Productive Misunderstandings in Cooperative Urban Development
This is a new episode from our Think&Drink series in collaboration with the Georg-Simmel-Centre for Urban Studies and the Humboldt University Berlin.
Co-operative urban development is the buzzword of the moment. It stands for the pursuit of a fairer city that is orientated towards the common good. In new partnerships – public-civic partnerships – actors from politics and administration work together with actors from civil society. Contradictory practices of urban design lead to misunderstandings, controversies and uncertainties in these co-operations.
In this book, the authors explore the processes of two extraordinary experiments in cooperative urban development in Berlin: the Haus der Statistik and the Rathausblock Kreuzberg. To this end, they invite the actors involved to procrastinate. When hesitation becomes a method, ambivalences support cooperation, uncertainties replace conflicts and controversies between the partners become visible. The book presents concise theses on cooperative urban development, a glossary of misunderstandings and methodological reflections on the artistic-ethnographic research method and its embedding in urban anthropological discourses. For all those who are involved in co-operative urban development or want to accompany it with research. For a just city of the many.
Link to the book:
https://adocs.de/de/buecher/praxis-open-accessebooks/zaudern
Guests:
Ignacio Farías
Ignacio Farías is Professor of Urban Anthropology, Director of the Georg Simmel Center for Urban Studies and Co-Director of the Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
His research interests focus on current ecological and infrastructural transformations of cities and the associated epistemo-political challenges to the democratization of city-making.
His most recent work explores the politics of environmental disruptions, from tsunamis over heat to noise, as well as urban ethnography as a mode of city making performed with others (designers, initiatives, concerned groups, policy makers) and by other means (moving from textual to material productions).
Rebecca Wall
Rebecca Wall is a Research Associate at the Department of European Ethnology at Humboldt University Berlin.
She works in the field of urban planning and urban design, closly linked to activism. Currently, she is part of a research project on City Development through Public-Civic-Partnerships.
In addition, she is a co-editor of the book Zaudern ums Gemeinwohl. Produktive Missverständnisse in der kooperativen Stadtentwicklung (Engl. Dithering for the Common Good. Productive Misunderstandings
in Cooperative Urban Development).
Felix Marlow
Felix Marlow has worked in various social fields before, is an architect and anthropologist.
Today, he is especially engaged in solidarity networks in the urban environment.
Currently, he is part of a research project on City Development through Public-Civic-Partnerships.
In addition, he is a co-editor of the book Zaudern ums Gemeinwohl. Produktive Missverständnisse in der kooperativen Stadtentwicklung (Engl. Dithering for the Common Good. Productive Misunderstandings
in Cooperative Urban Development).