruling regime

<sup>14</sup> Anonymized. He is 37 years old. He works for an NGO. He could be described as a liberal-socialist and is a member of a political party.

or to express the content of their imaginations. True, the Gezi resistance was not a revolutionary moment; nonetheless, it was an atmosphere in which content went beyond existing language (Turan 2013). The content of the Gezi Park resistance is difficult to readily express in words. At the point where prevailing words fall short, the resistance is based not on future-oriented political goals, but rather on practices. It is just at this point that the gift-giving relations developing within the Gezi context become extremely important. Gift-giving forms an alternative to the social imagination, which takes a market-based society and utilitarian individualism for granted. The alternative provided by the Gezi Park resistance must be considered within this context.

It must be noted that the principle of reciprocity in gift-giving relations was also observable in the Gezi gift-giving experience, in direct relation to the crisis, created by the attempt to fell the trees and the rise in police violence. Perhaps, too, the initial reward gift-givers received was this extraordinary climate itself, and their participation in it, namely the resistors' reentering of the park and the achievement of their aim to preserve it. Most people at Gezi summarized what went on at Gezi with the expression "we got what we set out to achieve." It is possible to see the fundamental repayment for the gifts given as being "we got what we set out to achieve." Beyond this, the reciprocity principle can be observed in both the gifts of food and beverages and in such elements as the library. For example, Ali brought gifts to Gezi from the very first days of the park's occupation, even before the police intervention. Later, he and his friends consulted the needs list and set up a common pool of resources. They purchased food and brought it to the park, feeding people with the food they had cooked in their own kitchen. These lists, which can be thought of as a call to barter, were prepared for distribution in the park to meet mutual needs. Moreover, the gift-givers knew that their gifts would be consumed jointly, perhaps even in such a way that they, too, would be the beneficiaries, which points to two things: One, the *hau* at Gezi was the context, the very extraordinariness of the situation, where gift-giving took place. Second, the reciprocity observed here needs to be interpreted in relation to Godbout's emphasis on return; which is less strict than Mauss's understanding of reciprocity.

In some cases, the principle of reciprocity was met with only a thank you.<sup>15</sup> For example, Ali describes how they felt after bringing tomato paste to the kitchen, as well as honey and dried fruit and nuts to be eaten for breakfast: "I was extremely happy when I spent time there. Whenever someone said, 'thank you,' within two seconds I would get elated. They would take the bag from me

<sup>15</sup> For a longer discussion about the specific manners developed during the Gezi park resistance, see (Romain Örs and Turan 2015).

and put it in the corner and say, 'thank you very much.' But I would relish even this two-second thank you. Just to have taken something there." Buğday also said that she had not thought to take a book after donating one to the library:

I didn't consider taking a book. Because it was very crowded … The people working there were in a difficult situation. But they still pulled one out and gave it to me; they gave me a book, a thin notebook, as a form of appreciation ... Yes, it was wonderful. This was the way they expressed their gratitude.

That they at least thanked book donators by giving them a notebook, regardless of how thin, shows that the volunteers at the library were thinking to some extent within the framework of the principle of reciprocity. Unlike previous examples, in the context of the library, an expectation for reciprocity was in the air, as was the spirit of voluntary activism.<sup>16</sup>

It has been emphasized here that gifts form a bond between people. It is possible to observe this function of gifts in the Gezi context as well. Furthermore, it is necessary to stress, following Schwartz (1967), the role of these bonds, produced through a gift, in identity-formation. As gifts were given to the resistance and used for collective consumption, individuals' identity as belonging to the Gezi Park resistance was reinforced. The identity-forming role of the gift was not limited to those who actually came to the park and gave their time and efforts to the atmosphere created at the park. For those who, for various reasons, could not come to the park, or those who could not come as often as they wanted, a gift was an opportunity to form a bond with Gezi; this bond had an identity-forming role. During an extraordinary moment, where society was sharply polarized, for people who supported the Gezi Park resistance, a gift served to help forge their identities as Gezi supporters. The identities formed within the context of gift bonds can also to serve to precipitate gift-giving relations. Individuals who learned of the organization of gifts would contribute to express their support for the resistance. In some cases, the call to action mobilized people. Several interviewees mentioned that during the shopping trips to procure gifts, both customers and merchants would spontaneously support the organization of gifts.

Gift-giving in the Gezi Park resistance can be read as a transaction and the circulation of objects. However, a more comprehensive definition of gift,

<sup>16</sup> The difference at the library is possibly related to the nature of books as a commodity. Different from food items, once they are consumed, books are still ready for another reading experience.

one that goes beyond objects, is possible. As previously mentioned, Godbout understands discourse not directed at informing or instructing as being similar to gift-giving relations. According to Godbout (1998: 12), one of the aims of the exchange of words, sentences and arguments is the "giving and returning, coming and going" of the word, just like in gift-giving relations. In line with this non-object-restricted definition of gifts, many of the practices and much of the sharing which occurred in the pre-police intervention period in Gezi Park may be thought of within the context of a gift-giving relationship. Above all, all conversations carried out in Gezi concerning politics, the city, public spaces, police violence, types of doing politics, the framework of opposition, and methods of resistance, as well as all forms of group experience acquired at different stages of the protest, correspond to the gift-giving relations Godbout discusses. Furthermore, each of the various activities and workshops held at Gezi –from free yoga classes, AKUT First Aid Training, a recycling workshop, the Soldiers Rights Platform, the "cursing workshop" that came up with non-sexist curses and "My Gezi. Workshop for Children" can be considered as part of a gift relationship. At all of these activities, discussions were held, experiences shared, and arguments aired. And of course, every conversation that accompanied the encounter of people in Gezi may be thought of within the context of gift-giving relations. While some of these conversations were based on pre-Gezi acquaintanceships, at least some of them developed on the basis of encounters at Gezi. In addition, all of the creativity channeled through the Gezi resistance, whether the humor reflected in graffiti or the art produced for the Gezi process, must be thought of as a form of gift-giving. Duman's "Eyvallah," the Kardeş Türküler's "Tencere Tava Havası," and the dozens of compositions written for Gezi, the concert given by the Boğaziçi Jazz Chorus, Davide Martello's various piano recitals, or the play "Gezerken," the premiere of which was held on 8 June, are all gifts given to the Gezi Park resistance.17

This article has stressed that the spirit accompanying the world of gifts at Gezi Park must be considered within the context of the extraordinariness of the situation. The pinnacle of it was reached on Saturday, 15 June, when the police carried out its final and most extreme attempt at clearing Gezi. However, the gift-giving efforts continued under the most difficult conditions, as Rüzgar states18:

<sup>17</sup> Four playwrights, Cem Uslu, Mirza Metin, Özen Yula and Yiğit Sertdemir co-authored "Gezerken." The play was first performed at the Gezi Park, and then in several open-air locations in İstanbul throughout the summer of 2013.

<sup>18</sup> Anonymized. He is 26 years old. Actor. He wants a fairer world, detached from capitalism and imperialism.

That day, we had a great need for oxygen tanks. We didn't know what to do. It was 1 am. Where are you going to find oxygen tanks at that hour? I got into the Internet… all of the medical supply dealers; I called all of them, one by one, but they were all closed…One of them woke up. I asked, 'Do you have any oxygen tanks?' 'Yes, we do. How many do you need?' 'This many.' Ok, how much money did we have? This much. 'Ok, we will buy this many, get them ready, we are coming.' We added some from our own pocket to what we had; we bought two tanks… Then there was a call for suture thread. I said to the man, 'we need suture thread, too.' 'This much.' 'No,' I said. 'Give us five packages and take any money,' I said. Because after a point, the form of the transaction changes. 'Ok,' he said, 'I'll give them to you.' So, we got five boxes of suture thread. We hoisted them onto our shoulders. We took them from the infirmary to the infirmary set up at Divan.19 It was very bad. It was bursting at the seams. The wounded were coming and going. We went and left the oxygen tanks there. We were relieved.

#### **Epilogue**

Charles Tilly lists the different manifestations of contentious performance as "condemn, oppose, resist, demand, beseech, support, and reward." The related list of contentious acts is even longer: "attacking, expelling, defacing, cursing, cheering, throwing flowers, singing songs, and carrying heroes on their shoulders" (Tilly 2008: 5). Some of these verbs are expressive, and the others point to interactive gestures.20 To that list, this article adds gift-giving. Gift-giving is a non-verbal, but nonetheless powerful expressive act. Through the lens of gift-giving relations, the Gezi park resistance is reinterpreted as a moment when an alternative imagination was expressed and made concrete. If we take Gezi, as a moment of gift-giving, non-verbal acts are more important than the old-style slogans. Through gift-giving at Gezi, individuals could showcase their participation in the resistance, and materialized their alternative imagination, within the spirit of "here and now." Older ways of protests and expressions of political demands remained mostly insufficient and out-of-context during Gezi park resistance. And, as long as the content of the protests moved beyond the

<sup>19</sup> A five-star hotel, next to the Gezi Park.

<sup>20</sup> For a longer discussion on why Tilly's framework of contentious politics is helpful in an analysis of the Gezi protests, see (Turan 2015).

language of the older generation, gift-giving as a non-verbal act appeared to be an important component of Gezi resistance.

Activists who continued to participate in the process after the forced police evacuation of Gezi Park on 15 June began organizing forums in various parks in their own neighborhoods. Gift-giving relations continued into the forum period. For example, a barter-market, "*Çapulcu* Market,"21 began on 7 July, repeated every Sunday at Yoğurtçu Park. The short description in the advertisements for the Çapulcu Market demonstrates that its aim was not simply bartering but expanding gift-giving relations: "Don't spend money! Bring what you don't use! Exchange for what you need! Don't worry if you have no belongings or money! Take whatever you need home!" In Cihangir Park, a "Money not used in this market!" was set up. The Ankara Sharing Market was organized at Kuğulu Park. Volunteers strove to provide alternatives to mass consumption and market society.

Another practice related to the continuation of gift-giving relations after Gezi Park was the Earth suppers (*Yeryüzü Sofraları*), initiated by an appeal made by the Anti-Capitalist Muslims. On 9 July, the first day of Ramadan, a collective *iftar* (the meal ending the Ramadan fast) table was set up, stretching the length of İstiklâl Street from Galatasaray High School to Gezi Park, under the name Earth supper. As its inclusive name implies, it was a table for all. The emphasis at this dinner table, as described on flyers lining the ground, was on equalizing people across the planet. In the appeal, "*iftars* held in the luxury hotels of capital" were viewed as the face of capitalism; the "*iftar* tents set up by the hegemons" were also manifestations of capitalism. "The people's *yeryüzü sofraları,*" on the other hand, was equated with freedom. The most important difference between the Earth supper *iftar* dinners and the *iftar* dinners organized by the municipalities was the lack of standardization in the Earth suppers, which derived their strength from gift-giving relations. Some participants brought food for themselves while others brought food and beverages to share with others. In some cases, people who did not partake in the *iftar* dinner established a bond with the Earth suppers simply through gifts. At the first Earth supper, restaurants in the vicinity provided donations to the dinner. The Earth suppers were based fully on a gift-giving process that had begun at Gezi. At the park, many people, despite not fasting, attached importance to participating in the Yeryüzü Sofraları, meeting with İhsan Eliaçık, one of the founders of the group, and becoming acquainted with the

<sup>21</sup> Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the protestors at Gezi as *çapulcu*, namely "looters". Although Erdoğan's use was clearly derogatory, many protestors accepted this nomenclature and chose *çapulcu* as a self-identification.

views of the Anti-Capitalist Muslims. With reference to conversation and the exchange of ideas as a form of gift-giving relations, the gift exchange begun at Gezi continued to expand, too, at the Earth suppers. It expanded so far that the Earth supper on 9 July was prevented from reaching Gezi Park only by police water cannons. Earth suppers were set up in different neighborhoods and cities in the days that followed. Gift-giving relations continued in different settings throughout Ramadan.

By discussing the historical and contemporary political vision for Taksim, this article has elucidated the ways in which officially established spaces can be transformed such that they nonetheless bear the vestiges of different politics. For Taksim, Bloody Sunday and 1 May 1977 form two important cornerstones in this transformation. The Gezi Park resistance has laid down another layer in this reformulation. Gift-giving relations, one of the features in this process of change, demonstrate that people who do not want to be delimited by the logic of the market, neoliberal discourses and the market logic of the state apparatus are seeking alternative practices.

#### **Bibliography**


Turan'a Armağan. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, pp. 409–429.


## 9 We Disperse to Berlin: Transnational entanglements of LGBTI+ movement(s) in Turkey

#### *Nazlı Cabadağ and Gülden Ediger*

The last six decades witnessed various waves of migration from Turkey to Germany. Political and economic conditions in both countries enabled academic scholars, activist groups and politicians to address diverse migrant groups' belonging and identity. Some of the crucial turning points in the history of migration were the agreement for the "Recruitment of Foreign Labor," signed in 1961, coups d'état in Turkey in 1971 and in 1980 and the continued war between the Kurdish forces and the Turkish Army begun in the 1990s. In this context, groups thus far explored in the literature have been labor migrants, political refugees, ethnic and religious minorities such as Kurds and Alevis (Mandel 2008; Yurdakul 2009). In this literature, queers have not been treated as a distinct migration group, even though a small number of academic works did examine space-making and subject formation practices of Turkish (speaking) queers in Berlin and Germany (Kosnick 2008; Petzen 2004).

Since the Gezi Uprising in 2013, a new discourse on migration abroad has begun to take shape. Over the past five years, political unrest was sparked by the relaunching of the war on Kurdish forces and the failed coup attempt in July 2016. This article aims to develop an understanding of this very contemporary wave of migration and the 'newness' of it, with a focus on *Türkiyeli* queer subjects and groups in Berlin, as they have escaped scholarly attention thus far. Such a focus is also important since the appropriation of the queer body has gained importance across mainstream European policies, especially in public and political debates around migration, with a marked tendency to construct the vulnerable queer (white) subject against the homophobic Muslim migrant (Haritaworn 2015). Regarding the struggles of the LGBTI+ movement in Turkey and the European discourses on sexuality, we want to critically examine the mainstream narratives of queer migration from Turkey to Berlin, which have thus far been mostly neglected within the discourses on the so-called 'Gezi Diaspora' or 'New Wave.'

To do so, we lay out some of the political turning points in the recent history of Turkey, and the practices of resistance employed by LGBTI+ movement(s), beginning chronologically with the Gezi Uprising, a massive anti-government protest during the summer of 2013. We then discuss debates around queer migration to Berlin and conclude with a recent example of a newly started group *Kuir+Lubun Berlin,* and the question of transnational and translocal activist engagements. Furthermore, we conceive this article itself as an attempt to engage with LGBTI+ movement(s) in Turkey from the transnational space of Berlin, via our long-distance emotional, political and academic relationships with them.<sup>1</sup>

#### **The LGBTI+ movement in Turkey: from the Gezi Uprising to Berlin transnational engagement**

During the summer of 2013, Gezi Park emerged as site of an anti-AKP government uprising, protesting the project to rebuild Ottoman-era artillery barracks (and a new shopping mall) in the heart of the Istanbul's Taksim Square.2 Initially a sit-in against the cutting down of trees in the park, the protest eventually brought millions of people out to the streets in response to a violent police attack on May 31, which had targeted peaceful occupiers of the park in their tents. As government policies targeted a variety of bodies, the uprising turned into a revolt against the AKP's neoliberalist biopolitics which was described by Meyda Yeğenoğlu as the government's "attempt to regulate social and private life from its interior, following, interpreting, absorbing and rearticulating it as a field of Islamic immanence" (2013).

Unlike the former repressive powers that had controlled the population through the death penalty among others, biopower, in a Foucauldian sense, is understood as a productive power of (self-) regulation and control, targeting the individual body, thus the population. Some examples explicitly evoking this Foucauldian term in various analyses of the AKP's conservative interventions have been their condemnation of women's laughter in public (Hürriyet Daily News 2014), consumption of alcohol (BBC News 2013) and recommendations for the right number of children (Milliyet 2013). In this context, "the Gezi spirit" also symbolized a revolt against such authoritarian government orders (Yeğenoğlu 2013: 3).

In Turkey, the LGBTI+ movement has been targeted numerous times by authorities since the ban of the first Pride March attempt in 1993. Various

<sup>2</sup> The AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—Justice and Development Party) is the conservative, neoliberalist and Islamist party that has ruled Turkey since 2002, under the leadership of the former prime minister and the current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

<sup>1</sup> We employ the term *transnational* to denote the multifaceted relationships and belongings maintained across national borders (Çağlar 2013).

complaints have been filed by governments in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir to shut down LGBTI+ organizations (Durgun and Kalaycıoğlu 2014). Since 1993, Istanbul Pride Week has taken place annually during the last week of June. The first Istanbul Pride March of 2003 started with as few as 50 activists, gradually bringing masses of people to Istiklal Street, with as many as 100,000 participants recorded in 2013.

Both in the media and in scholarly works, the LGBTI+ community has been recognized as one of the most active components of the Gezi protests (Açıksöz and Korkman 2013; Zengin 2013; Ünan 2015). Although the popular discourse was inclined to credit the Gezi protests themselves with granting greater visibility to the LGBTI+ movement, many activists rejected this narrative, as it erased the years of struggle by the LGBTI+ movement and queers in Turkey before the Gezi protests. In many interviews and panel discussions, they highlighted the experience of queers facing police violence in their everyday lives in public.3 In this sense, the familiarity with and practice of organized resistance was not unknown to queers, stemming from their diverse experiences with public demonstrations, sex work or daily public encounters. Another crucial intervention of the LGBTI+ activists was their evocation of the queer history of Gezi Park, as one of the most important and central cruising areas for gay men and trans women in Istanbul (Zengin 2013).

Conversely, the Gezi protests also became a crucial moment for the LGBTI+ movement to unexpectedly engage with various other groups, such as soccer fans and anti-capitalist Muslims. These groups were referred to the most in order to celebrate the power of "the Gezi spirit" to bring together allegedly extreme opposites. As the Gezi Uprising became a politicizing experience for many young people—who up to that point had been categorized as the apolitical generation of the '90s (Generation Y)—the LGBTIQ+ block itself also attracted many young queers who had not previously engaged with any LGBTI+ organizations.

In the wake of the Gezi Uprising, new LGBTI+ organizations mushroomed throughout the country, e.g. Queer Adana, Mersin LGBT or Dersim Roştîya Asmê (Ay Işığı) LGBTI (Çetin 2015: 14). Moreover, another visible sign of mutual awareness and the growing alliance between the Gezi protesters and the LGBTI+ movement was the huge turnout for the Pride March in June 2013. It was the largest Pride March ever held in Turkey, during which the rainbow flag was acknowledged by a wider public. In the following months, a "guerilla

<sup>3</sup> In a previous research project, both authors conducted several interviews with queer activists on the topic. In addition, refereed panels took place during the Istanbul Pride Week, as well as at the *Queeres Verlegen* book fair, organized in Berlin.

beautification" movement emerged, autonomously launched and spread by people throughout Turkey. It was another act of reclaiming public spaces, as residents painted certain public staircases in the colors of the rainbow (Arsu and Mackey 2013). In this way, the rainbow partly turned into a badge of resistance against authoritarian interventions in the public sphere, which some have ascribed to the greater LGBTI+ visibility during the Gezi resistance (Açıkgöz and Korkman 2013). Local municipalities repainted most of these stairs gray, and there have been several cases where the rainbow flag was regarded as part of a crime. Since 2015, in order to control the Pride March participants, any visible reference to rainbow colors has been policed by the armed forces at the checkpoints to the Pride March. People wearing rainbows have been denied passage. In September 2018, the rainbow flag was again proclaimed "an element of crime" in an investigation against students who carried a rainbow flag at a graduation ceremony at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara (Tar 2018). Given the limited space, we can only briefly discuss the criminalization of the rainbow flag in Turkey here, but we see it as another noteworthy threat with implications for LGBTI+ visibility in the Gezi resistance.

