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Map a supply chain backwards

You’ve been walking, documenting contamination, looking at what emerges from disturbance. Now I want you to do something different: trace value backwards through a chain of translation.

Imagine this idea from Tsing’s book: Matsutake mushrooms move from Oregon forests → Japanese wholesalers → Tokyo restaurants. At each point, the mushroom is re-valued. What it “is” changes. A picker sees food/money. A wholesaler sees inventory/risk. A chef sees tradition/season. The mushroom is the same object, but its meaning gets translated at each node.

She calls this “salvage accumulation”—capitalism extracting value from non-capitalist spaces by translating across incommensurable systems. The matsutake has value because it connects worlds that don’t speak the same language.

Your task:

Pick ONE object you can buy in Berlin that connects to the Middle East. Not “Middle Eastern food” (too general, too obvious). Something weirder: a cheap plastic toy, a specific spice, a building material, fabric, a phone card, a remittance service, knock-off electronics, cooking oil, cement, …

Then trace it backwards:

  1. Where/how did you encounter it? (Which shop, which neighbourhood, what context?)
  2. Who sold it to you? What did they say about it/price it as?
  3. Where did THEY get it? (Ask them. Actually ask. Document the conversation.)
  4. Keep going back: distributor → importer → manufacturer → materials

At each translation point, document:

  • How is value measured here? (price? weight? authenticity? legality? convenience?)
  • What does the object “mean” at this node? (What category does it belong to?)
  • What knowledge is required to make this translation work? (Whose metis?)
  • What gets lost/transformed in the translation?

The challenge: You probably can’t trace the whole chain. You’ll hit a wall—someone who won’t tell you, records that don’t exist, a border where information stops. Document where the chain becomes opaque and why.

What could be worth to bring to the next sessions:

  • Your map/diagram of the chain (visual, not just text)
  • One paragraph: What does this object’s journey teach you about how value crosses incommensurable worlds?
  • One question: Where in this chain does Scott’s “legibility” break down—and who benefits from that opacity?

What thrives in disturbance?

Tsing writes about matsutake mushrooms. They don’t grow in pristine forests. They grow in forests that have been disturbed—logged, burned, disrupted. The mushroom needs the disturbance. It’s not “surviving despite” damage. It’s thriving because of it.

She calls this “salvage accumulation”—the way capitalism extracts value from ruins, but also the way life finds possibility in damaged landscapes. Not resilience. Not resistance. Something else: emergence from disturbance.

Scott writes about how “improvements” destroy the complex ecologies that actually work. Planned cities eliminate the informal knowledge that made old cities function. Scientific forestry kills the forest.

Macfarlane asks: what if we recognized rivers as legal persons, with rights and representation? Not metaphorically. Actually. With lawyers.

The provocation:

Berlin is a disturbed landscape. Bombed, divided, rebuilt, divided again, reunified, gentrified, contested. It’s not pristine. It’s not stable. The ground is literally unstable—full of unexploded bombs, forgotten tunnels, layers of different cities.

Your task: Find something that exists in Berlin BECAUSE of disturbance, not despite it. Something that couldn’t exist if Berlin had been left alone. Something that needs the gaps, the ruins, the failures of planning, the incompleteness.

Not immigrants adapting (too easy). Not informal economies (we’ve done that).

Look for:

  • Ecologies that require abandonment
  • Practices that need the gaps between jurisdictions
  • Spaces that exist because someone forgot to plan them
  • Knowledge that accumulates in ruins
  • Communities that form in places that “failed”

Bring to session:

  1. Documentation of what you found
  2. An argument: This thing/practice/ecology is not resilient (bouncing back) or resistant (fighting back) but emergent—it couldn’t exist without the specific disturbances that produced it
  3. A legal provocation: If Macfarlane’s rivers can have lawyers, should this thing you found have legal standing? Who would represent it? What would its rights be?

