Overview

A benchmark study in the changing field of urban anthropology, Berlin, Alexanderplatz is an ethnographic examination of the rapid transformation of the unified Berlin. Through a captivating account of the controversy around this symbolic public square in East Berlin, the book raises acute questions about expertise, citizenship, government and belonging. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city administration bureaus, developers' offices, citizen groups and in Alexanderplatz itself, the author advances a richly innovative analysis of the multiplicity of place. She reveals how Alexanderplatz is assembled through the encounters between planners, citizen activists, social workers, artists and ordinary Berliners, in processes of popular participation and personal narratives, in plans, timetables, documents and files, and in the distribution of pipes, tram tracks and street lights. Alexanderplatz emerges as a socialist spatial exemplar, a 'future' under construction, an object of grievance, and a vision of robust public space. This book is both a critical contribution to the anthropology of contemporary modernity and a radical intervention in current cross-disciplinary debates on the city.

Full Product Details

Author:   Gisa Weszkalnys
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
Volume:   1
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9781845457235

ISBN 10:   1845457234
Pages:   226
Publication Date:   01 May 2010
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Glossary and Acronyms Chapter I: Introduction Where? Berlin (in) Alexanderplatz Inventing East and West Anthropologies of the City Anthropology's Objects Chapter II: Constructing a Future Berlin Suspect Debates The Capital Topographies of Immorality The European City Solids and Voids Emptiness Chapter III: The Disintegration of a Socialist Exemplar Diagnosing the 'Weak Heart of the City' Inversions of Sociality Failures of Government A Dangerous Place? A Problem of 'the Social' Producing Disorder Chapter IV: Promising Plans On (Not) Planning Assembling Alexanderplatz Premises and Promises New Hybrids, Old Ambivalences Postponing Failure Chapter V: The Object of Grievance A Time of Citizens Citizens Summoned Citizens Made Governing Perceptions Legitimate Concerns A Citizenly Engagement with Place Chapter VI: A Robust Square The Place of Young People Networking Alexanderplatz Potentialities Experts and Citizens Revisited Perspectival Disparities The Universal, the Particular and the Robust Chapter VII: In Conclusion, Whose Alexanderplatz? Bibliography

Reviews

- presents multiple perspectives with a clear focus, enabling the reader to apprehend a complex, consequential, and always transforming site as the nexus of multiple views, values, experiences, and hopes. Smart, deeply researched, interpretively sophisticated without being overburdened by theory, this is a real contribution to an anthropology of urban sites and life.A * Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz

Author Information

Gisa Weszkalnys studied in Berlin and Cambridge and received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is a Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Exeter and is conducting new research on oil developments in West Africa.

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