Opposition parties also responded to the demands of the LGBTI+ movement, which led to affirmative transformations and the employment of openly LGBTI+ staff in the municipalities held by the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP, Republican People's Party) in Şişli and Beşiktaş, districts with predominantly pro-secularist CHP voters in Istanbul. Local Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP, Peoples' Democratic Party), CHP and Türkiye Komünist Partisi (TKP, the Communist Party of Turkey) politicians signed an agreement with the Association of Social Policies, Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies (SPoD) vowing to fight for LGBTI demands if elected. Three CHP signatories won seats in their districts (Çetin 2015: 27; SPoD 2015). In Beşiktaş, a committee for equality was established within the district authority. Employees of the district authority were offered advanced training to raise awareness of LGBTI+ identities and politics. A polyclinic in Şişli extended its working hours taking into account the daily routine of trans sex workers. With the efforts of openly queer members, especially city employee Boysan Yakar, who tragically lost his life in a car accident in 2015, STD tests and treatments were made available anonymously and free of charge at the polyclinic (Çetin 2015: 26). Following these developments, 2015 marked a turning point for the LGBTI+ movement as well as other oppositional social movements in Turkey.

It was hardly a coincidence that the LGBTI+ movement was a central target of governmental oppression in 2015, partially because of its visibility and the alliances that the LGBTI+ community forged as a dissident group, but also because of the seat losses of the AKP government in the June 7 general election of that year and an overall crackdown on dissidents following that defeat. The AKP lost its parliamentary majority when the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) crossed the electoral threshold, winning seats in parliament. The AKP did not recognize the election results and called for new elections in November 2015, which ended with the AKP winning the majority in the parliament once again. In the summer of 2015, Turkey also relaunched its war against the Kurdish forces and announced the end of negotiations over Çözüm Süreci*—*the peace negotiations between the Kurdish liberation forces and the government. This was followed by several terrorist attacks in the big cities and a failed coup attempt in July 2016. The state of emergency has been in place for two years.

Public spaces have become a special target of authoritarian control, which restricted the capacity of the LGBTI+ and dissident movements to raise any kind of oppositional voice. This pressure also inspired activists to employ creative ways of making themselves heard. And thereby #wedisperse became one of the most efficient and groundbreaking strategies employed by queer activists on the day of the Pride March 2016.

#### **"This is the last warning! Disperse! And let life go back to its normal course."**

The above statement is one of the most common announcements by the Turkish police forces at public demonstrations—usually right before they physically attack protesters. The LGBTI+ Pride March was attacked and officially banned in 2015, ostensibly out of respect for Ramadan, "social sensitivities" and public security, as it was expected to be disrupted by the attacks of "sensitive" groups. In 2016, a week after the warning 'to disperse' was announced during the gathering for Trans Pride, the Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride Committee decided to 'obey' this order during the Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride March, which took place one week after the Trans Pride March on the infamous Istiklal Street in Beyoğlu. They dispersed. And as they dispersed, they unsettled and redefined the established practices and vocabulary of activism within the queer movement. Activists wittily responded to the order to disperse with the following statement:

We are obeying this call: on Sunday, 26 June we will disperse to every single corner of the Istiklal Avenue, we are reuniting with each other on every street and avenue in Beyoğlu. Instead of living a life that is imposed on us, a life that normalizes violence, oppression, and denial; we are living the life we chose, the life in which we exist with pride and honor and we are 'Letting life go back to its ›normal‹ course' by DISPERSING DISPERSING, DISPERSING. (LGBTI News Turkey, 2016)

The organizing committee called on everyone to read the press release wherever possible and to make a video of it. Circulating these videos with the official hashtag of the Pride Week (#wedisperse) became an indispensable part of the political event. Istanbul parade and its digital entanglements thereby took on a new shape as this call for dispersion extended the interactional space by circulating the information, images, and videos of the dispersed actions, also enabling global participation in the march. This very strategy of dispersion thus enabled the Pride to echo beyond the physical space of Beyoğlu, which has been a historically and culturally important area for sexual dissidence since the Ottoman era (Çetin 2015), as well as beyond the national borders of Turkey, as we will discuss in the next chapter.

Official bans and police attacks targeting the LGBTI+ events have been rooted in the notion that they could cause tensions due to "public sensitivities," and that they, therefore, threatened the safety of the participants. For instance, in November 2017, a German LGBTI Film Festival organized by the *Pink Life KuirFest* and the German Embassy in Ankara was targeted with hate speech by Turkish pro-government media, and social media was mobilized with a hashtag campaign which defined the event as a "disgrace to national independence."<sup>4</sup> Afterwards, the event was banned by the Ankara government on the grounds that the threatening groups could feel provoked by the event, due to its violation of "social sensitivities" and public morality. The ban was extended to all cultural events in the city with LGBTI+ content for an indefinite period of time. In the following weeks, other LGBTI film events were also canceled in Izmir, Bursa, and Istanbul.

Meanwhile, media outlets and popular discourse foregrounded a discourse on the new wave of migration (Ağır and Karcı 2017; Toprak 2018); the number of people emigrating increased, and Berlin became one of the first destinations of these migrating groups, attracted by existent networks in a city which harbors the largest *Türkiyeli* diaspora outside of Turkey.<sup>5</sup> Below, we unpack the political implications of this transnational movement focusing on Turkishspeaking queers in Berlin.

<sup>4</sup> #İstiklalimizeKaraLeke (which literally translates to 'black stain on our independence') was the hashtag circulated online by hate groups.

<sup>5</sup> Instead of Turkish or Turkish-speaking, we prefer the term *Türkiyeli,* roughly meaning Turkey-bonded, which is used by various political groups to encompass the ethnic diversity of the population living in Turkey, as well as in the diaspora.

#### **A New Wave in Berlin**

Many emigrants leaving Turkey in recent years have been widely associated with the process of political backlash after the Gezi Uprising. They are even referred to as the 'Gezi diaspora' or the 'Gezi generation' (Gürsel 2018). In this context they are portrayed as "already Westernized," middle or upper-middle class, secular dissidents, qualified for the job market, fleeing a country ruled by the conservative authoritarian AKP (Gürsel 2018). Particularly in Berlin, these newcomers from Turkey have been referred to as the 'new wave' by certain media outlets and by some newcomers themselves, such as 2326 members of the Facebook page *New Wave in Berlin*. 6 Here, we revisit the recent migration wave with a critical approach since the migration background, motivations, class position and legal status of these 'new wave' migrants varies. More importantly, we interrogate this escape narrative in light of the emerging figure of the 'new wave' migrant, which, has a particular significance in the normative narratives of queer migration and the Western LGBT politics that we aim to question. Tackling the question of transnational political engagement, we will conclude our discussion with the examples of some cultural and political events initiated by the *Türkiyeli* queers living in Berlin, and a newly formed group called Kuir+Lubun Berlin*.* 7

Migrations of queer subjects and groups have been predominantly depicted as moves from the locations of oppression towards emancipation, yet this dominant model has been contested by various scholars who complicated this simplifying narrative by illustrating queer experiences and practices of "home" and "home-making" (Manalansan 2006; Luibhéid 2008). Drawing inspiration from this literature, we want to track the potential of queer experiences to demonstrate the distinctive dynamics of *Türkiyeli* queer migration between the two contexts of Turkey and Berlin, hoping to disrupt the narrative of "migration-as-emancipation" (Fortier 2001: 408).

The ambivalence of immigrant belonging in the case of *Türkiyeli* newwave migrants in Berlin is reflected in an interview with Nil Mutluer, one of the "Peace Academics" in Berlin,8 who describes a "holy triangle" that has emerged in the media, the academy as well as mainstream bureaucracy and the


<sup>6</sup> Number current as of 16. 11. 2018. The page was started in 2016 to exchange information and advice about the visa process and other paperwork and to make small talk or exchange information on events etc.

public: "There is a victim, this is us; there is a dictator, Erdoğan; and there is a savior, and that is the 'West'" (Kural 2017). This "holy triangle," we argue, is also echoed in the encounter of queer migrants of Color and their (queer) saviors in light of the particular political history of the queer movement(s) in Berlin. Before analyzing the situation in Berlin, it is necessary to discuss the Turkish context.

Because of its particular history of secularism, institutionalized by the constituent modernist elites of the Turkish Republic, Turkey requires a nuanced account, more than a conceptualization of it as a country with a Muslim majority under conservative Islamist rule (Tuğal 2009; Göle 2015). The political Islamist agenda of the AKP government and the gradually polarized public under its rule has been anachronistically analyzed, anchored in the foundational fault line of the tension between secular elites and conservative Islamists in the political history of Turkey. This very discourse resonates with the Eurocentric view of the queer migrant, which is taken for granted as a modern secular subject. Revisiting Turkey in regard to the notions of secular and modern, and tracing the discourse of heterosexism in the ostensibly contested politics of secular modernism and Islamist conservatism, we suggest, demonstrates the marginalized subject position of sexual dissidents beyond this binary understanding of political readings of Turkey. It also adds another dimension to the "holy triangle," which positions Turkey as merely a location of oppression. It is hardly surprising that Turkish nationalism is based on the construction of narratives about 'women' and 'the home'—reproduction and heterosexuality—much like most nationalisms imposed by contemporary nation-states (Kandiyoti 1987). Various definitions of Turkishness, from Kemalist ideology to neoliberal Islamist proposals, have invariably been conceived as heterosexual (Ataman 2011). Therefore, *Türklük* as a national identity has always excluded queer people from the status of "acceptable citizen" (Üstel 2004).

The concept of national values—often understood through vague categories such as 'common morality' and 'public sensitivity' when referencing queer topics—has been cited not only by far-right groups, such as *Alperenler*, or Islamist fundamentalists who regularly threatened Pride participants in Turkey, but also by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself and members of the AKP in order to target the LGBTI+ friendly politics of the main oppositional parties, the CHP and the HDP. To give a few examples, during the 2014 municipal elections, an openly gay HDP candidate was targeted by pro-government media, and Erdoğan himself explicitly referred to the LGBTI quota of the CHP Municipality in Nilüfer district in Bursa as being "against national values". Following this statement, the Ankara government banned the German-language LGBTI Film Festival.

#### **New place of residency: heavenly queer Berlin?**

Below, we give a brief account and analysis of the entanglement of Berlin-Istanbul queer activisms. Istanbul and Berlin have a long history of activist exchange and interaction. Beyond queer circles, many other activists, such as members of the Kurdish liberation movement, unionists, artists and academics have been building alliances across borders for decades. Although the ties between the two countries date back much further, this transnational bridge was based on the 1961 treaty between Turkey and Germany, signed to organize the "Recruitment and Procurement of Foreign Workers," which engendered a tumultuous phase of labor migration (Abadan-Unat 2002; Yurdakul 2009). The presence of the *Türkiyeli* community and existing networks between activist and academic circles in these two countries rendered Berlin one of the primary destinations for the dissidents in times of political repression, including the period following the 1980 coup or during the war between the Kurdish forces and the Turkish Army in the 1990s (Mandel 2008; Yurdakul 2009). Turkish and Kurdish queer activists (e.g. Lambda Istanbul and Kaos GL in Ankara) have also maintained collaborations and partnerships with organizations in Germany (e.g. Gladt e.V.), and have taken part in Berlin events. One of the recent events in response to the ban on LGBTI+ events in Ankara took place at Südblock in Kreuzberg, a venue hosting many joint events with queer activists from Turkey. Berlin-based *Türkiyeli* activists organized this event in solidarity, reading the statement of KAOS GL and Pembe Hayat (two prominent queer NGOs in Ankara).9

In 2017, Schwules\* Museum Berlin hosted an exhibition called: "ğ—queer forms migrate" (Schwules Museum 2017). It was the museum's first exhibition—belated, as one of the curators admits—representing the queer stories of the *Türkiyeli* community in Berlin and investigating queer voices and representations in the history of migration. The founding idea for this exhibition evolved from the collaboration of artists and queers working and living between Turkey and Germany. In an interview, one of the curators, Emre Busse, states: "There have been Turkish people here in Berlin for four or five generations, and no exhibition focusing on these issues—for me, this was long overdue" (Hunn 2017). Referring to the history and heritage of Turkish migrants in Germany, he contests the celebrated queer history of Berlin which has been archived by Schwules Museum, and points to another history overshadowed by this celebration. Similarly, Jennifer Petzen has asserted that the "Turkish

<sup>9</sup> "Türkische LGBTI-Organisationen fordern: Verbot queerer Veranstaltungen in Ankara muss zurückgenommen werden", *Siegessäule Online*, 21.11.2017.

queer scene would not have developed in quite the same way in a similar-sized European city without Berlin's unique history and the tradition of queer life that Berlin enjoys" (2004: 21). This statement on the expected motivations of newcomer queers, prompted us to question the meaning of the 'queer capital' Berlin for the *T*ü*rkiyeli* queers and to pay closer attention to the unique history and the tradition of queer life in Berlin.

An important aspect of the widely advertised queer-friendliness of Berlin has been predominantly narrated entangled with the discourse of anti-homophobia as a value of a 'civilized' Europe—what Jasbir Puar has coined as "homonationalism" (2007). Homonationalist discourse is based on the categorical dichotomy between a homophobic (and therefore uncivilized) Orient and a tolerant, progressive, and homo-friendly West. This dichotomy also strongly relies on the secular and religious divide, in which the secular is constructed as a 'neutral,' free, emancipatory value whereas the religious is presumed as lagging behind in these Western values. As Nikita Dhawan points out, "gender and sexuality are central to neoliberal formations as sites at which the power relation between religion and secularism is negotiated" (Dhawan 2013: 192). Since power relations are changing quickly in neoliberal globalization processes, there is a perceived need for more forceful narratives to reaffirm the national project. Within this, it has been pointed out that in recent European debates on Muslim migration to Europe, the "queer body" may have replaced or altered the function of the female body (Bracke 2011; Dietze 2016).

Much has been written about queer complicity with neoliberal national politics. In the pursuit of a critique of liberal gay politics and its role in creating the racialized, and mostly muslimized Other, postcolonial queer theorists demonstrated various intricate contexts and cases (Puar 2007; Massad 2008; El-Tayeb 2011, 2012). Berlin, as a ground for contesting queer activisms and histories, also attracted scholarly attention (Haritaworn 2010, 2015; Kosnick 2013, 2015). From this perspective, it seems crucial to examine the discourse of 'tolerance' towards sexual minorities immanent in the narratives of a "queer-friendly" Berlin.

In her article "The Empire Prays Back: Religion, Secularity, and Queer Critique" (2013), Dhawan points out the difficulties of post-secular queer theory production. By rethinking the entanglements of normative powers that secure the nation-building project on "both sides of the postcolonial divide", she argues that "the necessity of anti-imperialist and anti-racist critique within queer politics must be accompanied by a critique of 'reproductive heteronormativity' within postcolonial contexts" (Dhawan 2013: 195–196). Dhawan counters the view that there can be traces of a pre-colonial queer subject that we could refer back to, or that would give us sufficient evidence of how precolonial life was "better" for queer people than it is today. Furthermore, even

though queer people are accused of Western complicity in postcolonial settings, and maybe endangered due to this, Dhawan warns that queer theory must not join in with "blaming the victim" (ibid.: 211), and not fall into the same trap by not criticizing the repression and violence that queers are blatantly facing in diverse geographies in the name of religion. That is to say, postponing the issue of heterosexism in the post-colonial context and prioritizing the struggle against structural racism and Islamophobia, in the case of Berlin, for instance, does not hold the promise of solid progress for non-European queer subjects, such as *Türkiyeli* queers.

With all this in mind, the subject position of *Türkiyeli* queers and the recently flourishing group that brings together various generations of Turkish speaking queers in Berlin requires an intersectional approach. Such an enterprise will enable us to unpack the hegemonic narratives as well as practices of resistance. In the following, we want to give a little account on the recent actions of *Türkiyeli* queers in Berlin. *Türkiyeli* queers in Berlin have been making space for themselves and gaining visibility in the queer scene since the 1990s. Organizations such as TurkGay and GLADT (*Gays und Lesben aus der Türkei*) or groups and events such as Salon Oriental and Gayhane gathered many *Türkiyeli* queers at various popular Berlin venues such as SO36 and Südblock. *Türkiyeli* activist groups, academics, and organizations in Germany have been working on, addressing and pointing out the particularities of the *Türkiyeli* queer intersectional subject position and the racism of white queer politics for a long time.

The number of politically engaged queer migrants from Turkey in Berlin has now significantly increased and they have assembled across generations, as in the group example of Kuir+Lubun Berlin. Even though we are not suggesting a new historical phenomenon, we take this group as a departure point to pose some questions around the politics of solidarity and collaboration between queer circles in Turkey and Berlin. Let us briefly summarize how this group was formed.

During the summer of 2018, bi'bak, an event space in the Wedding neighborhood of Berlin hosted film screenings in collaboration with *Pembe Hayat KuirFest* from Ankara.<sup>10</sup> *KuirFest* is the first and only queer film festival in Turkey. The six-week-long program at bi'bak provided a space for many *Türkiyeli* LGBTI+ people living in Berlin to come together to discuss migration mobility, non-Western queer perspectives on body politics, and border politics. It was at one of these screenings that a group of *Türkiyeli* queers came up with the idea of an Istanbul-Berlin Pride March, which took place simultaneously with the Istanbul Pride March on 1 July. This march was organized by a group called Kuir+Lubun Berlin which was founded in the winter of 2017 and initially gathered online on a Facebook page.11 The group, of which we as the authors are active members, is a collective of LGBTI+ people of various backgrounds and generations of *Türkiyeli* queers—from newcomers to those who were born and have grown up in Germany. They came together for the first time as a group to organize this march. And for the first time, Pride marches in these two different locations took place simultaneously, which was an attempt of translocalizing the activist strategy 'we disperse' beyond borders. However, with this move beyond borders, various questions arose both within and around the organization of the solidarity march, some of which also challenged the notion of solidarity. What does it mean to treat this solidarity event as a prism to question the politics of temporality and locality? What are the political implications of the same slogans shouted in two different locations behind the same "Istanbul Pride" banner? Do these slogans mean the same thing when the past and the present of the local seep into the so-called simultaneity of these two events? Is it possible to temporally link two localities through the act of simultaneity? What changes when these slogans and political demands travel all the way from Turkey to Berlin in the activist repertoire of migrant queers? Can this be considered international solidarity? Who is the subject of the political struggle against the heterosexist violence enacted by the Turkish state? How does this solidarity relate to racist discourses in Germany?

Although more than this could be discussed, we want to remark that, based on our observant participation, the politics of locality and temporality positioned this particular group and the solidarity march in a twofold negotiation. One prominent discussion was based on being in Berlin yet demanding something for Istanbul. Who are 'we' to stand in solidarity with Istanbul? Over the course of the preparations for the march in Berlin, tensions were palpable: It was necessary, on the one hand, to mobilize the language of solidarity with Istanbul; on the other hand, there was an unease about being perceived as a group of privileged Berlin queers marching under the 'protection' of German police while compatriots in Istanbul were subject to the violence of the Turkish police. "How do we look from Turkey?" appeared as a pertinent question which implicitly related to the normative narrative of queer migration as it allegedly emancipates the ones who fulfill it in the new location. This very negotiation

<sup>11</sup> The name of the group is inspired by the Turkish pronunciation of the word queer; *kuir*, and the word *lubun*. *Lubun* is the short form of *lubunya*, the term for 'trans woman' in *lubunca;* a slang developed and used by trans sex workers in Turkey. Although initially a word used to disguise sex workers' conversations in public, the term gradually became popular in the various LGBTI+ circles.

led the way for creative slogans and banners combining the experiences and political demands arising in both locations.12 Nevertheless, the meaning of solidarity and its critical readings, as it positions one group as 'in need' and the other as 'in power' to help, appears to be a matter of concern for the diasporic practices of Kuir+Lubun Berlin as an emergent group.