Connect this to your Middle East research: What emerges from war, displacement, colonial violence that couldn’t have existed otherwise? Not “silver linings” (offensive) but genuine new formations that previous conditions couldn’t produce?

Stop walking

You’ve been walking for weeks now. Noticing. Observing. Moving through neighbourhoods as an outsider looking in.

Stop.

Pick one place—a street corner, a shop, a park bench, anywhere—and stay there for an hour. Don’t move. Just sit. Watch what happens when you’re not moving through.

Here’s what I want you to notice:

Who belongs there and who doesn’t? How do you know? What makes someone look like they belong versus someone passing through?

Now the harder question: Do you belong there?

If someone watched YOU sitting there for an hour, what would they see? A student? A researcher? A foreigner? Someone with time to waste? Someone who doesn’t need to be anywhere?

Your stillness changes what you see. It also changes what you are.

Tsing would ask: what assemblages form when you stop moving? Scott would ask: what becomes legible when you stay still? Macfarlane would ask: what relations emerge when you stop being a passerby?

One hour. One place. Stop walking.

Why Should Anybody Care About Your Tension?

November 5, 2025

Today’s session focused on a crucial shift in thinking about academic writing: moving from explaining what we know to creating problems that readers care about solving.

Opening Discussion: What IS the Function of Academic Writing?

We began by asking students what they think the function of academic writing is. The whiteboard captured a rich range of responses:

Students suggested academic writing functions:

  • To think
  • To express clearly
  • To present “objective” research
  • To prove/select ideas
  • To share new info/data
  • To open perspectives
  • To convince people
  • To add to conversation
  • To archive (what is wanted to be known)
  • For career/prestige/credibility
  • To show expertise
  • As control (of people)
  • To make money
  • To fill gaps
  • To entertain?

Bigger questions that emerged:

  • Is academia isolated from society?
  • What does academic writing matter to?
    • Individuals?
    • Institutions?
    • “The field”?
  • Why write at all?

Key tension identified: The difference between:

  • Writer’s purpose: to think about something (uses text as thinking tool)
  • Reader’s purpose: to learn about/understand something (uses text as learning tool)

This gave way to the core insight from Larry McEnerny’s writing programme at the University of Chicago: The function of academic writing is to help readers understand better something they want to understand well.

That’s only one way to look at it, of course 😉

Here’s a session with Larry McEnerny; you’ll see I cite him alot:


Key Examples Analysed

Example 1: The Clonal/Sexual Co-existence Problem

We looked at two versions of the same academic opening to see which created more value:

Version 1a (flat?):

As a consequence of the “cost of sex,” the theoretical probability of clonal and sexual co-existence is low; observation of co-existence in vertebrate taxa has been reported. Within the frozen niche-variation (FNV) model, the relevant parameter is difference in overall niche breadth. A wider niche breadth for the sexuals than for the clones is predicted in performance in monocultures; performances in mixtures do not indicate such a relationship. Switching of behaviors or resource-use patterns between mixed and pure cultures may be the cause. The proposed study will examine this prediction of the FNV model.

Version 1b (creates problem?):

As a consequence of the “cost of sex,” the theoretical probability of clonal and sexual co-existence is low. Nonetheless, observation of co-existence in vertebrate taxa has been widely reported. Within the accepted model of frozen niche-variation (FNV), co-existence is explained by difference in overall niche breadth. However, although the FNV model correctly predicts wider niche breadth for the sexuals than for the clones, its predictions are inconsistent with reported performances in mixtures. The proposed study will examine whether the anomaly may be explained by the switching of behaviors or resource-use patterns between mixed and pure cultures.

What makes 1b work differently?