Another negotiation of the group, we want to note, is based on temporality, namely being a 'new' group, while there is a popular discourse emerging on the 'new wave' of immigration from Turkey as we mentioned above.

Many members of Kuir+Lubun Berlin have pointed out that referring to this movement as new runs the risk of erasing *Türkiyeli* queer history of struggles in Berlin and thus would be a political mistake. Therefore, avoiding the complicity with the discourse on dissidents of the 'new wave' requires an archival labor and necessitates a cross-generational dialogue between the activists and organizations that are already existent. Such an attempt to tie together the history and the present challenges two dominant discourses. Firstly, it challenges the narrative of the newly arriving 'good migrant'—as an already Westernized subject—that, in turn, serves to construct an oppositional figure of the 'old wave' migrant, the ostensibly Erdoğan-loving conservative Muslim labor migrant who lags behind in Germany's modern European values. Secondly, it would be an intervention in the heterosexualized history of migration, in particular labor migration, which predominantly focused on single male workers and heterosexual family relations.

*Kuir+Lubun* gradually gained visibility after the solidarity march "Berlin Walks with Istanbul Pride" in July 2018, and other public events such as the massive anti-fascist demonstration *Unteilbar* in October 2018. Meanwhile, the process of defining a common ground that brought current members together is dynamically negotiated by the members in regular meetings. At this point, we want to make clear that this very discussion on Kuir+Lubun Berlin does not represent any consensus of the group but rather should be read as the authors' experience and observation within the group, in addition to the academic and political curiosities that we want to push further inspired by Kuir+Lubun Berlin. The emergence of this very group both excited us personally and stimulated our collaborative thinking process, which we also share with the group as a whole. In the future, we will eagerly continue to act, think and write more with and about the practices of such groups, in terms of political activism across borders and histories, and the tensions, limitations, and openings of queer politics in the particular context of Berlin.

<sup>12</sup> Some of them were: "Queer Kanake gegen Grenzen!" "Lubunya power beyond borders!" "Nerdesin aşkım?—Berlin'deyim aşkım!"

In this article, we chose to focus on a specific period of the LGBTI+ movement in Turkey by mapping out significant political events, starting from the Gezi Uprising and concluding with the (re)flourishing of Berlin's *Türkiyeli* queer groups and their local and translocal activist engagements. We chose this particular time period starting after the Gezi Uprising in order to initiate an interrogation of the 'new' in the contemporary; of what emerges, transforms and also persists. Along with the increasing political oppression in Turkey since the Gezi Uprising, activist practices within social movements have also been transforming. Increasing numbers of dissidents in Europe add an additional layer to the analyses of the practices of struggle against the AKP government's oppression. In this picture, the history of the LGBTI+ resistance and its transnational contacts have been overlooked by scholars. This article is our contribution to closing this gap and drawing attention to the contemporary politics of sexuality and migration between the two countries. Instead of maintaining binaries—those who flee and those who stay; the cowards and the heroes; the victims and the privileged; here and there—we, therefore, believe in transnational dialogue and solidarity among queers, and in blurring the boundaries and the binaries.

This article itself was possible thanks to such dialogue, when our paths crossed in Berlin as two *Türkiyeli* queer women, thinking and acting in and between Turkey and Germany. As Fortier et. al. note: "Political and ethical solidarity does not require giving up the local or transnational but finding ways of working politically with both dimensions, and with what moves between them" (2003: 6). In the pursuit of greater solidarity via traveling bodies, emotions, activist strategies, ideas, and academic collaborations, we will continue to *disperse*!

#### **Bibliography**


## 10 What do Claims for Participation Tell Us About City Planning? The experience of defenders of an environmental

protected area in Bogotá, Colombia1

*Giselle Andrea Osorio Ardila*

#### **Introduction**

Almost five decades ago, in comparing social struggles in cities of Europe and the Americas, Manuel Castells wrote that "urban social movements and not planning institutions are the true drivers of change and innovation of the city" (2008: 10). He also stated that when planners contemplated participatory processes, these consisted of "respectable citizens discussing among themselves the details of application of general norms or trying to obtain minor readjustments in cases of crisis, always 'reasonable' and always convinced of the superior reason of the technical imperatives which appear to them as unavoidable" (Castells 2008: 9). In spite of the advances and of important initiatives like the participatory budgets created in Brazil in the 1990s (Maricato 2000: 182), and replicated around the world, especially in Latin America and Europe (Peck and Theodore 2012: 22), Castells' criticism of the planning system remains valid.

In the case of Colombia, citizen participation in the making of public policies is a right protected by the Political Constitution (1991). Likewise, the law provides that during urban planning processes, "the agreement between social, economic and urban interests, through the participation of the inhabitants and their organizations, be encouraged". (Article 4. Territorial Development Law 388 of 1997). In compliance with these laws, planning accounts for citizen

<sup>1</sup> This work was supported by the Student-Agreement Graduate Program (PEC-PG) CAPES- Brazil. I am thankful to the members of the Citizen Oversight Committee of TvdHFR (*Veeduria Ciudadana de la Reserva Forestal Thomas van der Hammen*) who trusted me and allowed me to be part of their activities. I also want to thank Professor Cecília Campello de Amaral Mello for the critical remarks throughout the research and to acknowledge especially Natascha Otoya and Germán Quimbayo Ruíz for their revision and comments on the manuscript.

participation activities. However, these are limited to meetings where planners and government officials explain their projects and decisions to citizens unilaterally. Noriko Hataya (2010) calls this situation "the illusion of community participation".

Authors such as Lulle (2005: 108) wonder about the reasons for this situation and suggest that they are due, among other things, to the diversity of interests, languages, and interpretations of what planning should be. In a recent study on the struggles of socio-environmental movements in the city of Bogotá, Quimbayo Ruíz (2018: 541) concludes that:

Social movements in Bogotá have had the opportunity to be participants but not always decision-makers, in the construction of public policies; whereas urban planning is still dominated by experts (Beuf 2016) and crucial decisions are still taken by the few (Gallini 2016). Nevertheless, among such organizations there lies a process of social innovation for urban nature advocacy through individual and collective actions—political mobilization that addresses the question of for whom urban space should be.

These "social innovations" have not yet been widely included in the theoretical reflections on planning in Bogotá. In response to this absence, I propose to explore the relationship between citizen participation and city planning. I argue there is a deep epistemological difference in how places are conceived and made, on the one hand by the planners at the service of the governments, and on the other by the citizens that build the city through everyday social relations and spatial practices.

I focus on ideas and practices at stake in the case of the Thomas van der Hammen Regional Forest Reserve (TvdHFR) in Bogotá. It is a protected area created by the environmental authority (CAR)2 in 2011 (Agreement 11 of 2011). It is located on the northern border of Bogotá, on the territories of Suba and Usaquén.3 The TvdHFR has a total area of 1395 hectares; it is a corridor of 800 meters in its widest part, between the already-consolidated urban area at the north of the city and rural areas bordering the Bogotá river.

Recently, the city government has proposed replacing the forest reserve and the rural areas of the north of the city with the *Ciudad Norte* (North City) project. This consists of a series of linear parks and arborized corridors, surrounded by buildings that would accommodate 1200,000 inhabitants (Alcaldía Mayor

<sup>2</sup> Acronyms in Spanish of the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca. 3 These are political and administrative units in Bogotá known as *Localidades.*

de Bogotá 2016: 152). According to the mayor's office, this project would allow the orderly growth of the city without affecting the conservation objectives of the forest reserve area since the parks and corridors, which would maintain the name TvdHFR and would also maintain ecological connectivity between the mountains and the Bogotá river. The levels of the bodies of water would be controlled with drainages, and the conservation of biodiversity in the new urban context would be ensured through special bridges for the local fauna (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá 2018).

The proposal caused controversy about what the future of these areas would be. Furthermore, it started a process of resistance against the building project by several groups of citizens defending the TvdHFR, many of whom do not live in the area. As the controversy unfolded, formal spaces for citizen participation diminished for those who opposed the modification of the TvdHFR. As we shall see, these groups have been accused of opposing the development of the city and politicizing an eminently technical debate.

This article is based on the information collected during five months of fieldwork in Bogotá between 2016 and 2017. There I got in touch with different actors and I conducted 30 interviews with planning officials of the previous and current mayor's offices, an ex-staff member of the CAR, academics linked to the debate, residents in the reserve area and members of groups and associations that operate on the northern edge of the city, most of them opposed to the proposal of the mayor's office, and self-appointed defenders of the TvdHFR. The interviewees were selected through snowball sampling. I identified spokespersons for the different positions in the debate and interviewed them; In turn, they suggested that I interview others. Much of the fieldwork consisted in accompanying the members of the Citizen Oversight Committee of TvdHFR, a group that identifies as defenders of the reserve, during their daily meetings and activities. I also attended 13 academic events, lectures, and debates between defenders of the North City project and opponents.

In my research, I approach the TvdHFR not as a finished object but as an ongoing process, a socio-natural hybrid (Swyngedouw 1996). In the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), hybrids are defined as the result of the association between human and non-human actors.

ANT is not the empty claim that objects do things 'instead' of human actors: it simply says that no science of the social can even begin if the question of who and what participates in the action is not first of all thoroughly explored, even though it might mean letting elements in which, for lack of a better term, we would call non-humans. This expression, like all the others chosen by ANT, is meaningless in itself. It does not designate a domain of reality. It does not designate little goblins with red hats acting at atomic levels, only that the analyst should be prepared to look in order to account for the durability and extension of any interaction. (Latour 2005: 84).

For example, Agreement 11, signed by the board of directors of the CAR for the creation of the TvdHFR, is the result of the association of multiple actors. These include the members of the Board of Directors, the scientists who worked on the diagnostic studies that supported the declaration and also between non-human actors such as Resolution 475 of 2000 by which the Ministry ordered the creation of the Forest Reserve, the lands that are part of the reserve, the ecosystems that connect the reserve, and even the paper on which the resolution was signed.

At the same time, the Agreement itself is an actor because it allows the CAR and the mayor's office to formulate ecological restoration projects, it limits the inhabitants of that area to build new homes, and it prohibits the mayor's office from building roads. Faced with this situation, all the actors took different courses of action, some of which will be discussed later.

After a brief introduction to Bogotá and the case study, my contribution focuses on the groups of actors involved in the controversy. I begin by narrating how the groups are formed, how they define themselves, which categories they use, and how these groups interact, or do not, with others. Then, I present the double strategy of the groups that defend the TvdHFR, consisting in both the use of existing participation instruments and in the creation of community activities, based on different types of knowledge, through which they not only claim their right to participate in decision-making but transform the territory. To finish, I summarize the main points and highlight the political nature of planning in both the practice of planning and in academic research.

#### **Context**

The city of Bogotá is the administrative and economic center of Colombia. Its total population is estimated to be over 6 million inhabitants. (DANE 2005)<sup>4</sup> It

<sup>4</sup> According to 2005 projections of the national census for 2018, the population would be approximately 8,181,047 people. However, the partial results of the current census, not yet consolidated, seem to indicate that the actual figure is lower than the projections by at least one million, as reported by the director of the National Department of Statistics (DANE) in November 7, 2018. Online: http://caracol.com.co/emisora/2018/11/08/ bogota/1541687381\_011296.html

is located in the Andean mountain range at an average height of 2,625 meters (8612.205 feet) above sea level, in a high plateau known as the Bogotá *Sabana*. This region is extremely rainy and includes numerous rivers, lagoons, streams, wetlands, and aquifers.

By the time Spaniards founded Bogotá in the 16th century, most of the area's population were indigenous Muiscas. The Muiscas considered water the origin of life. For this reason, several rituals related to planting calendars used to take place in rivers, lagoons, and wetlands (Correa 2005). They also created a sophisticated agricultural system based on the use of wetlands.

In an effort to control the lacustrine terrains peculiar to the *altiplano*, the Muisca constructed channels that allowed them to not only irrigate their fields but to fish, which contributed to their diet (Izquierdo 2008: 11).

During the colonial period (1537–1810), the Muiscas were secluded in reservations and their language and customs were banned. In 1850, in the early years of the Republic, reservations were dissolved and native people dispersed. Meanwhile, the rest of the region, especially to the north of Bogotá, was fragmented into large landholdings (*haciendas*) to produce grains and, more recently, to raise cattle. Most of this land was the property of the Catholic Church and traditional elites (Delgado 2010). Nowadays, Muisca people do not have a designated territory to live as a community and they are scattered throughout the city. Nevertheless, they are organized in two councils named *cabildos,* corresponding to the areas were indigenous colonial reservations used to be in Suba and Bosa, currently political-administrative districts of Bogotá.

Of the urbanization process in the following centuries, it can be said, in very general terms, that most of the *haciendas* were established towards the north of the city, where there were abundant wetlands and pastures. Meanwhile in the south, with drier characteristics and the presence of quarries, materials were extracted, and debris was deposited. These occupations and land use patterns were the basis of what, in time, constituted in the current pattern of segregation.<sup>5</sup>

The history of social movements in the city is consistent with the processes of urbanization and its relationship with the environment. It was in the north,

<sup>5</sup> The north of the city has a higher concentration of infrastructure, road systems, public services and families with higher incomes, whereas in the south, low-income families settled, many from other regions of the country (Thibert and Osorio 2014). This settlement occurred through both formal and informal mechanisms of fragmentation and land occupation, in many cases in places vulnerable to risks associated with pollution and floods (Valencia 2016: 31). For its part, the west is where the main industries were established due to proximity to the international airport. At the end of the twentieth century, this trend spread to neighboring municipalities (Thibert and Osorio 2014: 1329).

especially in Suba, that the organizations for the defense of the wetlands were born. In the south and west of the city, the first causes were access to housing and better living conditions and, only more recently, causes such as a healthy environment and nature preservation. Quimbayo Ruíz (2018) presents the history of environmental movements in Bogotá and highlights that there are marked differences between those in the north and south of the city and that the latter has had less visibility.

We could say that the history of the TvdHFR began in the year 2000, when during the elaboration of the Bogotá City Plan, there was disagreement between the city hall and the regional environmental authority (CAR) on the issue of urbanization versus conservation of the northern edge of the city, on the borders with the Chia and Cota municipalities. In order to overcome this conflict, through the resolution 475 of 2000<sup>6</sup> (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente 2000), the National Environment Ministry divided the area into two sectors for rural use, two sectors reserved for future urban expansion, one consolidated urban sector, and a corridor between the rural sector and the others. The Ministry also ordered the CAR to create a forest reserve in this corridor.

However, it was only after a decade of Ministry resolutions that the CAR's Board of Directors founded the Thomas van der Hammen Regional Productive Forest Reserve by Agreement 11 of 2011. It is an area of 1395 hectares; most of the land is privately owned, so the City Hall must negotiate with the owners of those areas potentially suitable for the creation of a forest from existing small tracts of native forest.

Since the beginning of the discussions, some groups have disagreed with the idea of this forest reserve, such as landowners, scholars, and planning consultants who assert that without the northern edge, there is not enough land for the urgent expansion of the city. Conversely, other landowners, scholars, environmental and popular organizations and NGOs have defended the reserve as an area of connectivity among different ecosystems such as primordial forests, wetlands, and the Bogotá river; they also laud it as a tool to protect the rural area still existent in the northern edge (Ardila 2003; Esteban and Rubiano 2017).

Despite the differences among these groups, and after two years of participative processes, the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) was formulated in 2014. The Plan (Agreement 21 of 2004 Board of Directors of CAR) aims to strengthen the ecological function of the TvdH Forest Reserve locally and regionally. It also establishes zones based on four principal uses, as seen in table 1:

<sup>6</sup> The mayor's office and the CAR presented objections to Resolution 475 of May 17, 2000, and on June 28, 2000, the Ministry reaffirmed the zoning through resolution 621 of 2000.


**Tab. 1:** Zoning of the TvdH Forest reserve

**Source:** Author based on Corporación Autónoma Regional (2014)

Due to being a productive forest reserve and the possibility of sustainable and high-density uses, there was no removal of residents of the area. However, the EMP (Corporación Autónoma Regional 2014: 4) ordered the exclusion of all activities irreconcilable with the ecological essence of the new protected area, such as industry and the cultivation of several floricultural crops.

#### **Current controversy and strategies to defend the TvdHFR**

In his 2016 inaugural address, Mayor Enrique Peñalosa declared his intention of launching a large building project called "North City," including new roads on the northern edge of the city (Peñalosa 2016). This proposal would entail modifying the TvdH Reserve's bylaws. When asked about what would happen to the Forest Reserve in the case of the execution of the North City project, he stated that the TvdHFR was just a project, not a reality. According to him, there was nothing special about the lands of forest reserve, and besides, those lands would be essential for planned urban growth (Tellez 2015).

The statements of the mayor coincide with the arguments of some of the groups that have opposed the implementation of the TvdHFR from the beginning. Among these groups are landowners in the reserve, a group of academics who are also advisors and officials of the mayor's office and two organizations, one in Suba and another in Usaquén. One of them, the "Neighbors' Association for the development of the Suba-Cota Road" (ASODESSCO), is an organization of residents and businesspeople created in 2006. According to one of its representatives and a resident of the area of the TvdHFR (Member of ASSODESCO, 29 November 2017. Interview number 30), the main concerns of the association are mobility and land-use zoning. The other organization is Torca Guaymaral Foundation, located in Usaquén. It offers environmental consulting, environmental planning, ecotourism, rural tourism, and agro-tourism services. On its website, it describes itself as "created by community initiative for the protection of the natural resources of the northern limit of Bogota. For this, it carries out activities focused on environmental education and the recovery of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems."7

As a spokesperson for those groups, the mayor asserted that urban growth is unavoidable. In the forum held in April 2016 at the *Universidad de los Andes* and on multiple other occasions,8 the mayor and his closest officials have stated that Bogotá is an extremely densely populated city that requires the use of northern edge lands to resolve housing and infrastructure deficits. From this perspective, the current limitations on urban sprawl, such as rural areas and the TvdHFR, could, in fact, facilitate the growth of informal settlements and lead to the displacement of the new population to nearby municipalities (Alcaldía de Bogotá 2016).

According to these groups, there are only two choices. On the one hand, there is the choice to maintain restrictions on urbanization, which would render new urban expansion illegal or displace it to nearby municipalities. On the other is the choice to modify the current planning regulation—at the expense of rural areas and the forest reserve—in order to allow legal and orderly urban expansion (Peñalosa 2016). When I asked a mayor's official about the second option, he asserted that a spontaneous urbanization process is already underway in the area, therefore, the TvdHFR is not a realistic project (City Hall's official, 2 October 2017. Interview number 18).

Several people have denounced these and similar statements, giving rise to controversy.9 In order to start the inquiry, I followed ANT guidance: "… begin from the simplest of all possible situations: when someone utters a statement, what happens when the others believe it or don't believe it" (Latour 2003: 22).


<sup>7</sup> http://fundaciontorcaguaymaral.com/

Thus, as soon as the controversy flared up, people in agreement with the mayor's positions, as well as people in disagreement, organized academic debates about the future of the TvdH reserve, wrote opinion articles in journals and gave interviews to radio and television stations; the controversy spread widely in social media. Consequently, new groups assembled. "As soon as this man [the mayor] came out and said the first thing he would like to do was to build there, I thought: No way, we must do something!" a TvdHFR defender said. (Member of the Citizen oversight committee of TvdHFR, 21 September 2017. Interview number 15).

As I witnessed during my fieldwork, some of those groups surrendered to the mayor's alternatives and abandoned the debate. Others endorsed the municipal administration's proposal or tried to negotiate a win-win solution, such as allowing the municipal administration to build new roads, but not the housing project. Others, particularly those who participated in the Forest Reserve EMP formulation and in implementation processes, assembled as TvdHFR defenders.

Despite agreeing that the TvdH Reserve is a reality and the city hall must implement the EMP respecting its bylaws, its defenders are not a homogenous group. Rather, there are different groups and individuals who congregate in specific moments to support each other's initiatives and respond to their opponents' declarations or city hall decisions. As Latour (2005) explains, social aggregates are the object of a performative definition. This is to say that actor groups only exist while acting (Latour 2005: 34). Thus, for example, the defenders of the reserve were only rendered a group by the possibility of the mayor changing or ending the reserve. Facing that risk, they joined forces and implemented strategies to defend it. If the group stops acting, it disappears.

In addition, groups are dynamic; new members join and others go on to join other groups, while some question their own group and others may even form new groups. Hence, I argue it is not possible to define the groups involved in the controversy as environmentalists, scholars, landowners, or any other category, because they can be representatives of many or none of those, and mainly because they do not use any particular label to define themselves.

Moreover, the confluence around the defense of the TvdHFR has nuances. While some groups insist the EMP must be implemented exclusively by City Hall and the CAR, others believe those institutions must implement the plan and also maintain a permanent dialogue with citizens. A last group considers the implementation of EMP citizens' work, too, so City hall and CAR must coordinate activities with all interested groups (not only with some stakeholders, arbitrarily defined), listen to their suggestions and allow them to develop some of the projects.

During the controversy, there were moments of intense discussion and public debate in the media. I call them "excitement waves," in which the defenders of different positions re-aggregated. These moments were followed by calm and no public declarations. For instance, in 2016, City Hall published a project called "*Lagos de Torca* City." This is a building project in a zone on the northern edge of the city scheduled for urban expansion, right next to the TvdHFR.

A group of neighbors and some members of the environmental organization of Suba, such as *Red Humedal Torca Guaymaral* and the Civil Oversight Committee of the TvdHFR, *Fundación Humedales de Bogotá*, met to study the project and wrote a letter to the mayor. In the letter, they expressed concern because *Lagos de Torca* proposed the creation of industrial zones within the corridor that would connect the TvdHFR and the mountains on the eastern edge of the city. They also requested a meeting with government officials to discuss the project's environmental implications (Red Humedal Torca Guaymaral et al. Letter to the Mayor. 23 Sep 2016).

The meeting took place in the *Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales* (UDCA), located in the TvdHFR. At the beginning of the meeting, members of the organizations presented the environmental education projects they had carried out in the northern border area and talked about their work with the previous mayor in the construction of an occupation model for that area. It was cordial until city officials declared the project was almost approved, so there was no possibility of changes. Meeting attendees questioned the officials for not taking into account the work that the organizations had been doing in the area for years.

The discussion became more heated until the city officials concluded the meeting by saying that they would think about the observations but could not promise they would be taken into account and that the activists should know that the meeting was not intended to conclude anything but to report on the project, since the only actors with whom they would make adjustments were the CAR officials. This attitude was described by the citizens as typical of the mayor's office, in addition to being arbitrary and an infringement on their right to participate (Fieldwork notes, 26 Sep 2016).

Within these excitement waves, every time the city government and its supporters acted, their opponents reacted. For instance, on another occasion, City Hall and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) invited bids for a project to justify the subtraction of some areas of the TvdH reserve in order to build roads. Defenders of the reserve, including members of Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Science; environmental organizations; and congressmen, congresswomen, aldermen, and alderwomen sent a letter signed by 100 people and addressed to UNDP. In the letter, they asked the UNDP "to refrain from helping the mayor destroy the Thomas van der Hammen Forest Reserve." The letter was also posted to Twitter and many people shared it with the hashtag: #UNDP support the reserve (#PNUD RespaldeLaReserva). As a result, the UNDP abstained from awarding the contract.<sup>10</sup>

Nonetheless, in between those "excitement waves," groups worked mainly to engage more members. For instance, from the time of its foundation and the EMP formulation, defenders of the TvdH reserve came in contact with new groups and individuals and created a Citizen Oversight Committee *(veeduría ciudadana)* in 2016. In Colombia, the formation of Citizen Oversight Committees is a democratic participation mechanism. It allows individuals or popular organizations to form volunteer associations to oversee the public management of public administrative, political, judicial, electoral, legislative, and enforcement entities. They can also oversee public or private organisms in charge of implementing programs or projects or the provision of contracts for public services.

In the beginning, this committee was composed mostly of women. Some of them had worked in government institutions or in social-environmental organizations focused on the northern edge of Bogotá. There were also a lawyer and a retired economist with experience as a member of other committees. The group also included a male lawyer who participated at the beginning of the Bogotá's environmental movement in the '90s and a young biologist, a member of three different social environmental organizations. More recently, new members arrived from several organizations. All have higher education and most of them are graduates and work within their fields; in the committee, there are lawyers, biologists, forestry engineers, an anthropologist, and a political scientist.

Besides being organized as a committee, they founded an alternative group named "Friends of the Oversight Committee of the TvdH Forest Reserve" for people, without distinction of age, gender or race, interested in getting involved in the defense of the Reserve activities and staying informed—but not in legal oversight issues. A member of the TvdHFR committee declared that "the group of friends of the committee increases its legitimacy and prevents it from being caught up in partisan politics" (18 September 2017. Interview number 14). Currently, in 2018, the group has 49 members, between the ages of 20 and 70, with a similar proportion between men and women; most of them have university degrees. Some are residents of the TvdH Forest Reserve or nearby areas, but most of them come from different parts of the city.<sup>11</sup>

<sup>11</sup> As explained by a member of the oversight committee in a personal communication on 22 Nov 2018.

<sup>10</sup> UNPD, Public declaration, 7 Nov 2016. http://www.co.undp.org/content/colombia/ es/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2016/11/07/comunicado-a-la-ciudadan-a. html?platform=hootsuite [accessed 18 Nov 2018].

Although the committee encourages people from the whole city to mobilize around the forest reserve defense, they make it clear that it is not only about convincing people and gaining supporters. Rather, the aim is to spread accurate information about what the forest reserve is and why it is important to Bogotá and its citizens. It is to offer strong arguments and let people decide if they want to join this battle or not (Member of the citizen oversight committee of TvdHFR, 17 Nov 2017. Interview 23).

#### **Strategies of the groups defending the Reserve TvdH**

During fieldwork, it became evident that the defenders of the reserve have resorted to means of action similar to those of other groups and actions in defense of the environment in Bogota. Authors such as Julio and Hernandez (2014, cited by Quimbayo Ruíz 2018) divide them according to the type of participation sought, as can be seen in table 2.


**Tab. 2:** Means of action of environmental organizations in Bogotá

**Source:** Quimbayo Ruíz 2018: 537, adapted and modified from Julio and Hernandez 2014.

However, based on what was observed in the case of the TvdH Reserve, I suggest that the means of action recognized by these authors as "other activities" deserve attention as a type of specific strategy, different from the use of the participation instruments recognized in the political Constitution (5 first rows of table 2).12 Those "other activities" (last row table 2) constitute a strategy to stake a claim for participation and also to transform the landscape and build links between it and citizens through the implementation of community activities in the conflict areas. In this specific case, these actions are related to the TvdHFR and the protected environmental areas of the north of the city. To illustrate this point, let's look at examples of each of these strategies.

#### a) *Use of participatory mechanism currently existing in legislation*

In April 2017, a group of twenty-one cycling organizations and the Citizen Oversight Committee for the Protection of the TvdHFR staged a protest on bicycles, cycling from the offices of the CAR to City Hall. According to the letter addressed to the mayor on that occasion, their demands were: 1) Respecting the legal act of the creation of the TvdHFR, 2) Implementing the EMP and allocating budgets to achieve its objectives, 3) Respecting administrative and judicial decisions, scientific studies, as well as citizen wishes to restore the Forest Reserve and make it a great park, preventing its urbanization. At the end of the letter, signed by ninety people, they wrote:

As citizens, we hope our voices will be heard during the process that you are leading, of reverting the Thomas van der Hammen Forest Reserve. We hope you guarantee wide and effective citizen participation through the entire process, as we certainly will demonstrate the TvdHFR is vital to the sustainable future of our city13 (Citizen Oversight Committee TvdHFR et al, letter to CAR and Mayor, 20 Apr 2017).

At City Hall, the North City project manager met the protesters' representatives and they agreed on a working schedule, which ultimately was never implemented.

#### b) *Community activities in the TvdH Reserve*

In 2016, in response to the Mayor's announcement of the North City building project, a young man created an event on Facebook calling citizens to plant trees in the TvdHFR. Around six hundred people planted three hundred and

<sup>13</sup> My translation.

<sup>12</sup> That also include marches and demonstrations (absent in the table).

fifty trees in public lands the municipal administration had bought in the 1990s to build an avenue.

One of the most amazing aspects of the first planting was people coming from all over the city. They came from Kennedy [south of the city] by bicycle bringing, their tools to plant. So, I think we are not few, as some people state, and we are defending the territory. We want a different city model. It does not mean we want to live just in green, but we want a more sustainable city, less aggressive, less conflictive. (Member of Sembradores de la van der Hammen. October 23, 2016. Interview number 7).

From this experience arose *Sembradores van der Hammen*, a group dedicated to planting trees and taking care of them in the TvdHFR.

There are a number of groups that have been in the area doing community activities for several years. That is the case of Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba, in association with the Communitarian Network for the Care of the *Conejera* Area. This is a group of neighbors in Suba that "endeavors to weave links of knowledge and protection around the ecosystems and its people"<sup>14</sup>. They promote several pedagogical activities around the environment, such as visits and conservation of the *Conejera* wetland and the *Salitrosa* stream. Since 2017, they have joined with the TvdHFR defenders and together they coordinate a series of activities including guided visits, trekking, workshops for kids, photography contests, meetings, knitting, singing, and communal workdays, named *mingas* when people volunteer to clean the stream and provide maintenance to the recently-planted trees.

Along with the Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba, the communitarian network and the citizen oversight committee, there are groups that promote the use of bicycles in the city. One of these groups, *Biciutopia,* organizes a course for cyclists interested in learning about Bogotá's environment and ecosystems. "The objective of the course is to use bicycles and ecosystems as environmental classrooms to create a sense of belonging to the territory" (Founding member of Biciutopia, 5 Sep 2017. Interview 10).

Events include music, painting, and performances. For instance, in 2017, there was a one-month art exhibition in a hotel in Bogotá. Nineteen volunteer artists exhibited their works of sensorial experience inspired by the biodiversity of the TvdHFR. "The exhibition hall was a pretext to explore their own

<sup>14</sup> According to their Facebook profile https://web.facebook.com/groups/510757649126 660/?\_rdc=1and\_rdr

understanding of nature and what it means to be part of a citizen movement," expressed one of the exhibition curators in her blog.<sup>15</sup>

The defenders of the TvdHFR do not limit themselves to complaining; they create links between people and territory. On several occasions, the reserve's defenders have affirmed that their activities aim to re-appropriate the territory, to create a sense of belonging. This is about kindling a connection between the people and the TvdHFR, because "people cannot defend something they do not know, something that does not belong to them, or to which they do not belong, either". (Member of communitarian Network for the Care of *La Conejera* Area during a visit to the *Humedal Torca-Guaymaral* wetland. Field notes, 12 Nov 2016).

Two examples of the TvdHFR defenders' practices illustrate the idea of creating links between people and territory. The first one refers to the activities of ecological restoration. Since 2017, *Sembradores van der Hammen*, the Citizen Oversight Committee, and the *Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba* have coordinated monthly plantings in association with several public schools. They planted and maintained hundreds of new native trees in the TvdHFR. Although the impact of these activities has not yet been evaluated, they have certainly and demonstrably modified the landscape, especially on the edges of the *Conejera* stream. Thus, ecological restoration events aim to activate ecosystems' connections between the mountains and the river and between ecosystems and people.

The second example is the recognition of the history of the territory and the appreciation of native knowledge and practices as a way to re-appropriate the land. As already mentioned, the indigenous Muiscas people do not have a designated territory to live as a community. They are scattered throughout the city and the mayor does not recognize them as stakeholders in the reserve dispute. In an interview with the author, a member of the Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba explained why they are involved in defending the TvdHFR:

The area where the TvdHFR currently is used to be marvelous. We had hot springs that disappeared because high roads fractured the mountain. Water used to flow to the surface on La Conejera hill. It was a sacred place. When a baby was born, parents used to offer the placenta, they buried it and planted a tree, and when the person died their tree became their essence on the earth. That is not possible these days. However, it is a place to connect us with those generations who got to do it. That is

<sup>15</sup> https://cvargastovar.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/somos-reserva-exposicion-ylaboratorio-de-creacion-de-la-reserva-thomas-van-der-hammen/

why we are here, we understand that place as the unity with what we are, our race, our origin; to lose it is to end what we are, what remains of us. (Member of Muisca Indigenous Council of Suba. 3 Oct 2016. Interview 4).

Usually, plantings in the TvdHFR start with participants standing in a circle. Granny Blanca, a Muisca woman, welcomes the participants and greets them in Muisca language (*Muysc-cubun*): "Good morning good men, good morning good women." While another native plays the drum, Blanca plays a maraca made of seeds and asks permission of the "grandparents" to start the work. This includes their ancestors as well as the territory: the mountain, the stream, the wetlands, and the trees. Then, participants sing and clap together. After this short ritual, a member of *Sembradores* explains how to recognize the tree species and how to proceed to plant. At the end of the work, they eat a traditional soup together and drink *chicha*, a beverage made of corn, made by Blanca and other volunteers.

In short, the double strategy enables the aggregation of more actors. According to one member of the citizen oversight committee, there are two visions in the group; one is rigorously linked to oversight and legal quarrels as a claim for the right to participate. The other vision is related to creative ways of fighting. Therefore, "we have to understand this is a diverse group and its strategies include everyone. We can demand the right to participate through a legal process, but we could also claim it through a puppet-show" (Member of the citizen oversight committee, 18 Sep 2017. Interview 14).

To develop these strategies, in the case of the citizen committee, they put together five working groups or commissions. Each member can be part of more than one commission. The commissions are not permanent but are activated as needed and work in collaboration. The legal commission is composed mainly of lawyers who are part of the committee. It is dedicated specifically to the activities of monitoring the execution of the EMP (oversight). The technical commission analyzes the planning and environmental issues regarding the TvdHFR and attends academic debates and events at universities. These two commissions work mainly on the first type of strategies, or better said, on the use of the participation mechanisms foreseen in the laws. However, the input created by the technical commission, such as maps, graphs, and articles, are used and disseminated by the other commissions in community activities.

The three remaining commissions are also composed of members of the group Friends of the Oversight. The pedagogical commission works to convey technical information to the public during community activities. They create pedagogical ways of disseminating information. For example, they conceived a game to teach children the species of trees and birds that live in the reserve. The communication commission is in charge of social media and advertising; they call on journalists and community media to publicize oversight activities. They also make a newsletter about the state of the discussion, which is sent via email to all people who have participated in their activities. The mobilization commission organizes community activities and is responsible for the logistics and coordination of events with other groups.

Through these strategies, defenders of the reserve have made their cause widely known in the city of Bogotá and beyond. For example, on the anniversary of Bogotá's foundation in 2017, *Sembradores van der Hammen* and the mobilization commission of the Civilian Oversight Committee collected a massive citizen's donation of native trees. According to organizers (Field notes, 1 August 2017), this activity aimed to highlight to the city government that there are citizens in favor of the forest reserve and they can be involved in the implementation of the EMP. The event took place at Bolivar Square, in front of the City Hall building.

The organizers wanted to hand the 2339 trees collected over to the Mayor or to a CAR officer, but neither of them attended the event. The city administration justified the mayor's absence by arguing that the trees may be sick and they need to be examined by experts before being accepted. Thus, *Sembradores van der Hammen* is taking care of the trees and promoting monthly plantings in the forest reserve.

During what I have called "excitement waves," the local and national media have aired debates and reports on the case. However, officials in the city hall planning departments still do not recognize them as interlocutors. For example, in its proposal to modify the TvdHFR, the mayor's office presented a list of stakeholders (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá 2018: 8–112), which excluded groups that have been working in the area for years and have demanded the right to participate in the process. This is the case of organizations such as the Communitarian Network for the Care of *La Conejera* and the *Red Humedal Torca Guaymaral.*

Neither were the members of the Muisca Indigenous Council included. Moreover, together with the request to modify the Reserve, the mayor's office presented a certificate from the Ministry of Home Affairs stating that there are no indigenous settlements within the area, so that decisions on the Reserve will not have to conform to the Cabildo.

This has not been an impediment to continuing the activities and creating links. For example, the oversight committee has joined with two other committees and is currently working to constitute a network of oversight committees for water and forest reserves of Bogotá. In addition, in recent months the groups of defenders of the TvdHFR have joined the *No le saque la piedra a la*  *montaña*<sup>16</sup> group, which works in defense of the *Cerro Seco*, a protected area to the south of the city that has been colloquially called "the van der Hammen of the south" (Quimbayo Ruíz 2018: 540).

#### **Final Thoughts**

In Bogotá, city planning practices manifest a conception of the urban element as a consolidated fact with some problems to be resolved through technical solutions, and not as a process made of social relationships nuanced by gender, race and class issues. Focusing on problem-solving, the mayor, as a spokesperson for groups that think like him, insists on ignoring the 20 years of controversies that led to the formation of the TvdHFR, the specificity of its ecological characteristics, the relationship of the Muiscas with the area, and the arguments of his own opponents.

The conception of planning as a technical and neutral production of knowledge poses obstacles to effective citizen participation in decision making. It rejects controversies and conflicts with the knowledge of those who disagree with the way in which planners formulate the problems of the city and with their proposals to solve them.

As such, planning practices become instruments of government and move away from the social production of the city. Castells referred to this situation when he criticized the "urban ideology" that understands planning as a "privileged instrument of social change, and the manipulation of constructed spaces and of flows of transport like means of constructing, according to the most beautiful ideas, and in a concrete and apolitical way, the future of men" (Castells 2008: 8).

In line with Castells' criticism, Ananya Roy (2016), questions planning that is not interested in understanding the social relations that generate the urban form. As an alternative, she invites us to create theories and practices that allow other kinds of thinking, especially of a relational type: "A concern with the relationship between place, knowledge, and power—a key insight of postcolonial critique—might make new practices of theory in urban studies possible" (Roy 2016: 200).

Given the need to question the planning models in Latin America, Farrés and Matarán (2014: 37) recommend exploring new urban epistemologies. This means recognizing citizen practices and knowledge outside of institutional,

<sup>16</sup> This name has a double meaning. It can be translated as "do not remove the stones of the mountain" and also as "Don't enrage the mountain."

technical, and academic settings. For this reason, it is essential to evaluate and highlight the innovative strategies of groups that challenge the "urban ideology." They are using different knowledge about the territory, the city, and the environment as a basis for the formulation and execution of their own projects as alternatives to the official plans.

The struggle for participation in the case of the TvdHFR shows the need to recognize the history of a territory where common goods were privatized, and its indigenous inhabitants expelled. That is, to reactivate connections between citizens and nature that country-city reduction caused. It implies an appreciation of the knowledge of groups who have worked in the territory and who have dreams and projects involving it. Lastly, it is a struggle related to reclaiming connections that have been interrupted between human and nonhuman actors. It is to bring back social relations, and therefore politics, to the fore of city planning debates and practices.