  • Uses instability language: “Nonetheless,” “However,” “although,” “inconsistent,” “anomaly”
  • Creates tension between what we expect and what we observe
  • Shows that current models don’t fully explain the phenomenon

Example 2: William Sewell on Historical Events

We didn’t analyse this one during the session, but I think it’s a brilliant example of how to create a problem that looks like background but actually destabilises existing knowledge:

Ever since Herodotus, historians have written about events. Battles, alliances, scandals, conquests, conspiracies, revolts, royal successions, reforms, elections, religious revivals, assassinations, discoveries: momentous events have always been the bread and butter of narrative history. But despite the prominence of events in historical narratives, the event has rarely been scrutinized as a theoretical category. Traditional narrative historians who reveled in the contingency and particularity of events generally refused on principles to engage in explicit theorizing. Meanwhile, historical sociologists, along with the minority of historians who turned to the social sciences in order to escape the hegemony of political narrative, generally disdained the study of mere events and sought instead to discover general causal patterns underlying historical change. This was true of the “Annales school” in France from the late 1920s forward and of the ‘new social history” that blossomed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s the old antagonisms between narrative history and historical sociology had begun to fade; yet theoretical work on historical events has remained relatively rare…

What’s happening here:

  • Looks like historical background
  • But actually creates instability: “despite the prominence… rarely scrutinized”
  • Shows cost: historians can’t adequately theorize major turning points
  • Identifies specific readers: historical sociologists

Example 3: The Erasmus Chronology Problem

It is a perennial paradox of Erasmus studies that neither the wealth of autobiographical information that the Dutch humanist has left us nor the enormous mass of scholarly literature that has grown up around his life and works has ever given us a firm grip on the year of his birth and the chronology of his youth. We do not know with certainty, for example, how old Erasmus was when he entered Steyn monastery…

Key move: The instability is already recognised by the community (“perennial paradox”), so the writer just reminds readers of it.


Example 4: Caribbean Foreign Policy

What is missing [in the study of the international relations of the Caribbean] are the same things that are missing in the study of Third World or Latin American foreign policy and international relations as a whole: Most of what is written is country-specific or issue-specific rather than general and comprehensive; most is descriptive rather than theoretical. The challenge is to put together what we know into a plausible whole, within a suitable theoretical framework, as a first step in developing theory…

But readers may well ask: Why is it important to… to study Third World policy with some rigor… Is it of any great significance…? Apart from the obvious value of supplying knowledge to those who want it, the study of Third World foreign policy should assist in the building and refining of international relations “middle-range” theory. The sub-field of international relations that is most clearly linked to such study is that of comparative foreign policy… Also of relevance is the field of decision-making…the realm of process…

What’s happening:

  • Identifies gap/instability
  • Anticipates reader skepticism: “But readers may well ask…”
  • Has to work harder to show costs/benefits because it’s a gap problem
  • Names specific theoretical benefits to specific sub-fields

Example 5: The Book of Amos – De-stabilizing Stasis

In recent years several attempts have been made to discover an overall structural pattern in the book of Amos. Certainly inspired by the burgeoning interest in “literary approaches” to the Bible, these studies have divided Amos into a relatively small number of extended sections, each of which (it is claimed) has a high degree of literary integrity. A comparison of these studies, however, soon reveals considerable diversity among them. Thus, to look no further than the authors mentioned in footnote 1, the following divergent analyses of chaps. 3-6 have been proposed:

Hayes: [pattern #1]
Andersen and Freedman: [pattern #2]
Dorsey: [pattern #3]

The only points these scholars are all agreed on are that 5:1 begins a new section (although I shall argue below that in fact it does not) and that 6:14 closes a section (which has long been recognized by all commentators).

The main reason for this diversity, in my view, is that insufficient attention has been given to the criteria for making such analyses. In particular: (i) Formal criteria, such as introductory and closing formulas, have been given much greater prominence than they merit. (ii) Literary criteria, such as palistrophic structuring and inclusos, have often been employed too loosely and impressionistically.