#### **Bibliography**


## **IV Protest and Resistance**

## 11 Protest in the Metropolis: Symbolism in play from the Queen's Pier conservation struggle to the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

*Liza Wing Man Kam*

#### **Prelude**

There seems to be a pattern in disordered moments: Authorities make controversial decisions which, despite ostensibly being for the public's benefit, are opposed by many; crowds from the ruled/suppressed populace, their voices not heard, begin to gather and sit-in—petitioning, singing, dancing, discussing, shouting slogans and occupying public spaces which are often heavily charged with history, meanings, memories and, political symbolism. Old sentiments and new unease amplify each other: the population's collective emotions grow ever stronger in their encounter with the monumental setting of these public spaces—until the point is reached when authorities decide that the demonstrators must be dispersed, often by means of tear gas, batons, plastic or even real bullets. From Taksim Square in Istanbul to Central in Hong Kong, a comparable pattern can be observed.

The Umbrella Movement<sup>1</sup> in 2014 brought Hong Kong into the spotlight and onto the international stage: the apparently peaceful and 'civilized' actions2 of Hongkongers astonished the world—for their level of calmness and the rarity of reports of physical conflicts. Some American lawmakers even nominated the three most prominent members of the movement (Joshua Wong, Lester Shum and Alex Chow) for the Nobel Peace prize in 2018 (Meixler 2018). While the proclaimed goal of the movement—universal suffrage for the election of the Chief Executive (the head of government of Hong Kong)—was not achieved, the knock-on effects from the 87-day movement continue to reverberate. One

<sup>1</sup> Although there were three major gathering places in the city during the movement— Central, Mongkok, and Causeway Bay, this paper will focus on Central.

<sup>2</sup> The protestors occupied the Central area of Hong Kong for nearly three months, during which they set up systems for recycling rubbish, and cleaning, ameliorating and even decorating the public toilets, as well as setting up facilities to share food, water, and books.

can observe this phenomena during the 2016 Legislative Council Election, for example, which registered the highest voter turnout in Hong Kong history3 , (Research Office, Legislative Council Secretariat 2017) and in the emergence of certain individuals within the political scene of Hong Kong, who became prominent after taking part in 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' actions during the Umbrella Movement and were subsequently elected as legislators.<sup>4</sup> (Haas 2017) Although the adherence to such a norm—being 'peaceful, rational and non-violent'—as the ultimate red line for popular actions had become controversial during the period of deadlock a few weeks into the Movement, for many Hongkongers, the 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' actions, also known as 'Wo-Lay-Fay,'<sup>5</sup> remains the normative boundary for social action. Such demonstrations have in fact been normalized and become an accepted model, especially for those Hongkongers born after 1960 who did not experience the vigorous anti-colonial riots and social actions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. If the only criterion for success is whether a declared demand receives a response, one might conclude that, overall, social actions in Hong Kong do not achieve much. When one considers the large number of social movements in the past fifteen years (in 2006, the movement to preserve colonial-era piers in Hong Kong from demolition; in 2010, to prevent the construction of a railway system which displaced farmers and destroyed farmland; in 2011, to liberalize television broadcast licensing procedures; in 2012, the Anti-'Moral and National Education' Protest to stop the next generation from being continuously imbued with the non-critical patriotic ideology towards China through a new curriculum; and in 2014, the Umbrella Movement to demand the right to vote for (or to be elected as) the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, they have all been essential for the Hong Kong population. After long years of colonization, Hongkongers have gradually become acquainted with a mode of understanding, caring, and then reacting to political decisions affecting their city—a city where political aloofness and ignorance have been considered normal since the colonial era.

<sup>3</sup> Voter turnout during the last three Legislative Council elections in Hong Kong in 2008, 2012 and 2016 was 45.20%, 53.05% and 58.28% respectively.

<sup>4</sup> Nonetheless, many of them, including Lau Siu Lai, Yau Wai Ching, Edward Yiu, Sixtus Leung and Nathan Law, were disqualified for various reasons after they were elected.

<sup>5</sup> 'Wo-Lay-Fay' is a short form of the Cantonese transliteration of 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' in Chinese. It is 'wo-ping, lay-sing, fay-bo-lik' in its full form.

#### **About Hong Kong: Colonisation, post-(neo-) colonialization, political aloofness and the 'Lion Rock Spirit'**

Ceded to the British Empire in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanjing after the Qing Government of the 'Middle Kingdom'<sup>6</sup> lost the Opium War, Hong Kong remained a British colony for 155 years, until 1997. The complicated and entangled history of Hong Kong has been obscured by the popular, late-colonial era narrative of Hong Kong as the fishing village turned the top-five largest stock market in the world. This narrative attributed Hong Kong's economic success to its peace and stability since the 1970s, rather than to any long-term effects brought about by social movements and rioting. These movements and riots were, however, crucial, emerging at the beginning of the 1970s to force the colonial government to react by implementing those welfare policies which paved the way for the stable society to come. If one were to place extreme nationalism and complete detachment from a national identity (identifying as neither British, Chinese, nor Hongkonger) at opposite ends of a spectrum, the British colonial authority rigidly pushed the Hong Kong colonial subject toward the latter through a comprehensive inculcation of simplified narratives. Hong Kong's colonial educational philosophy was crucial both to the engineering of this identity and to the creation of its political climate and thus its societal developments. For example, two school subjects, Chinese History and World History, were designed to familiarize the local population with Chinese Dynastic history and the much more distant Western history (Kan and Vickers 2002: 76). Despite giving the impression that colonial children were thereby appropriately prepared to fully develop their intellectual curiosity, such teaching of history, in fact, created an enormous gap into which local history was unceremoniously dropped. By instilling only historical knowledge to which pupils were unable to relate to, and then imbuing them with the detrimental ideology of 'study hard, do well in examinations, get a good job, earn good money and don't complain'—colonially educated pupils gradually fit themselves into a social model which Theodor Adorno has referred to as "what society would like to hear: a perception that all men are alike." (Adorno et al. 2002: 79) Such an oversimplified narrative of Hong Kong's history disregards the values developed by both the colonial authority and the population in response to waves of social movements during the turbulent but subsequently obscured 1970s: the importance of equality between different social classes and of a society free of corruption. The grand narrative nonetheless proved effective during and even after colonization, as a means of cultivating and sustaining

<sup>6</sup> The literal meaning of 'China' in the Chinese language is 'Middle Kingdom.'

a homogenous population which carries, as Durkheim calls it, "the essential similarities that collective life demands." (Durkheim 1956: 70) A degree of homogeneity was perceived by colonial (and post-colonial) authorities as necessary in order to redirect the colonized population toward developing the economy, away from local history and any reflection on the rules and demands made by the authorities. Such meticulous social engineering cultivated a politically detached population, as well as a political system with very low popular participation. During the colonial era, Hongkongers lived in a bubble of vibrant neon lights and material wealth in a seemingly peaceful, prosperous society with high stability. The common perception was that political awareness was not essential since the government provided everything for the population. In the 1980s, as the colonial population gained greater access to education, the colonial authority encouraged a slow but increasing participation in politics. Nonetheless, five years before the end of colonial rule, Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong, finally paved the way for Hong Kong to elect its own Legislative Council (equivalent to a parliament) with universal suffrage. As the Chinese government deeply opposed the idea, the first directly-elected Legislative Councillors only maintained their seats until 30 June 1997—Hong Kong's last day as a British colony.

The post-colonial Hong Kong authority actively hijacked this engineered political aloofness and took it to the next level. Since 2003, continual neglect of popular opinions alongside the heavy-handed imposition of new policies has become the norm. The focus here is the period between 2006 and 2014, during which several remarkable social actions took place. The particularity of these actions was not in the number of participants involved, nor in the actual effect these actions brought about in terms of policy changes, but in the new forms of protest which deviated from the 1970s precedent of sit-ins and hunger strikes. These new forms of actions were highly symbolic, creative and developed in response to the public spaces in which these actions took place, which were charged with a political symbolism endowed by the British colonial authority. These symbolic actions marked a change in the attitude of, if not all, then at least part of the Hong Kong populace in relation to political participation, civic awareness, and identity. In the following sections, I will narrate the stories of three actions (preserving the colonial piers, the Anti-Express Railway actions, and the Umbrella Movement) in order to demonstrate how one evolved to the next. I will then discuss the various political symbols at play: the 'enunciation of powers (of the colonials and the colonised)' and the 'Lion Rock Spirit'—which were revisited by Hongkongers during the campaign to preserve the piers and the Umbrella Movement — their manipulation/interpretation before and during the movements by both the (post-)colonial authority and social activists. I will use Henri Lefebvre's ideas on the three 'productions of space' and Rebecca E. Klatch's categorizations of the different interpretations and functions of political symbolism to analyze the effects of these political symbols on Hong Kong society in the post-colonial era.

#### **Attracting the Apolitical Crowd: Playing with the internalised 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' attitude and disguising political motives as 'art'<sup>7</sup>**

The Star Ferry Pier and the Queen's Pier were built in the 1950s by the British colonial administration —together with City Hall, a cenotaph and Edinburgh Place, they played an important role during the colonial era as the infrastructure for colonial ceremonies. The campaign to stop the demolition of both Piers in 2006 and 2007 became the 'moment of detonation' during which the population of Hong Kong evolved away from existing modes of protest from the colonial era. Accustomed to the importance of maintaining the legality of any actions, Hongkongers, even those sufficiently motivated to take part in social actions, had previously limited their actions to sit-ins, signing petitions, candlelight vigils, marches or (at most) hunger strikes. Since the Piers campaign, certain social activists began to question the idea of 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' as the bottom line for taking action.

As a society in which obeying the rules has been the norm since the colonial era, the subtle, gentle and polite actions involved in the Piers campaign were ineffective in achieving their proclaimed goals: Both piers were ultimately demolished. Nevertheless, these actions were essential in the development of a certain level of civic awareness as it moved from the colonial to the supposedly post-colonial era (Kam 2015; Kam 2017). Over the course of the campaign, the mainly passive 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' actions—sit-ins, singing, shouting slogans—were transformed into direct actions. In an interview conducted in 2010, one of my informants stated that their actions were meticulously designed to "affect" politically aloof fellow Hongkongers.

In order to understand the link (or the lack thereof) between people's memories of the two piers and the reactions engaged in by the protestors instigated by their regret at the loss of their sites of memory, I conducted two sets of narrative interviews in 2010 and 2011 with informants from two age groups. The elder group consisted of five male and one female, ranging in age from 48 to 72 years old, while the younger group consisted of three male aged 30 to 32. Among the elder group, all my informants considered the two piers as a favorable quotidian space, with some referring to it as a landmark at which to gather, recalling memories of their youth. Although they expressed their deep regrets and unease over the loss of the piers, only one of the six initiated and took part in some kind of action in 2006 and 2007 to stop the piers from being demolished. His actions remained limited to his personal bottom line of being 'peaceful, rational and non-violent.' (Yu 2010) However, the younger informants, despite having less of an emotional attachment to the two piers as other landmarks have subsequently been built for them to meet their friends, have played important roles in social actions to conserve the piers. Their unease about their continued powerlessness pushed these young people to act. They began to engage in social activism during the campaign to protect the piers, increasing their involvement in each subsequent protest. The social actions which these young activists designed to replace the passive sit-ins were characterized by a thoughtful embedding of political symbols into public spaces, which countered/echoed/played with the political symbolism promoted during the colonial era (Kam 2015).

#### **The Colonial Piers versus the People's Pier**

Situated in one of the most prominent locations in Central Hong Kong, next to the second tallest skyscraper in the city, the International Financial Centre (IFC), Star Ferry Pier, Queen's Pier, Edinburgh Place and City Hall formed a spatial complex which was commonly perceived as prominent colonial infrastructure before its dismantling in 2007. During the colonial era, Queen's Pier was the site where colonial Governors disembarked from the Royal Yacht to assume their governorship, before proceeding to Edinburgh Place to be greeted by the colonial Guard of Honour, then onto City Hall for the inauguration ceremony. Henri Lefebvre defined three 'productions of space' spatial practice (perceived space), representation of space (conceived space) and representational space (lived space). Lefebvre delineates that perceived space is affirmed, presumed, steadily produced, controlled and appropriated by society. Conceived space is designed and produced by planners, designers and architects all referring to different understandings, ideologies and knowledge bases. Lived space is dynamic, alive and interwoven with traces of passion, actions and lived situations (Lefebvre 1991). If one considers the first two 'productions of space'— perceived space and conceived space, the piers were indeed highly symbolic spaces heavily charged with Hong Kong's colonial past. On the surface, a proposal from the post-colonial authority to remove the colonial spatial complex might have 'decolonized' Hong Kong. However, if the third 'production of space'—the lived space— is considered, simply removing the pier where British colonizers previously disembarked would not represent decolonization. Edinburgh Place, a site which held memories for all my older informants, also hosted an early wave of social movements during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These social movements, which included demands to include Chinese as one of Hong Kong's two official languages (together with English), and the opposition to Star Ferry's fare increase (Ngo 1999), were primarily directed against the repression of the colonial government and the monopolized public services. According to Ngo, this social unrest sowed the seeds of later societal developments in Hong Kong. In response to the riot in 1967<sup>8</sup> (which has been perceived as a chain-reaction to the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China), and to other actions in the 1970s directing against the regime's suppression, the colonial authority established the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in 1974. Over the course of the last 30 years, the organization fulfilled its mandate and made Hong Kong into one of the polities in the world which are perceived to be the least corrupt. 9 (Transparency International 2018) The Chinese language was elevated from its formerly subordinate position to become an official language by the colonial authority in the 1970s. Discussion on monopoly after the Star Ferry fare Topping-up Unrest in 1967 (Ngo 1999) was also initiated soon after the unrest. These historical events remained unknown to the colonial population, as the colonial government attempted to obscure Hong Kong's history through its control over the history curriculum; as such, the Hong Kong populace remained ignorant of earlier forms of colonial repression, and of the anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s to 1970s. Since this information was already not available in classrooms, losing the piers meant an ultimate loss of a 'lieu de mémoire' (Nora 1989) and a physical reference which could have served as evidence to support the narratives passed on by individuals, as part of their more personal forms of history.

When the citizens of Hong Kong discovered that their piers were to be demolished, many of them rushed to pay a final visit and take photos. Some of them, including (as previously mentioned) one of my six older informants, took actions such as sit-ins, singing, and exhibitions meant to inform the public as

<sup>8</sup> For more on the 1967 Riot in Hong Kong and its relation to the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China. Christine Loh wrote a book titled 'Underground Front—the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong' published by Hong Kong University Press in 2010.

<sup>9</sup> From the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) which is published every year by the Transparency International (TI)—The Global Coalition against Corruption. In 2014, Hong Kong was ranked 17th in the world and Denmark ranked no. 1. Japan and Singapore are the other two Asian polities ranked higher than Hong Kong.

to the government plans for the piers. Despite numerous sit-ins, hunger-strikes, and protests, the Star Ferry Pier was demolished in 2006, a few months earlier than the Queen's Pier.

Chow, one of the three informants in my interviews in the younger group, became involved in the movement to preserve the Queen's Pier solely because of his sense of powerlessness as a citizen of Hong Kong. To Chow, previous actions by his fellow Hongkongers—such as paying a final visit, signing a petition (which ultimately garnered 500,000 signatures) demanding that authorities maintain the piers, and taking a 'last photo'—were pathetic and bewildering. He posed a simple question— 'if there were so many people wishing for the piers to stay, why was it impossible to stop them from being demolished? Why was everybody so saturated with this sense of powerlessness?' As a university lecturer and a farmer, Chow was one of the so-called 'radical youths' who climbed onto bulldozer in an attempt to stop the demolition of the Star Ferry Pier's clock tower. He believed that only direct action could answer his simple question.

After the Star Ferry Pier was demolished in 2006, Chow focused on protecting the adjacent Queen's Pier, which was nonetheless demolished a few months later. He and his group, the so-called Post-80s (a name given to them by the media, in response to the fact that this group of activists was mostly born after the 1980s), rented a boat, named it 'Local,' and invited one hundred people from what Chow defined as the "under-represented"10' groups to board (Chow 2010). The boat docked at the Queen's Pier, which had been decorated with flags for the planned disembarkation ceremony, in order to imitate the colonial ceremony of the Royal family and the colonial governors' arrival in Hong Kong. Chow referred to the disembarkation ceremony as a "metaphorical display." As mentioned previously, in the past, the arrival of colonial governors at the colony and their procession through Edinburgh Place to the inauguration ceremony was highly ceremonial and involved a review of the Honour Guard. Bernard Cohn considers such ceremonial events 'theatrical displays' conducted by European colonizers around the world to manifest their power (Cohn 1996: 3). Drawing on Cohn, Chow and his group's 'metaphorical display' was designed to counter the political symbolism of the Queen's Pier established since the colonial era and to 'decolonise' it, as their action converted the ostensible colonial space of Queen's Pier into space for the people, which even the most disadvantaged groups could reclaim as a site for the enunciation of their power. Now, in the post-colonial era, not only the Queen and the colonial governors

<sup>10</sup> As defined by Chow, these individuals were underrepresented because they came from immigrant backgrounds, families with low income, ethnic minority groups and the like.

can disembark at the Queen's Pier, everyone else is able to participate in a kind of ceremony and be welcomed there.

During this time, Chow's group and their actions aspired to question those assumptions and those limits which had been internalized by the recent, if not yet fully, decolonized Hong Kong populace. While Hongkongers were still rooted in the culture of 'peaceful, rational and non-violent,' that attitude would subsequently be utilized and modified by the group for their later actions during the Anti-Express Rail campaign in 2010, allowing new modes of demonstration to emerge.

#### **Ascetic Actions during the Anti-Express Rail Campaign: reconceptualizing 'our land, our city'**

Having gained a great deal of the momentum while defending the two piers, the Post-80s group continued to observe the government and its decisions pertaining to land development and planning. The group responded by conceptualizing and realizing site-specific actions to demonstrate against the decisions that they found unjust. First questioning and then actively spurning the ingrained 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' attitude, the group nevertheless understood that much Hong Kong's population still favored the approach, which was reflected in their experiences during the two Piers campaign. The group planned actions which played with this limit. Their actions were perceived at the time by the public as cutting-edge, strange, and at times radical. The next action conducted by the group was their protest against the construction of the Express Railway in 2010.<sup>11</sup>

The actions were designed and took place in 2010 and were aimed at drawing the crowd's attention in order to affect them, according to Chow. The idea of 'asceticism' was developed as a means to draw sympathy from a public who

<sup>11</sup> The Railway's proclaimed goal was to connect Hong Kong to Mainland China, but the journey's duration would only have been ten minutes shorter than the same trip on the existing railway system, but at a cost of over 6.5 billion euro and the eviction of farmers from already scarce farmland. Furthermore, since the two cities connected (Shengzhen and Hong Kong) must maintain independent legal and policing autonomy (according to the Basic Law), it is impossible to further shorten the train journey because of the necessity of maintaining custom procedures on both sides. Chu Hoi Dick, a current Legislator, pointed out in 2010, that the political intention was for the Chinese to be able to transport the communist army and supplies such as tanks from the Mainland to Hong Kong, in response to the emergence of 'Hong Kong independence'. The project was approved with more than half the legislators voting yes.

believed firmly in peaceful and non-violent actions. Cheng12 played drums to set the rhythm during an ascetic parade/body movement performance in which 400 young people participated. Dressed in black, they walked through five districts, covering 26 km every day for four days, to symbolize the 26 km-length of the railway segment within Hong Kong territory. The ascetic walk, with drumbeats in the background, attracted pedestrians' attention and was meant to invite ad-hoc participation. On the last day, the parade circled the former Legislative Council building. The parade participants kneeled down after each set of 26 steps and sowed seeds on the asphalt. Some of the participants had their jeans/stockings rubbed off at the knee from the continual kneeling. Their intention was to remind the audience, as well as the participants, of the possibilities that were available on the land of Hong Kong through a symbolic seed sowing onto the asphalt roads in the Central area of Hong Kong, surrounded (and trapped) by skyscrapers (Cheng 2010): the reified manifestation of their enslavement under capitalism.

#### **Umbrella Movement: What was it and why did it happen?**

Currently, the head of the Hong Kong Government, the Chief Executive (CE), is elected by 1200 committee members every five years. According to Article 45, Chapter 4 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong,13 "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures." (Hong Kong Government n.d.) During the summer of 2014, Hongkongers were convinced that they should be entitled to individually vote for the Chief Executive in the next election scheduled for 2017 and that every qualified Hongkonger, irrespective of their political beliefs, should be entitled to stand for elections themselves.

In August 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing notionally implemented universal suffrage in Hong Kong, in time for the next Chief Executive election.

<sup>12</sup> Another informant from the younger group of interviewees. Cheng was a secondary school teacher who became involved in social actions during the Anti-Express Railway campaign.

<sup>13</sup> The Basic Law of Hong Kong is the constitutional document of Hong Kong as agreed by the Sino-British Joint Declaration— an agreement signed between Peking and London in 1984. The method of electing the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE) has not changed much since the handover in 1997, apart from the number of Election committee members, which has increased from 800 to 1200 since 2010.

This universality, however, is subject to additional conditions, highly restricted and to a large degree redefining the term itself. According to the Standing Committee's decision on the 31 August 2014 on the method of selecting the CE, candidates running for election as CE in Hong Kong must be supported by more than half of the 1200 electoral committee members. These 1200 members are "mostly pro-Beijing business people. That means the CE is accountable not to the people but to a small circle of individuals who have handpicked him or her. Instead of protecting [the people's interests], he or she takes direct orders from Beijing and has a vested interest in protecting the undemocratic electoral system by indefinitely delaying the promise of universal suffrage." (Wong 2017: 146) Furthermore, candidates qualified to run for election as CE are pre-screened by the Mainland Chinese government for their "love of China and love of Hong Kong."<sup>14</sup> By September 2014, university students and secondary school pupils went on strike in response to their understanding of the criteria as random, unscientific, ambiguous and unjust. The strike was followed by gatherings around the open space at the Tamar Government Headquarters. The complex, situating near the coastal area of Central/ Admiralty, is in walking distance to Edinburgh Place and the former Queen's Pier complex. The architectural complex had been planned by the architect Rocco Yim, who conceptualized the area as "door always open, sky always blue, land always green and people always connect," (Arch Daily 2014) in an attempt to project an open-minded, non-hierarchical and approachable image of the post-colonial authority. Nonetheless, the complex, with more than two hectares of green space dedicated to public use, backfired for the authority. Expecting everyday users to harmoniously enjoy the green space, the premise was finally besieged on 26 September 2014. The crowd, composed mainly of university students and staff, was astonished, shocked and angry after 87 tear gas bombs were thrown on them on the 28 September 2014; to support this crowd and show solidarity, further hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens rushed on the streets and occupied the Central area of Hong Kong in a non-violent manner. The curtains were pulled aside, and the stage for the world-renowned Umbrella Movement, also known as the Umbrella Revolution, was set. During the nearly three months of the movement, and despite the two or three calls for an escalation, which resulted damage to one window pane in the Legislative Council,

<sup>14</sup> For more of the details of the development of the political reformation took place, please refer to: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/22/hong-kong-chiefexecutive-election-what-you-need-to-know [accessed 28 Dec 2019] and Davis, Michael C. 'Screening is not the way to 'love China, love Hong Kong'. https://www. scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1215483/screening-not-way-love-china-love-hongkong [accessed 11 Dec 2019].

demonstrators shared their food, drink, first-aid kits, tents, books, expertise, artwork and other essentials among themselves, at times even sharing with the police and counter-demonstrators. The protestors recycled rubbish and cleaned up after themselves and others—a reflection of their wishes for Hong Kong society. During the 87 days of the demonstration, much artwork, many ideals, and much creativity were generated and displayed. Individuals, accustomed since the colonial era in Hong Kong to being viewed as a homogeneous crowd, wished to display themselves and their talents, not just their political beliefs: protesters designed and manufactured small items of jewellery and gave them away to other demonstrators as souvenirs;15 carpenters combined their inclination and craftsmanship to set up study area for the students who were on strike to allow them to continue studying in the occupied zone; university professors and lecturers who organized teach-ins in order to share their lectures with a broader audience; restaurant owners who could not participate in the demonstration but sent hundreds of lunch/dinner boxes and goodie bags to support the demonstrators. The formerly colonized population became "a public," as Warner defines it—"self-organised, a relation among strangers, the social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse, poetic world making." (Warner 2002: 50) In contrast to the hierarchical reality—which simultaneously reflected tensions between authority figures and the public, between (post)colonisers and (post)colonials, between the police and demonstrators while remaining homogenous (as a society that cultivates hard-working politically unaware bureaucrats), the demonstrators attempted to break through ingrained norms and construct a temporary space wherein they organized among themselves to reflect 'the Hong Kong' that they wish to create. No matter how precisely the space they occupied (the highways, the roads, the squares and circulation paths connected to the Government Headquarters) had been planned within the spatial codes and conceptualizations of previous authorities (in line with Lefebvre's three productions of space), for 87 days, the public marked these spatial codes with their own passion and lived experience.

<sup>15</sup> Over the almost three months of sitting-in and camping in the area, many demonstrators founded communities and networks. Two examples: Made in Hong Kong: bracelets for the Real Universal Suffrage: https://www.facebook.com/ub928hk/ and Umbrella Leather Workshop: https://www.facebook.com/遮打皮工場-Umbrella-Leather-Workshop-747998155276248/ [accessed 28 Jun 2018]. They no longer distribute jewelry, but their Facebook pages reflects a continued engagement with on the political situations in Hong Kong.

#### **Symbolism in play: The Lion Rock and 'the Lion Rock Spirit'**

After several weeks, the Movement become deadlocked: Many demonstrators were still camping in the area, but during the day, large numbers needed to return to work. As the government avoided meeting with student leaders, the crowd became confused and spirits sank. In this atmosphere of fear, hope, and doubt, on the twenty-sixth day of the occupation, an enormous yellow flag painted with the umbrella symbol of the movement and the slogan "I want real universal suffrage" appeared on the Lion Rock, a hill situated in the Eastern part of Kowloon peninsula in Hong Kong whose form resembles a crouching lion. The flag was so large that it was clearly visible from many locations in Kowloon.

In his work, the journalist K.L. Au defines the 'Lion Rock Spirit' by recalling the TV drama series 'Under the Lion Rock,' which was produced in the 1970s by the RTHK<sup>16</sup> when Hong Kong was a city of immigrants, welcoming refugees escaping the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China. The drama narrated the stories of the normal Hongkongers: working hard, sparing no effort, struggling, but remaining positive and optimistic, never complaining, believing in their own ability to change their destiny with their bare hands, even in a Hong Kong society that suffered from a great deal of poverty and distress. Au notes that the TV series narrated the stories of refugees from Mainland China who gradually settled down in Hong Kong, and thereby reflected the colonial government's agenda of keeping the focus on colonials' hard work and productivity. Au discusses how the symbolism of 'Lion Rock Spirit' is used by the authority as a 'catalyst' to continuously hypnotize the Hong Kong populace into remaining hardworking and behaving as economic animals. According to Au, no 'Lion Rock Spirit' as such was articulated during the late colonial period. Only in 2002, when the economic situation in Hong Kong was deeply affected by the financial crisis and the bursting of the dotcom-bubble, did then Chief Financial Secretary K.C. Leong attempt to boost the spirit of the Hong Kong population by singing the theme song of the TV drama while presenting his annual budget report at the Legislative Council meeting (Au 2014: 192). From then on a 'Lion Rock Spirit' began to be constructed and articulated. In Au's view, although the 'spirit' can be understood as the collective memory of a certain generation, the way in which the 'spirit'—or as I argue here, the symbolism—has subsequently been articulated by the post-colonial authorities (including the government, the media and employers who rely on this longstanding internalised self-enslavement to encourage employees to actively

<sup>16</sup> The RTHK, Radio and Television Hong Kong is a public broadcasting service organisation directly funded and managed by the Hong Kong Government since 1928

exploit themselves) (Petroff 2015), points more to a form of manipulation than an integration of the idea, as was the case when the ideal was first introduced to help construct a harmonious society with hardworking and compliant old and new citizens. He denotes that the 'Lion Rock Spirit' must be reinterpreted as Hong Kong society proceeds toward a post-materialistic stage where citizens are motivated by the 'dignity of citizens,' a change brought about by fair universal suffrage (Au 2014: 191–193).

#### **Political Symbolisms: integration or manipulation?**

The sociologist R.E. Klatch argues that there are two traditions within the interpretation of political symbols: meanings and masters. The meanings tradition, according to Klatch, emphasizes the crucial positive functions political symbolism play in society by "creating social solidarity or providing orientation for individuals." (Klatch 1988: 137,139) The masters' tradition, however, stresses the manipulative function of political symbolism as it exerts control over populations. Within symbols as meanings, Klatch indicates that symbols can bring about solidarity and serve as orientation. Drawing from the work of Durkheim, Klatch notes that symbols are "collective representations of group life" (Klatch 1988: 139) which, when honored, reflect the society that is being upheld. Symbols exert a connective power which binds people together in an entity and creates solidarity. The value of symbols and symbolic actions, as Klatch observes in Warner's work on wearing poppies on Memorial Day, is that people are taken out of the secular world of their quotidian life to affirm certain beliefs in the political system (Warner 1959). Symbols, within this interpretation, are perceived as essential to political mobilization as they create badges of identity which are inescapable for achieving harmony out of individual interest (Klatch 1988: 140). Klatch also discusses how political symbols can function as masters which manipulate: Symbols can be weapons of class conflict, deployed as tools by authorities to maintain class control (Klatch 1988: 142). She describes how the US government justified its foreign policies by advertising them as symbols of "fighting a communist menace" or "an evil empire" or acting in "defence of the Free World," whereas, in reality, the existed to protect or even further the economic interests of the capitalists (Klatch 1988: 142,143).17 Klatch underlines that political symbols cannot be interpreted from only one perspective. She contends that, while the meanings

<sup>17</sup> Klatch's work covers a broad range of interpretations on symbolisms. I limit to what could contribute to the discussions on the Hong Kong social movements.

tradition underestimates and ignores conflict and power, the master's tradition, by viewing political symbols as solely manipulative, overlooks how they can provoke actions in resistance to domination. As such, symbols should be viewed as both "integrative and manipulative" and that they should be recognized as "acting as both Meanings and Masters." (Klatch 1988: 146)

Looking at the 'Lion Rock Spirit' in Hong Kong, Au (2014: 192) argues that the symbolic action of hanging the flag with the Yellow Umbrella and the slogan 'I want real universal suffrage' reflects the public's momentary victory in the symbolic battle with the authority. Following Klatch, the claim for the right to articulate the so-called 'Lion Rock Spirit' has been a wrestling match between the post-colonial authority and the public. The authorities intend to maintain the colonial motto and continue to impose the image of a 'hard-working, restrained and enduring' population onto the current populace of Hong Kong. Countering this expression of political symbolism, the demonstrators of the Umbrella Movement and the activists who climbed up the almost 500-meter-high rock face of Lion Rock to hang up that flag demonstrated the same level of endurance as the 'spirit' advocates to announce their persistence in struggling for real universal suffrage. In the previous decade, the Hong Kong Government relied on a frequent reiteration of the "spirit under the Lion Rock" motto to maintain Hongkongers' complacency. In so doing, they overlooked the much-advertised Lion Rock Spirit's ability to also integrate citizens and create solidarity. During the Umbrella Movement, the actions of the demonstrators, including setting up the 'Tamar Village' in the occupied zone in Central, where 'villagers' shared everything, was built on a reinterpretation of the symbolism borne by the Lion Rock spirit. Au argues that the 'symbolic power' of this spirit was the only means available to Hongkongers to bring popular sentiment onto their side. The symbolism of umbrellas—normal, utilitarian objects used during harmless rainy days—was amplified and scaled up, creating a simultaneously trivial yet powerful everyday object that unarmed citizens could use to protect themselves from pepper spray attacks and from the structural and political violence of state action. Every move and artefact created during the movement was imbued with symbolism suggesting reflection and a reinterpretation of ideals. In 2014, many different kinds of artistic creations and many acts of sharing displayed the new articulation of the 'Lion Rock Spirit' in Hong Kong.

#### **Bottom-up: Getting Closer to Real Democracy**

The bottom-up approach of most activities and actions during the Umbrella Movement differed from those engaged in during the anti-express rail and the Queen's Pier preservation campaigns: the activities, artwork, and discussions were more spontaneous and less organized by singular larger groups such as the Post-80s Group. Forums of different sizes, hosted by outspoken protestors irrespective of their educational level, spread across the area of occupation on a daily basis. Despite the presence of various pan-democratic political parties and their celebrity leaders, the Umbrella Movement was not organized or led by any single institution. After university students and school pupils gathered in the same area for a few days, carpenters who were also part of the protest built up a 'study zone' for them, with wooden desks, chairs, and lamps. Independent musicians, such as the Bananaooyoo, played for the occupiers at the exit of the Metro station. Painters and artists left their studios and set up their canvases in the occupied zone and created artworks that spoke to the Umbrella Movement. Actions were self-initiated and ad-hoc, as often narrated: it blossomed everywhere.

#### **'Internal Trouble and Outside Aggression': Breaking Through the Colonial Legacy**

Popular opinions diverged throughout the Umbrella Movement—not only among participants in the movement who believed in self-organization but among citizens not aligned with the movement. Some Hongkongers, for example those living at the Mid-levels (the upscale residential area close to the occupied area in Central) whose commute to work and school runs through the blocked roads, considered the movement destructive, obstructing them to make a living. This tension tore Hong Kong society apart: Some assumed that the movement would never produce tangible results, especially since the Chief Executive was still to be elected by the 1200 members of the Election Committee.

During the protests, individuals identified their position in the Umbrella Movement with different ribbons colors: Yellow ribbons had been distributed to participants in the early stage of student strike before the Umbrella Movement began. Yellow subsequently remained the color of the movement. Those who opposed the Umbrella Movement—because their daily routine was affected by the road blockage, because they thought the actions were illegal, or because they enjoyed the vested interest brought to them by a non-democratic political system—wore blue ribbons. The blue color seems to have been a random choice. The yellow-ribbons advocated for a reflection on the rules and instructions from Beijing, believing that a turn away from colonial legacies was required and that Hongkongers should stop merely listening to orders from Beijing, but question them. Nonetheless, even within the yellow-ribbons, there were many disagreements about how certain actions should be escalated, or not.

Despite its antagonistic nature, the articulation of different opinions, either within the Umbrella Movement or in Hong Kong as a whole, was essential for the further dismantling—after the two piers' demolition—of the colonial model of education, which cultivated a politically aloof populace with homogeneous views and weak civic awareness. Both the colonial motto, 'Peaceful, rational and non-violent,' hijacked by the post-colonial authority who continued to instill it in Hongkongers, and the symbolism endowed by the 'Lion Rock Spirit' were questioned and challenged by the Umbrella Movement. As Durkheim states, "Society can only exist if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity. Education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the beginning, the essential similarities that collective life demands." (Durkheim 1956: 70)

During the colonial era, a sufficient degree of homogeneity was deemed necessary to encourage the colonized population to focus on developing the economy. For this to work, the population was also persuaded to neglect history and not engage in personal reflections on the law and government regulations. As colonial subjects internalized the notion of behaving 'peacefully, rationally and non-violently,' the colonial authority managed to attribute the city's success to its post-1970s stability, by obscuring those moments in the city's history which could have taught Hongkongers about their previous struggles. After the handover of Hong Kong, the post-colonial government did little to change the status quo. Having used the 'Lion Rock Spirit' to manipulate the once-obedient population, the post-colonial authority was forced to watch as this powerful political symbol, which once "mastered" the public, as in Klatch's term (Klatch 1988), was transformed into a force for integration and solidarity during the Umbrella Movement. After the numerous social actions which slowly but effectively confronted the loss of dignity (the right to elect and be elected as Chief Executive, the right to participate in the decision-making process for infrastructure projects) and heritage (the piers as sites of history and memory), Hongkongers gradually awake.

#### **Conclusion**

From the failure to preserve the two piers, to the unsuccessful campaign to stop the construction of the Express rail system, to the Umbrella Movement, the motto 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' has acted as both guidelines of and limit to social movements in Hong Kong. Although the desired results were often not achieved, the efforts of activists to design their actions by playing with political symbols fashioned by the colonial and post-colonial authorities have slowly guided the aloof Hong Kong public to convert their quotidian space into a political space where they could interact within each other to claim citizenship and affect governance processes by expressing their political positions in subtle and symbolic ways.

Barthes denotes that "a work's meaning is not dependent on authorial intention but on the individual point of active reception." (Barthes 2010: 41) In popular movements as such, protests and actions were not the actions *per se*. Confronted with a perpetual disappointment at government planning decisions, direct action was necessary to bring about the possibility for change. However, there is an extra layer of meaning for Hongkongers to have taken these seemingly useless actions, insofar as they were part of a process through which ever-colonized Hongkongers became accustomed to an epistemological understanding of the social issues and symbols endowed by current events. What do these ingrained political symbols—'Lion Rock Spirit' (to encourage a hardworking and complaint-free crowd) and 'peace, rationality and non-violence' (to prevent any escalations in a social movement)– mean, on a fundamental level, to the ever-aloof crowds of Hongkongers? Witnessing how the various political symbols (the Queen's Pier as a site of enunciation for the colonizers and the Lion Rock Spirit) have been in play, utilized by both the colonial and post-colonial authorities, I contend that playing with political symbolism has been effective in two ways. From the perspective of both the colonial and post-colonial authority it was about creating a politically aloof populace. From the social activists' point of view, it was about motivating the post-colonial population to break through the 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' limit. The protest movement's persistent discussions and the non-institutional, self-initiated actions led the crowd to ask: What is my role here in the occupied zone and in my society? Am I obliged to play the game with the rules set by those, such as Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher who decided the future of Hong Kong in 1982, and are no longer even alive? The decolonization of Hong Kong has long been a violent process requiring much more than the simple demolition of colonial infrastructure. Drawing upon the works of Lefebvre, Klatch, and Warner, I argue that the struggle between different social actors and the colonial/post-colonial authorities has proven to be productive and vibrant. Bringing together Lefebvre's three productions of space (denoting the 'un-designable' factor of public space), Klatch's notes on the productive and manipulative effects of political symbols (which also suggest the unpredictability of constructing political symbolisms), and Warner's arguments for the self-organized nature of a public, I contend that if a trajectory is to be located, it is the unpredictability of political symbols, which has, since the Piers conservation campaign in 2006/07, generated a continual stream of social actions in response to the undesired policies implemented by the authority. With that in mind, a continual sensitivity and reflection on any kind of political symbolism instilled by popular culture and the authority should help Hongkongers escape from their 'peaceful, rational and non-violent' prison.

#### **Bibliography**


Lefebvre, Henri (1991): The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.


#### *Interview Material*

Yu. (2010): Hong Kong. Chow. (2010): Hong Kong. Cheng. (2010): Hong Kong.

## 12 What the hell has gone wrong in Egypt? An Elicitive Conflict Mapping Inquiry

*Adham Hamed*

#### **Introduction**

The streets around Tahrir Square have emptied. The protestors are gone imprisoned, disappeared, or simply at the point of resignation after years of economic struggle and political disappointment. Iron gates have been erected at the entrances to the square which can be immediately shut, should protests reoccur, despite all the precautions taken by the military regime. Revisiting Egypt, the country where one of the most significant political uprisings of the past few decades transpired and which is a second home to me, is a challenge for me as I had been full of—perhaps naïve—optimism when people went to the streets in 2011 to demand "bread, freedom and social justice." Having lived in Egypt for two and a half years in the aftermath of the revolution, I saw protests reoccur as political developments advanced in directions that were not only troubling to many protestors, but that were also in conflict with the diverse dreams, hopes, and desires of an entire generation. Having moved away from Egypt with a sense of frustration in 2015, I have continued to witness the ensuing developments, less through direct involvement than as an emotionally engaged observer, witnessing from a distance, and recognizing this resignation more and more within myself. It is from this perspective, over seven years after the Egyptian Uprising began, that I ask the simple question: What the hell has gone wrong in Egypt?