In the present article, I shall offer a new analysis which, through giving particular attention to thematic considerations, will argue that Amos consists of a…

What’s happening here:

  • Sets up what looks like stable knowledge: “several attempts have been made”
  • Then de-stabilises it: “however, soon reveals considerable diversity”
  • Shows the cost: scholars can’t agree because their methods are flawed
  • This is a stasis → de-stabilising move rather than just pointing to an existing instability

The Three Components of a Problem

1. INSTABILITY

  • Something doesn’t fit
  • Something contradicts something else
  • Something is inconsistent
  • Signal words: however, although, nonetheless, but, paradox, anomaly, inconsistent, reported, widely accepted

2. COSTS/BENEFITS (to readers)

  • What can’t we understand if we leave this unstable?
  • What would we gain by resolving it?
  • NOT “I won’t finish my degree”
  • NOT “I find this interesting”
  • But: “This prevents us from understanding X that the community cares about”

3. READERS

  • Specific communities
  • Who cares about this?
  • Whose understanding needs to be better?

Gap vs. Problem: The Crucial Difference

Gap thinking: “No one has written about Syrian grocery stores in Neukölln.” → SO WHAT? There are infinite things we haven’t written about.

Problem thinking: “We think we understand how diaspora communities maintain identity through food practices, but the Syrian groceries in Neukölln challenge this model because…” → NOW you’re showing that the gap has consequences for something readers care about.

Gap = “here’s something we don’t know” Problem = “here’s why not knowing hurts our understanding of something we care about”


Work to Do During the Next Week (November 6-18)

Since we won’t meet next week, use this time for two activities:

Activity 1: Find the Problem Language

Take 2-3 published articles related to your field or topic. Read just the introductions and:

  • Circle the instability words: however, although, nonetheless, inconsistent, paradox, anomaly, reported, widely accepted
  • Locate where costs/benefits are articulated
  • Identify who the readers are

Notice the patterns. What language does your field use to create problems?

Also notice that maybe many academic papers do not use problem language at all – and maybe that’s a problem 😉

Activity 2: Test Your Own Tension

Write responses to these three questions about your Berlin tension:

  1. Instability: What exactly doesn’t fit in your tension? (Use instability language: however, although, but…)
  2. Costs: What can’t we understand if we leave this unresolved? (What intellectual cost does the COMMUNITY bear – not you personally?)
  3. Readers: Who are three specific people/groups who would care about resolving this tension? Why would they care?

If possible, share your answers with a fellow students and test whether your costs actually land with readers. Does someone else see why this matters?

A note: You might discover as you do this that the topic you want to write about is actually more about what you’re interested in, or what you want to use to demonstrate your knowledge, qualifications, or expertise. That’s completely okay. That’s how most of us have been trained in academia, and we can do this well.

But in this course, I’m asking you to try something different: to experiment with reader-centered writing. To see what happens when you start from what readers need to understand rather than what you want to show them you know. It’s a different muscle, and it takes practice. This course is the space to try it.

Then: Write your 3-4 page draft (see full assignment details above)


Assignment for November 19th

Write a 3-4 page draft

NOT necessarily the beginning of your paper. Instead:

Pick one moment from your walking where your tension became visible. A specific place, observation, encounter, reading, source etc. that made the tension real.

Write 3-4 pages describing that moment and exploring what made it a problem of understanding – not just something you noticed, but something that created instability in how we think we understand Berlin or/and the Middle East // the Middle East in Berlin.

As you write, keep asking:

  • What doesn’t fit here?
  • Why should readers care that it doesn’t fit?
  • What can’t we understand properly if we leave this tension unresolved?

Don’t worry about:

  • Perfect structure
  • Citations yet
  • Whether this is “academic enough”
  • Starting at the beginning

DO worry about:

  • Making the instability visible
  • Showing why it matters
  • Writing toward specific readers (even if you’re not sure who they are yet)

Bring this draft in a format that you can share with fellow students on November 19th.


Looking Ahead to November 19th

Next session focus: Who are you writing for, and can they see why this matters?

We’ll work in pairs or groups or alone to:

  • Identify who your specific readers are
  • Test whether your instability creates costs they actually care about
  • Practice addressing instabilities that help readers understand something better

The question we’ll be asking: Does your writing fulfill its function of helping specific readers understand better something they want to understand well?