It appears somewhat difficult to give a clear account of what exactly has gone wrong when there is a multitude of moments in which things could have evolved differently. And yet, there is something about this question that deserves attention which may be of interest beyond the case of protest movements in Egypt. Hence, in this chapter, I would like to revisit a few episodes of the Egyptian protest movement and inquire through the lens of Elicitive Conflict Mapping (ECM), into the question of how violence may have been a central ingredient in the alleged failure to achieve deep societal transformation. I will do so first by introducing ECM, though without going into too much detail as this has been done elsewhere by Wolfgang Dietrich (2014; 2018) and Josefina Echavarría Alvarez (2014) as well as in my own work on the Middle East conflict (Hamed 2016). Second, I will provide a layered analysis, inquiring into primary themes, and then moving through the different layers, as proposed by Dietrich (2014; 2018). Finally, I will draw some conclusions about the question above. Besides the foundation of my research design in ECM, this work is based on field notes, which resulted from conversations during my time in Cairo over the course of several years, as well as a review of the relevant literature.

#### **ECM and its Theoretical Framework**

When John Paul Lederach (1995) made the distinction between elicitive and prescriptive approaches to conflict transformation, he created a space for the field of transrational peace philosophy, which evolved from Wolfgang Dietrich's famous "A Call for Many Peaces" (Dietrich and Sützl 2006)—a basic proposal to understand peace not as a noun in the singular but as a term that must be contextualized within subjective experience, as dynamic and plural. Beyond this plurality of understandings of peaces, the crucial assumption of transrational peace philosophy is that beyond the surface, what Lederach calls the episode of conflict, there is always underlying conflicting energy, feeding into the visible.

Along these elicitive and transrational lines of thought from Lederach (1995, 2003, 2005) and Dietrich (2014, 2018), I distinguish between the episode and the epicenter when analyzing violent conflicts. While the episode is a reality as we perceive it, the epicenter points us towards the inner dimensions of conflict and violence that may not be apparent at first sight. Hence, when describing violence, I would like to suggest that one looks not only at the episode, during which a certain phenomenon appears in a more or less violent form but to equally prioritize inner layers of conflict, which, again, may be imperceptible at first sight. From such a perspective, the episode of conflict can be seen as the expression of a loss of what humanistic psychology calls homeostatic balance. This homeostatic balance is found somewhere in the conflicting realities beyond the episode.

To inquire into the underlying dynamics of violent episodes more systematically, Dietrich proposes ECM as a comprehensive framework for conflict analysis. ECM follows a number of basic principles and assumptions. Besides the already mentioned insight that there is a plurality of lived experiences and, hence, of peaces, there is the assumption that systems have a self-regulatory capacity that strives for balance—homeostasis. ECM thus provides an analytical possibility that may help identify new courses of action, in situations of dysfunctional conflicts and violence, towards a situation that is perceived as more peaceful by everyone involved. Peace, from this perspective, cannot be attained through the actions of the individual. Rather, it can only become a possibility through relational encounters with oneself and with others. In ECM, we, therefore, assume that conflict involves two basic directions: one to the outside, which concerns the interpersonal relationships; and another to the inside which concerns the intrapersonal human faculties. Drawing on Taoist philosophy and on neuroscientific insights on mirror neurons, ECM suggests that there is always an element of correspondence between inner and outer realities.

As a systematic tool for analysis, ECM provides a layered approach best described by the metaphor of a Matryoshka (Russian nesting) doll: each layer unveils another, with unique features and colors, yet part of the larger whole. Immediately below the episode of conflict, equivalent to the largest Matryoshka doll, there is the sexual-familiar layer. This layer concerns family life and sexual relationships, and may be expressed either constructively through creativity, or destructively through violence, and is always relevant to how conflicts are experienced. Next follows the socio-emotional/communal layer. This layer concerns the question of where we belong, how we relate to our concrete communities and our location in a network of immediate relationships beyond the family. This layer is followed by the mental-societal layer. This layer addresses the question of belonging in our larger, often imagined, communities. Finally, there is the spiritual-policitary layer, which points towards the human potential for spiritual experiences. Recognizing this potential as part of conflicting realities is a central quality of transrational peace research. Layers beneath the spiritual-policitary layer exist and refer to ontological and epistemological debates. These are certainly of philosophical interest, but of little assistance for conflict analysis, and are therefore not included here. For the purpose of conflict transformation, Dietrich (2018) postulates that at least one of the following 'primary themes' can be found in any given conflict: harmony, justice, security, and truth. When first confronted with dysfunctional conflict, one may ask: what is the theme here?

For conflict analysis using ECM, at least one of these primary themes needs to be clearly defined as an entry point into the conflict. Now that I have outlined the basic principles and assumptions of ECM, I will inquire into the case of the Egyptian protest movement.

#### **Themes of Conflict and Episodes of Violence in post-2011 Egypt**

When considering accounts of the Egyptian protest movement during the early days of the protests in January and February 2011, it stands out that violence is rarely mentioned. At a minimum, violence was not readily apparent in the public discourse. Quite the contrary, the protests were repeatedly romanticized in the self-description of activists as promoting 'peace' and 'nonviolence.' A Tahrir activist told me, "We were all standing united as one hand in the square. Our revolution was peaceful and beautiful (Anonymous A, personal conversation, 2015)." Protesting crowds chanted *Salmaya, salmaya*<sup>1</sup> in response to attempts by the security forces to control the revolutionary dynamics through the use of violence. This slogan was translated into a broader public narrative, leaving unmentioned the violent episodes that occurred hand-in-hand with the protests throughout this early phase, such as sexual violence among protestors and the use of violent resistance against the security forces. However, in 2014, three years after the beginning of the protests, an activist stated, "We were convinced that the only way to bring down this regime was to burn down police stations. And we burned down police stations. They are the ugliest face of the Egyptian state. This is where they torture people (Anonymous B, personal conversation, 2014)." Most likely the "we" he refers to here does not include the vast majority of protestors, as the people crowding the streets were extremely diverse.

Over the course of the past several years, violence against Egyptian citizens has once again become routine. The alleged security interests of the state have justified the reproduction of a rigid system engaged in repressive action against tens of thousands of people. It is therefore quite clear that the current episode in Egypt points towards the primary theme of security, although protestors in earlier phases also emphasized topics such as diversity in public debate from within the protest. While an emphasis on plurality within the protest movement, and harmony amongst the different groups within Egyptian society, was a central quality of the 2011 uprising, this soon gave way to a modern harmony understood as homogenous national unity, rather than harmony in diversity.

Certainly, since 2011, justice—particularly in regard to punishing the members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups became a dominant topic in regard to peace. In response to the mass trials against members of the Brotherhood, one activist told me, "If you ask me, they all deserve the death penalty. The judges have just been doing the right thing (Anonymous C, personal conversation, 2016)." This statement encapsulates a desire for revenge that was quite prevalent in Egypt after the year-long rule of the Muslim Brotherhood under President Mohamed Morsi. Furthermore, truth was a topic for significant parts of society, particularly in regard to the media. While an explicit quality of the momentum at Tahrir Square was a plurality

<sup>1</sup> Arabic: "peaceful, peaceful" (author's translation).

of possible truths, this changed quite dramatically once the military stepped in to end the rule of the Brotherhood in 2013. Their intervention was justified as being a matter of national security, which, in times of uncertainty, could only be guaranteed by actions of the Armed Forces. Since 2013, this security paradigm has dominated approaches to peace in Egypt. Having described my entry point, I now turn in greater detail to the issues which Egypt has been facing since the 2011 uprising.

#### **Sexual-Familial Layer: Frustrations and Rigidity**

In the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, Karin Kneissl published a much-criticized book entitled *Testosteron Macht Politik*<sup>2</sup> (Kneissl 2012), in which she argues that the Egyptian revolution can be explained by the high degree of sexual frustration in the male sector of Egyptian society. The book has been criticized as social-Darwinist and as falling short of recognizing the broader socio-political and economic dimensions of the Egyptian uprising. However, while I neither share Kneissl's linear understanding of human development nor her essentialist approach to culture, it is important not to fully dismiss her argument when investigating what has gone wrong in Egypt through a lens of ECM. Since ECM considers sexual-familial dimensions as a crucial element in conflict analysis, it seems likely that sexual frustration and rigidity within patriarchal family systems played a role in the Egyptian protest movement. An Egyptian university graduate in his early 30s, told me in a conversation, that "I have been working for more than ten years now, like a donkey, to afford getting married but still I do not have my apartment ready (Anonymous D, personal conversation, 2016)." Indeed, the social pressure to marry and the rigidity of Egyptian society make it difficult to express oneself in a sexual relationship outside of marriage. Both young men and women are forced into moral double-standards if they want to enter a sexual relationship. Respect towards elders is considered an important cultural value by many.

The Egyptian uprising of 2011 can be understood as a confrontation between the regime and a young generation that could no longer envision a proper perspective for itself within society. Simultaneously, the uprising did not stop outside the gates of private homes but was also carried into families, where the political positions of the head of the family were suddenly questioned, as an activist in her 20s told me:

<sup>2</sup> *Testosterone Power(s) Politics* (author's translation).

One day we had such an outraged lunch discussion over politics that in the end both my father and myself got up shouting and left the table. This was impossible for us to imagine before the revolution (Anonymous E, personal conversation, 2015).

Perhaps such changes within family dynamics, explains in part why Egypt in the post-2011 period was so full of creativity, street art, and new local cultural initiatives. The potential to create may have simply been repressed by rigid norms.

Unfortunately, this period of creative protest also had a dark side, as there are numerous reports of sexual violence within the Tahrir movement. Many of these incidents remained completely unnoticed by the broader public, despite their continuous occurrence within the Tahrir movement (Amnesty International 2013; Johansson-Nogués 2013; McRobie 2014). Still, a few cases did spark greater public and international attention, including the case of South African journalist Lara Logan, who became a victim of mass sexual assault on Tahrir Square, in the midst of the celebrations over President Hosni Mubarak's resignation from power on 11 February 2011. Her experiences triggered a larger debate after she gave testimony as a survivor of sexual violence (Logan 2011). There seems to be a recurring pattern of mass sexual assault: large groups of men forming a mob, surrounding, and attacking their victim in public.

While Logan's case is a clear example of sexual violence within the protest movement, there are also documented examples of Egyptian security forces using sexual violence as a systematic means of repression. One case in particular that gained rather broad attention was a video from December 2011, titled 'The Girl in the Blue Bra,' which showed a female protestor attempting to flee from Egyptian soldiers who then pushed her to the ground, publicly ripped the clothes from her body, and assaulted her. Unlike in Logan's case, this survivor of sexual violence remained anonymous, although, for many, she became a symbol of many similar cases of sexual violence (Hafez 2014a, b).

Against the background of such experiences, Heba Morayef, director of Human Rights Watch Egypt, points to the necessity of comprehensive action by the Egyptian government in relation to sexual violence:

Our only hope to ending future mob assaults is political will on the side of the government to handle this issue. Not only on the criminal side and holding perpetrators accountable but looking into the role of the media, educational institutions and religious institutions and coordination between the ministries and the national strategy to implement all these recommendations in the coming years. Otherwise, we will have victims of sexual assault and harassment again and again. (Morayef 2013)

Besides a call for legal action by the state to hold offenders accountable, Morayef calls for a change to what can be described as a widespread attitude of ignorance, even leaning towards the acceptance of sexual violence, that is deeply ingrained in daily realities in Egypt. In 2017, I met with a female survivor of such an assault, who works on precisely these dynamics, and who stressed that such dynamics existed on a daily basis within the Tahrir movement (Anonymous F).

It seems difficult to give an answer to the question of how to constructively react to such mob assaults. However, in light of the reoccurring phenomenon of public sexual harassment, how to respond has become one of the most crucial questions about what has gone wrong in Egypt. It seems too patronizing to argue with authors like Gene Sharp (2012) that violence should not be an option in a situation of mob violence. From testimonies of survivors of sexual assault, it is clear that a harassing crowd is almost impossible to stop, even by using considerable means such as burning gas bottles to drag a crowd away from victims of sexual violence. An eyewitness recounted,

Suddenly a street vendor, who had noticed the logos on our T-shirts, asked my colleagues and I, 'Are you from the anti-sexual harassment group?' We said yes, so he got a gas bottle and a lighter and shot a flame toward the crowd so that they would move away from the girl. Two young people stayed by her- one took off his pants and gave them to her and the other gave her a scarf so she could cover her top half. The fire petered out and the crowd started to reconvene. (El-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture et al. 2013: 39–40)

The above example is a demonstration of the difficulty that lies in trying to transform violent situations without ruling out the possibility of using violence as a means of intervention.

In an attempt to tackle such violent realities, the now-shuttered civic non-governmental organization *Harakat Bassma* followed a three-pronged strategy: first, they organized street patrols and intervened in situations of public sexual harassment. Second, they launched educational projects to engage in a broader societal dialogue about sexual violence. Third, they launched public campaigns to trigger a societal debate in order to raise awareness about sexual violence within Egyptian society and to advocate for changes to the laws that prosecute sexual offenders in a legal system that often blames survivors of sexual assault rather than the perpetrators (FIDH 2014; McRobie 2014).

One such campaign was launched in a Cairo metro station. On a billboard, a comic addressed sexual harassment and its negative impact on women and society at large. In order to shift the debate away from the notion of women who ostensibly incited their own assaults toward the perpetrators of such violence, male sexual offenders were portrayed as pigs and dogs. Many Egyptians consider both animals as unclean and impure and use their names as expletives. This campaign did, indeed, trigger irritation and discussion among passersby, which was precisely what the initiators had aimed for. The decision to employ forms of creativity in response to experiences of sexual violence is notable, since such a step opens the potential for conflict transformation, as outlined by Lederach (2005: 5) who stresses the importance of creativity in peace work.

In the aftermath of the 2013 military coup, *Harakat Bassma* was forced to dissolve under the weight of repressive political circumstances. Their disappearance is one of many examples of the difficulty for civil society actors to intervene in social issues, especially in those related to sexual violence. Also, while *Harakat Bassma*'s strategies, deployed in response to these assaults, appear as a reasonable response to the status quo of sexual violence, they do not explain the underlying reasons for this behavior—which brings me back to Kneissl's approach, introduced at the beginning of this chapter. Despite the previously mentioned points of critique, her observation that protest movements unto themselves—as well as different forms of violence that occur within the protests—may have something to do with suppressed sexuality, appears to be a crucial part of the answer to the question of "What the hell has gone wrong in Egypt?" Accounting for this suppression, however, requires a broader perspective, which I will examine in greater detail by exploring the socio-emotional-communal layer of ECM in the next section.

#### **The Socio-Emotional-Communal Layer and the Violence of Loss and Trauma**

The socio-emotional layer accounts for our place in our real communities, how we experience relationships beyond the confines of our immediate families and sexual relationships (Dietrich 2018). When looking at the Egyptian protest movement, it is notable that activists repeatedly talk about the community that formed in the streets as the protests unfolded: "The day the police was gone from the streets there was a real sense of security amongst the population because we were all taking care of one another." (Anonymous A, personal conversation, 2015) Indeed, solidarity and communal life have a long tradition in Egypt, expressed through language and myriad cultural patterns. The Arabic vernacular greeting *as-salumalaikum* is a good example of that. Whenever people meet in the streets, regardless of their background, they connect through their greetings, wishing one another peace. And with each of the encounters, peace is affirmed through the renewal of the relational bond between them. This long tradition seems to have changed in the aftermath of the Egyptian uprising.

Vivienne Matthies-Bonn (2017) demonstrates how the Egyptian protest movement was highly traumatic for many young people as they were directly exposed to violence or because they know people who have been through traumatizing experiences. Secondary trauma has thus become a serious and largely underestimated problem. Several activists told me that, in contrast to well-established cultural patterns in their families and communities, they have moved out from home in response to their overall emotional situation and the broader polarization between the military regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, which was reflected within their family dynamics and left few spaces for alternative positions. Often, they do not know whom to turn to in order to process their experiences.

What did emerge within the Tahrir movement was a myriad of dynamic cultural and art initiatives which provided a space, or what John Paul Lederach would call a platform for peace:

The focus of a platform is to create and sustain a foundation capable of generating responsive change processes that address both the immediate expression of the conflict and the deeper epicenter of the conflictive relational context. A platform is like a moving sidewalk in an airport combined with a trampoline. The sidewalk continuously moves across time and the trampoline has the capacity to spring forward new ideas in response to unexpected and emerging problems while sustaining the long-term vision of constructive change. (Lederach 2005: 182).

The vast majority of these platforms, just like *Harakat Bassma,* lost their space in an increasingly repressive context after the military take-over in summer 2013. The tragedy is compounded by a lack of alternative forms of working through trauma, such as psychotherapy or counseling, which remain largely inaccessible to the broader public. The societal polarization among different groups has, therefore, become stronger; sometimes neighbors who had been close for years no longer greet one another. As one activist told me, "He [my Islamist neighbor] has stolen our revolution. He is the worst part of our community. Why should I greet him when I see him in the street?" (Anonymous C, personal conversation, 2016) Such polarization points towards significant challenges on the socio-emotional layer of conflict.

#### **Mental-Societal Layers: The Violence of Denying History**

The January 2011 protests in Egypt, in part a reaction to the political turmoil that had started in Tunisia the month before, came as a surprise to many analysts, who largely disregarded a rather long history of protest in Egypt and the broader region. Its historical context is important to consider, as the possibility for an endogenous democratization process was immediately ruled out by many Eurocentric analysts in their orientalist ad-hoc reaction to the idea of democratic change in the Middle East and North Africa, as can be seen in the *Weltjournal* – one of the most renowned programs on Austrian television—as just one of many possible examples.

As *Weltjournal* was trying to make sense of the events, beyond the reports by their permanent correspondent Karim El Gawhary, who later received numerous awards for journalism, some of El Gawhary's Austrian colleagues were looking for answers in Belgrade by shooting a documentary about the links between a group of Egyptian protestors and the Serbian *OTPOR* movement (ORF 2011), which was largely inspired by the writings of Gene Sharp and his approach to nonviolent resistance (Sharp 2012). The documentary suggests that the revolution was orchestrated according to a master plan, ruling out the possibility of spontaneous and creative agency of Egyptian activists. While an exchange between Egyptian and Serbian activists did occur, the filmmakers suggest that this European initiative orchestrated a wave of democracy in the Middle East, drawing an image of Arab protestors as oriental, primordial and undemocratic others, who could only be democratized through the white man's help. Such a perspective completely disregards the history of protest in Egyptian and Middle Eastern societies, including the anti-colonial struggles and such remarkable activists as Egyptian feminist Huda Al Sharawy. A male Egyptian activist in his early 30s suggested,

There was an almost total ignorance of our long tradition protest when suddenly Tahrir Square had become the center of the world in 2011 […] Many people said that at last, we would follow the European path out of the Middle ages. (Anonymous B 2014)

One could clearly hear how upset he was about such ignorance, a response which points towards the violence inherent to Orientalist notions of Egyptian underdevelopment and Western superiority. While Orientalism can take many violent forms, it seems to have been particularly aggressive in the case of the Egyptian protest movement—and perhaps in protest movements more broadly—as such narratives deprive the protesting-subject of all political agency articulated through the act of protesting. Such an orientalist position

Hence, a central concern when asking what has gone wrong in Egypt is the way in which the protest movement has been described both nationally and internationally. Actions that ignore the agency of the protesters are clearly not ideal for the facilitation of constructive social change.