Key Takeaways

  1. Function over form: Academic writing’s job is to help readers understand better, not to explain what you know.
  2. Problems, not gaps: Don’t just identify what we don’t know. Show why not knowing matters.
  3. Instability language matters: Words like “however,” “although,” “inconsistent” signal to readers that there’s a problem worth solving.
  4. Costs must be to readers, not writers: “I need to graduate” is not a reason for readers to care. “We can’t adequately theorise X” might be.
  5. Background creates stability, problems need instability: Don’t start with what we all agree on. Start with what doesn’t work.

When Your Normal Becomes Someone Else’s Problem

I live in Steglitz. Not the part of Berlin that anyone means when they talk about the “problem in the Stadtbild.” Not Neukölln or Wedding or Kreuzberg—the neighborhoods where the so-called issue apparently lives.

Which means I’m thinking about this controversy from a position of remove. I’m not watching my own street get turned into evidence. I’m reading about other people’s neighbourhoods being marked as problems.

And there’s something about that distance that keeps bothering me.

In one of the last weeks Chancellor Merz said there’s still a “problem in the cityscape” that needs addressing—through “removing” that what disturbs the Stadtbild he means. Within 24 hours, ten thousands of people signed a petition. Protests erupted with signs reading “Wir sind das Stadtbild”—”We are the cityscape.”

I’ve been trying to understand what “problem in the cityscape” means as a description of what’s actually there versus what someone thinks should be there. And I keep coming back to the question of who gets to not-notice.

Because here’s the thing: I don’t think about the “look” of Steglitz very much. It’s just where I live. The streets are familiar to the point of invisibility. I know which bakery has better bread, which café has the window seat I like, where the U-Bahn entrance is that’s slightly closer to my flat.

None of this registers as a “cityscape” to me. It’s just the unremarkable ordinary of daily life.

There’s a concept in anthropology—Bourdieu, I think—about how habituation makes the social world feel natural. You stop seeing the constructed nature of things because familiarity renders them invisible. What’s around you just becomes background, the taken-for-granted texture of existence.

But habituation is never neutral. What you get to stop noticing depends entirely on your position.

I get to experience Steglitz as just where I live, unmarked and unremarkable, because neighbourhoods that look like mine aren’t the ones being discussed when people talk about problems in the cityscape. The visual field of my daily life—the shop signs, the languages in cafés, the people on the street—apparently codes as “normal” in whatever framework produces the category “problem.”

I didn’t choose this. I’m not claiming credit for it. But I benefit from it. My neighbourhood gets to be invisible in the sense that matters: it’s not being marked as evidence of anything wrong with Germany (except for high rents maybe).

Meanwhile, people in Neukölln or Wedding—neighbourhoods I rarely go to compared to Kreuzberg, Schöneberg or Charlottenburg, if I’m being honest—are living in spaces that someone in government has decided to name as visual problems. Their daily ordinary has been turned into a crisis requiring state intervention.

And I’m sitting here in Steglitz trying to think through what that means.

There’s something about distance that feels both necessary and suspect. Necessary because I need some remove to think clearly, to not just react emotionally. Suspect because thinking clearly from a position of safety is itself a kind of privilege. The people whose neighbourhoods are being marked as problems don’t easily get the luxury of intellectual (and physical) distance.

I keep trying to imagine what it would feel like if someone in government looked at Steglitz and said it had a “problem” that required—well, let’s name it more bluntly—deportation. If my unremarkable ordinary—the bakery, the café, the familiar streets—suddenly became evidence of something wrong.

But I can’t quite get there. Because the framework that produces the Stadtbild as a “problem” isn’t aimed at neighbourhoods that look like mine. It’s aimed at visibility of a particular kind: Turkish script, Arabic conversations, the aesthetic presence of people marked as somehow not-quite-German-enough in the ideas of Merz.

This is what I keep getting stuck on: the politics of what becomes background and what stays foreground.

In visual perception studies they track eye movements to see what people actually look at in an image. What registers as important, what gets skipped over, how long attention rests on different elements. And it turns out people trained in different ways literally see different things in the same visual field.

But those are productive forms of trained attention. They help you notice what matters for your work, your discipline, your purposes.

What happens when the trained attention is aimed at deciding who belongs? When the framework is designed not to understand but to mark certain presences as disruptions?

I think this is what Stadtbild as a political term does. It creates a particular way of seeing urban space. It makes some things hypervisible (Turkish shops, Arabic conversations, headscarves) while rendering other things invisible (the economic structures producing gentrification, the history of guest worker programmes, the reality that Berlin has always been multiple cities layered over each other).

And once that framework exists, once someone has named certain neighbourhoods as having a “problem,” you can’t unhear it. The category persists. It shapes how people see, how they talk, what solutions seem reasonable.

From here in Steglitz, I can think about this somewhat abstractly. I can read about protests in other neighbourhoods. I can try to analyse the frameworks and the politics and the differential distribution of whose presence gets marked as normal versus problematic.

But I’m also aware that my ability to think about it abstractly is itself produced by distance. I’m not (usually) the one being looked at. My neighbourhood isn’t the one being turned into evidence. I get to be the one analysing rather than the one being analysed.

And I don’t know what to do with that asymmetry except notice it.

There’s something Marx said about ideology—that it makes the historical appear natural, the constructed seem inevitable. The framework that produces “Stadtbild problems” works the same way. It treats a particular vision of what Berlin should look like as if it’s just describing what’s normal, what’s proper, what belongs. As if saying “there’s a problem in the cityscape” is a neutral observation rather than a strong political claim.

But neutrality is always someone’s particular position claiming to be universal.

My neighbourhood gets to be neutral. Gets to be unmarked. Gets to just exist without justification or explanation or defense. Other neighbourhoods don’t have that luxury. They’re marked, noticed, turned into sites where the question of belonging gets fought over.

I wonder sometimes what it would take for Steglitz to become a “problem” in someone’s framework. What would have to change—or what shift in political rhetoric, what new way of seeing—for my unremarkable ordinary to suddenly become evidence requiring intervention.

But that’s probably the wrong question. Because the framework isn’t really about what’s actually there in any neighbourhood. It’s about power. About who gets to define normal, who gets to mark deviation, who gets to decide what counts as the proper look of a city.

The protests said “Wir sind das Stadtbild”—we ARE the cityscape. Present tense. Not asking for inclusion, but refusing the framework that treats their presence as a problem requiring solutions.

And I’m here in Steglitz, not in those protests, not in those neighbourhoods, trying to figure out what my relationship is to all of this. What it means to be the one whose neighbourhood gets to be invisible, unremarkable, unproblematic. What responsibility comes with that particular form of habituation.

I don’t think the answer is guilt. That’s too easy, too self-focused. And I don’t think the answer is just being a good ally or showing up at protests, though maybe that’s part of it.

I think maybe the answer—if there is one—is about learning to see your own seeing. Recognising that what feels neutral to you is produced by a particular framework. Noticing that your habituation, your ability to not-notice, is itself political.

And then—this is the harder part—figuring out what to do with that knowledge.

I’m still living in Steglitz. Still experiencing it as just where I live, unremarkable and ordinary. I can’t stop that habituation through force of will. Can’t make myself constantly notice the privilege of being unmarked.

But I can notice when someone marks other neighbourhoods as problems. I can notice the framework being deployed. I can refuse to treat that framework as neutral description rather than political claim.

Maybe that’s all there is. Maybe that’s where the work starts: in the gap between frameworks, in the moment when you realise your normal is produced by the same system that marks someone else’s normal as crisis.

I don’t know if that’s enough. Probably it isn’t. But it’s what I have from here, from this position, from this particular distance.