### **The Spiritual-Policitary Layer: The Potential to Connect**

The spiritual-policitary layer points towards the human ability to experience oneself as part of a larger whole. Since this larger entity can vary, spiritual practices from a perspective of ECM are framed rather broadly. In the news images of Tahrir Square, as Muslims engaged in prayer in the streets, sometimes guarded by their fellow Christian protestors, these moments are oftentimes portrayed as joint spiritual practices. I do not want to comment on whether such practice falls under the umbrella of spirituality or political statement but focus instead on the emergence of myriad practices, which can also be seen as spiritual acts. In particular, the element of spontaneous singing together of vernacular music connected people from very different parts of society, regardless of their religious background. When I interviewed the Egyptian singer May Haddad, who performed street concerts with her band *Eskenderella*<sup>3</sup> during the uprising and also in the post-2011 period, she told me what singing meant to her:

Songs are the soul's language and words are the body's language. When I talk to you I can talk to your body, I can talk to your brain, to your eyes. When I sing to you I contact your soul. Inside of you. So the soul is more powerful, generally speaking because some people say that the body is controlling over the soul but when people still have soul and spirit, the soul is more powerful than the body. (Haddad, personal interview, 4 March 2014, quoted in Hamed 2016)

Although a meta-physical debate about categories such as the soul deserves further attention, crucial here is the experience of connecting to others on the level of spirituality, which is a truth unto itself that conflict transformation research must consider seriously.

When asking the question, "what has gone wrong in Egypt?" one clearly has to note that *Eskenderella*, just as with many other initiatives such as theater

<sup>3</sup> For a more detailed account of *Eskenderella* see Hamed (2016).

groups, rarely finds spaces which are safe enough for them to sing in, without having to fear arrest or worse. From the perspective of conflict transformation, art, creativity, and spirituality represent a substantial unfulfilled promise, in particular because they carry within them the potential to transcend deep-seated categories of us versus them.

#### **Conclusion**

Under the personal perspective of an increasingly repressive Egyptian military regime, I began this chapter with the rather general question "What the hell has gone wrong in Egypt?" in order to reflect on the different dimensions of the Egyptian transition process as it evolved in ways that often contributed to violent episodes. Based on a layered ECM analysis, I inquired about the epicenter of conflicts beyond their violent episodes and argued that security is the predominant theme in the Egyptian context. On the sexual-familial layer, I identified patriarchal norms within family systems, a very rigid approach to pre-marital sexual relationships, and economic barriers to marriage, as particular obstacles to addressing one of the central challenges in the Egyptian transition process, namely sexual violence. On the socio-emotional/communal layer, I discussed trauma and the shrinking space available for addressing the challenges that come along with it. On the mental-societal layer, I described an Orientalist reading of the Egyptian uprising as an element of violence in the analysis of events. Finally, on the spiritual-policitary layer, I pointed towards the potential inherent to music in protest movements as one of many possible examples to transcend categories of violence emerging from strict notions of us versus them.

Ultimately, what the hell has gone wrong in Egypt? Beyond the obvious namely the episodes of conflict instigated by an increasingly repressive state, the various layers, although quite different one from the other, point toward one common denominator: platforms for peace, as described by Lederach, are shrinking. However, such dynamic spaces are necessary for processes of constructive change to occur. When analyzing violent episodes including random arrests, torture, and sexual assault, from the perspective of elicitive conflict transformation, the shrinking of such spaces is of major concern. While violent episodes may make immediate material action an ethical imperative, ECM points out the equally important need to address the dynamics that feed into these episodes in order to move away from the continuous reproduction of cycles of violence.

#### **Bibliography**


## Authors

Bernd **Belina** received his Ph.D. in Geography from Bremen University in 2006. He is currently a professor of Human Geography at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. His major research interests include political, economic and urban geography, often combined with critical criminology.

Nazlı **Cabadağ** is a doctoral researcher with the Making Differences Project at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), Humboldt University Berlin. Her dissertation research is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as part of Sharon Macdonald's Alexander von Humboldt professorship. Her dissertation is on "Queer Entanglements of Transnational Politics: Turkish-speaking Newcomers Negotiate Solidarity in Berlin" based on her ethnographic research with Turkish-speaking queer new-migrants in Berlin and their practices of heritage-making through political engagement.

María do Mar **Castro Varela** is a professor of Pedagogy and Social Work at the Alice Salomon University in Berlin and has lectured at the University of Basel, Switzerland, the Zurich Academy of Arts, Switzerland and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She holds a double degree in Psychology and Pedagogy from the University of Cologne and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. Her research interests include Postcolonial Theory, Gender, and Queer Studies, Critical Migration Studies, Critical (Adult) Education and Trauma Studies. In 2014, she was a visiting fellow at the Institute for International Law and the Humanities in Melbourne, Australia, and in 2015/16 she was as a senior fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. She is the founder of the bildungsLab\* in Berlin (www.bildungslab.net).

Gülden **Ediger** holds degrees in Social Work and Sociocultural Studies. She is currently conducting dissertation research on 'Sexuality in Berlin-Neukölln' at the Viadrina University in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. In 2019, she was visiting researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on (the entanglements of) sexuality, gender, migration, and capitalism in urban space from an intersectional, Marxist and postcolonial perspective. She has received scholarships from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and the Viadrina University. Ediger has worked as a lecturer at the Alice Salomon University in Berlin, as a social worker and as an independent trainer in political adult education. She is a member of bildungsLab\*, a group of migrant academics and academics of color in the pedagogical-cultural field, and active in various queer, feminist and anti-racist political initiatives in Berlin.

Leila **Haghighat** is a cultural worker in Berlin and studied cultural studies and political science at Université Paris VIII Vincennes. From 2013 to 2017, she was the coordinator for cultural education at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, working on participatory art in the context of gentrification processes (Berlin, Istanbul, Marseille). Her work and research focus on participatory practices and knowledge production in art and cultural education and related issues of the relationship between art, politics, and society.

Adham **Hamed** is a peace and conflict researcher at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He is a research fellow at the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies, where he facilitates the development of Peace and Conflict Studies in Iraq and Ethiopia. His main research interests include elicitive conflict transformation and peace processes with a particular focus on the Middle East conflict and the Arab Uprisings.

Liza Wing Man **Kam** trained in design schools and practices in London, Paris, Liverpool, Hong Kong, and Singapore before joining the Bauhaus in Germany, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Architecture in 2013. She is currently research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and assistant professor of Urban Studies and Chinese Societies at the Department of East Asian Studies at the Georg-August University of Göttingen.

Her research interests include the transformation of symbolism represented by colonial urban heritage in various unique postcolonial settings, the interrelation between architecture, historiography, identity formation and civic awareness, the comparison between the seemingly antithetical ideas of colonial nostalgia and decolonization in various Asian polities, and the flow of intellectual, design and culinary ideas within empire expansions.

Margit **Mayer** has been professor for Comparative and North American Politics at the Free University of Berlin since 1990, and, as of 2014, senior fellow at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at Technical University Berlin. Her research focuses on comparative politics, urban and social politics and social movements. She has published on various aspects of contemporary urban politics, urban theory, (welfare) state restructuring and social movements. More recently, her work has dealt with the neoliberalization of the urban, and how this has contributed to transforming social movements in terms of actor composition, action repertoires and their relations with adversaries and the local state. She served as editorial board member of The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and on the editorial committee of the book series "Studies in Urban and Social Change" (Blackwell). In 2014, she held a Humboldt guest professorship at Göteborg University, Sweden.

Giselle Andrea **Osorio Ardila** is a Colombian anthropologist who completed her master in urbanism at the National University of Colombia and her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2019. Her research was funded by the Graduate Student's Agreement Program (PEC-PG) from the CAPES Foundation, attached to the Ministry of Education of Brazil. She currently works as a city planning consultant. Her academic work builds upon the field of urbanization processes in Latin America, patterns of residential segregation, urban political ecology, regional governance and links between culture, territory, and politics.

Julia **Strutz** is a sociologist (Humboldt University Berlin) and historian (Bilgi University Istanbul), who received her Ph.D. from the Department of Social and Economic Geography at KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2014. As a postdoctoral researcher, she was part of the research group "Urban Ethics. Conflicts about the Good Conduct of Life in 20th and 21st Century Cities" funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a project on heritage politics in Istanbul. She conducts research in the fields of memory politics, urban renewal, the urban history of Istanbul, and the various ways this history gains importance in heritage and non-heritage contexts today.

Pelin **Tan** is a researcher and writer. She was awarded the Keith Haring Art and Activism award (New York, 2019–2020). She studied sociology, completing a master's degree and Ph.D. in Art History on socially engaged art. Tan was as a postdoctoral fellow for "Artistic Research" in MIT's ACT Program (2011), as well as receiving funding from the DAAD, Humboldt Berlin University (2006), the Japan Foundation (2011), and the Hong Kong Design Trust (2016). From 2017 to 2018, she was a research fellow at BAK Utrecht. She has held visiting professorships at the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2016), and the Faculty of Architecture, Nicosia, Cyprus (2018). Between 2013 and 2017, Tan was an associate professor and vice-dean of Architecture at Mardin Artuklu University. She has also co-directed three episodes of "2084" with artist Anton Vidokle, as well as being the curator of the Gardentopia project of Matera ECC 2019, Italy. Currently, she is a research fellow at the Center for Art, Design and Social Research (Spoleto, Italy).

Ömer **Turan** is an associate professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of International Relations. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University in 2012. His major research interests focus on the denialism of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, militarism, the anthropology of compulsory military service, and social movements. For the last ten years, he has taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses on Turkish politics, social theory, and political sociology. For the academic year 2019–2020, he is a Swedish Institute senior fellow, at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University.

Barış **Ülker** received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University in 2012. He was a visiting scholar at the Humboldt University Berlin, Howard University, Washington DC, and Columbia University, New York, during his studies. Currently, he is a research fellow at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University Berlin, and the Head of the Research Institute at the Berlin International University of Applied Sciences. His major research interests focus on governmental subjectivities, the anthropology of state, colonial and postcolonial relations, and urban spatial restructuring. His research has been supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Max Planck Institute, the Ernst Reuter Archives Foundation (at the Landesarchiv Berlin) and the Vienna Science and Technology Fund.

Jan **Wehrheim** is a full professor of Sociology at the Institute for Social Work and Social Policy, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His major areas of research are Urban Studies, Critical Criminology, and Surveillance Studies.

## Index

#### **A**

action 42, 67, 79–81, 85, 106, 117, 123, 136, 155, 163–167, 175, 187, 213–214, 222–223, 234, 237–238, 240–241, 247, 250, 254, 256, 258–259, 264 activists 7, 60, 74, 80, 82, 86–87, 89, 156, 161–163, 167, 174, 196, 198, 202, 206, 220, 236–238, 240, 247, 249–250, 256, 260–262 actor 116, 118, 180, 214, 219 Actor-Network Theory 213 Agamben 157–158 Alinsky 56 authority 19, 41, 88, 197, 212, 216, 235–236, 238–239, 243–245, 247, 249–251

#### **B**

Banlieues 115 Berger 136 Berlin 7, 20–22, 27–35, 37, 42–43, 45–46, 48, 53–55, 57, 63, 74, 83, 85–86, 102, 121, 194–196, 199–207 Bogotá 22, 211–216, 218, 220–222, 224, 227–228 Bourdieu 40, 115–116, 118, 124 Brown 28, 46–48 bus station 137, 141, 143–147

#### **C**

Cairo 22–23, 53–54, 163, 254, 259 Castells 181, 211, 228 citizen 16–17, 22, 44, 60, 77–78, 80–83, 87, 99, 116, 119, 122, 130–131, 138–139, 141–142, 146–148, 159, 201, 211–213, 222–228, 240 citizenship 7, 9–22, 33, 41, 46, 55, 60, 72, 78–79, 81, 118, 130, 136, 138–139, 164–165, 250 colonialism 123–124, 165 commoning 76, 155–156, 164–165, 167–168 conflict 11, 13–14, 28, 38, 46, 57, 68, 82, 85–86, 88, 163, 181, 216, 223, 246–247, 253–255, 257, 260–264 contentious performance 189 con-vivere 57, 68

### **D**

de-solidarity 21, 56, 63–64, 66 Dikeç 115, 123, 130 disidentification 64–67 Durkheim 57, 236, 246, 249

#### **E**

environment 29, 34, 63, 74, 80, 158–159, 165, 184, 215–216, 222, 224, 229 ethics 138–139, 147, 166

exception 122, 131, 146, 156–158, 177 exclusion 10, 15, 34, 37, 46, 53, 72, 75, 78, 81, 122, 125, 158, 217 exhibition 36–39, 162, 202, 224–225

#### **F**

Fanon 115–118, 126, 127, 130 Foucault 32–33, 48–49, 66, 139 frontier 124, 126

#### **G**

gecekondu 145, 157, 159–160 Gezi Park resistance 166–167, 171, 175, 179–180, 186–188, 191 gift 22, 171, 176–191 Godbout, Jacques 177–180, 184, 186, 188 governance 72–73, 75, 77– 79, 81, 83, 85, 147, 250 governmentality 46, 48, 78, 82 Gramsci 45, 54, 67, 168

#### **H**

habitus 116–118, 123 Hamburg 22, 32, 83, 85–86, 95, 97, 100, 103–107, 109, 115 Harvey 53–54, 59–60, 63, 97, 156, 163, 171 hau 177, 185–186 heritage 34, 106, 138–142, 145–148, 157, 172, 202, 249 Hong Kong 22, 53, 233–250, 253

## **I**

inclusion 78, 125, 158, 162 Istanbul 7, 20, 22, 53–54, 60, 136–147, 155–164, 166–167, 195–199, 202, 204–206, 233

### **K**

Koselleck 38

#### **L**

landscape 47, 61, 79, 84, 125, 136–137, 139, 147, 223, 225 land walls 136–142, 147 Latour 214, 218–219 Lefebvre 35, 53–54, 60–62, 68, 97–98, 115, 119, 124, 156, 163, 164, 174, 236, 238, 244, 250 LGBTI 194–199, 201–202, 204–205, 207

### **M**

Mauss 176–178, 184, 186 memory 136, 138, 140, 142–143, 147–148, 167, 175, 237, 245, 249 migrant 32–34, 37, 45, 122, 141, 145, 160, 194, 200–201, 205–206 migration 10, 21–22, 29, 34, 36–37, 39, 44, 105, 123, 129–131, 142, 145, 147, 160–161, 194–195, 199, 200, 202–207

movement 12, 55, 58–60, 85, 87, 89, 109, 119, 130–131, 156, 163–164, 173–174, 185, 194–199, 201–202, 206–207, 221, 225, 233–234, 240, 242–243, 245, 247–248, 250, 253, 255–263 municipalism 59 museum 34, 46, 137, 146, 202

#### **N**

narrative 35, 39, 117, 121, 123–124, 130–131, 196, 200, 205–206, 235, 237, 256 nationalism 12, 20, 46, 138–139, 201, 235 neoliberal urbanism 72, 74, 76, 78, 84, 88 network 34, 40, 41, 59, 143, 166, 224, 227, 255

### **O**

Ong 33, 34, 41

### **P**

Paris 22, 37, 66, 115, 117–132 participation 10, 15, 22, 35, 43, 62, 65, 72–73, 79–87, 89–90, 163, 168, 186, 189, 199, 205, 211–214, 221–223, 226, 228–229, 236, 242 plantation 129 policing space 95, 97, 99, 109–110 postcolonial 7, 22, 56, 117–118, 120–124, 130–132, 203–204, 228 power 10–11, 19–21, 28, 30, 32–35, 40–41, 45–46, 48, 53–54, 56, 59, 60–61, 63, 68, 72, 75, 77, 80–82, 88–89, 95, 98, 109, 116, 123, 127, 131, 147, 157, 163–164, 166, 168, 179, 181, 195, 196, 203, 206, 228, 240, 246–247, 258 practice 15, 56, 58, 60–61, 67–68, 83, 87, 95, 97–100, 103, 117, 155, 158, 164–168, 190, 196, 214, 238, 263 privatization 76, 156, 163 protest 9, 22, 54, 63, 73–74, 77, 86, 158, 160, 163–164, 167, 171–172, 185, 188, 195, 223, 236–238, 241, 248, 250, 253, 255–258, 260–264 protest movement 250, 253, 255–258, 260–263

## **Q**

queers 55, 194, 196, 199–200, 202–205, 207

#### **R**

racial profiling 95–97, 105 Rancière 65–68 resistance 7, 21–22, 53–54, 76, 80, 86, 129, 146, 155, 160–161, 163–164, 166–167, 171, 175, 179–180, 182, 184–191, 194, 196–197, 204, 207, 213, 247, 256, 262

right through the city 21, 63 right to the city 13, 20–21, 53–54, 62–63, 155–156, 161, 163 riots 117–123, 130–131, 163, 234–235 Roy 59, 141, 228

#### **S**

segregation 20, 122, 156, 161, 215 solidarity 11–12, 21, 40–41, 43, 47, 55–58, 61–68, 155, 158, 161, 163–167, 179–180, 202, 204–207, 243, 246–247, 249, 260 space 10–11, 21–22, 27–28, 35, 37–39, 53, 61, 66–68, 74, 77, 80, 85, 88, 95, 97–99, 101–104, 106, 108–110, 115–119, 121, 123–127, 129–130, 136, 139, 141, 143–144, 147, 155–158, 162–166, 171, 173–175, 181, 185, 194–195, 197, 199, 204, 212, 236, 238–240, 243–244, 250, 254, 261, 264 spatial fetishism 97–99, 103, 105, 108 Spivak 56–57, 68 symbolism 138, 142, 174–175, 233, 236–238, 240, 245–247, 249, 250–251

#### **T**

Tahrir Square 54, 253, 256, 258, 262–263 Tilly 189

tolerance 7, 9–11, 16, 21, 27–40, 42–48, 57, 63, 95, 99–102, 110, 147, 203 Topkapı 22, 136–137, 140, 142–143, 145–148 transrational peace philosophy 254

#### **U**

urbanite 145–146, 148 urban planning 22, 72–73, 79, 81–82, 84, 115, 117, 121–124, 129, 157, 211–212, 222 urban struggles 10, 53, 67, 156, 161

### **V**

violence 9, 21, 22, 27, 41–42, 45, 48, 54, 57–58, 88, 104–106, 115–123, 127, 129–132, 175, 179, 185–186, 188, 196, 198, 204–205, 247, 250, 253–256, 258–262, 264

#### **W**

wall 125, 129, 137, 140–142, 144, 146, 148 Williams, Raymond 136

#### **Z**

zero tolerance 27, 95, 99, 110 Žižek 28, 46, 47–48

*2019***.** *326 pp* **•** *Pb.* **•** *39,90 € (D)* **•** *41,10 € (A) ISBN 978-3-8474-0549-8* **•** *eISBN 978-3-8474-0948-9*

What concepts of 'gender' and 'diversity' emerge in the different regions and pertinent research and practical fields? On the back drop of current European developments – from the deregulation of economy, a shrinking welfare state to the dissolution and reinforcement of borders – the book examines the development of Gender and Diversity Studies in different European regions as well as beyond and focuses on central fields of theoretical reflection, empirical research and practical implementation policies and politics.

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*2018***.** *370 pp* **•** *Pb.* **•** *49,90 € (D)* **•** *51,30 € (A) ISBN 978-3-8474-2183-2* **•** *eISBN 978-3-8474-1211-3*

This book deals with the interplay between identities, codes, stereotypes and politics governing the various constructions and deconstructions of gender in several Western and non-Western societies (Germany, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Cameroon, Indonesia, Vietnam, and others). Readers are invited to discover the realm of gender studies and to reflect upon the transformative potentialities of globalisation and interculturality.

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