The view from Steglitz. Unmarked, unremarkable, complicit.

Explorations: Walk Neukölln this week

Today and for the rest of the week (if you can), walk Neukölln.

Here’s a question to hold lightly while you walk: What is trying not to disappear?

This works no matter which book you’re reading. If you’re with Tsing, you’re attuned to survival in damaged landscapes. If you’re with Scott, you’re noticing what resists legibility. If you’re with Macfarlane, you’re wondering what claims presence or agency.

Don’t answer the question directly. Just hold it somewhere in the back of your mind while you walk.

Maybe start at Hermannplatz and move in any direction that draws you. Or pick a street you’ve never walked down. Neukölln is full of layers—old Turkish shops next to new cafes, Arabic signs on former East German buildings, gardens squeezed into impossible spaces.

One thing to notice: Look for things that insist on being there despite everything suggesting they shouldn’t be. A shop that’s held on for decades. A language that keeps appearing. A community space that found a way to stay. A tree growing through concrete.

Whatever catches your attention is what matters.

(Next week: Kreuzberg, I’ll send you another prompt then.)

After our first meeting – course overview & next steps

Dear all,

Good to finally meet you today. I’m glad we found each other, even if it took a bit of searching.
Since we had less time than planned, I wanted to send a brief overview of how this course works and what happens next.

Course Structure

We meet four times this semester:
Today (October 14) – Introduction ✓
November 18 (10:00-14:00, with lunch break) – First gathering: “What has been catching your attention?”
January 20 (10:00-14:00, with lunch break) – Second gathering: “What patterns are you noticing?”
February 10 (10:00-14:00, with lunch break) – Final gathering: “What questions do you have now?”

Between these meetings, you walk Berlin and read your chosen book. No assignments, no check-ins from me—just sustained attention to the city. I’ll send occasional short provocations (questions to carry with you) via email.

The Three Books

Choose ONE of these to read over the next weeks:
Anna Tsing – The Mushroom at the End of the World
About survival and collaboration across difference; how life persists in damaged landscapes.
James C. Scott – Seeing Like a State
About how states try to make people and places “legible” and how people resist simplification.
Robert Macfarlane – Is a River Alive?
About personhood, rights, and what gets counted as having agency in urban spaces.

Where to find them: Check the VÖBB (public library system) – you can search their catalogue online and reserve books. I also recommend the Libby app, which lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks from VÖBB. All three books should be available there in various formats.

Until we meet again (November 18)

Your task is simple but demanding:

Choose your book – Read the descriptions, maybe sample each one if you can, then commit to one. Start reading it.
Walk Berlin – Go to neighbourhoods you’ve never been. Or walk familiar places differently. There’s no quota, no requirement for how much. Just pay attention when you do. What catches your eye? What makes you pause? What do you wonder about?

Complete the walking exercise I had planned for today – If you haven’t already: Walk for 20 minutes around campus or your neighbourhood. Notice what draws your attention. Write 2 paragraphs about what seemed important. You don’t need to send this to me—it’s for you, to begin practicing this kind of attention.

Let the question follow you: “What survives in cities?” Don’t try to answer it yet. Just notice when it becomes relevant to what you’re seeing.

Remember: we will never discuss the books directly in our sessions. They’re lenses that shape how you see, not topics we analyse. Let the book and the city have a private conversation.

Where to Find Course Materials

I will publish all messages and further materials for the course on my blog: https://nodiscipline.hypotheses.org/. I occasionally write essays there too inspired from the courses and our exchanges—so you might find reflections on questions we’re exploring together appearing there throughout the semester.

The Blackboard will remain open in case you need it for communication purposes, but the blog will be the main hub from my perspective.

A Note on Process

I know this course structure is unusual. Six weeks with no meetings, no clear assignments, just “walk and read and pay attention” can feel uncertain. That’s intentional.
The course trusts that sustained attention—to a city, to a complex text—will generate insights that lectures couldn’t. Your particular background, your discipline, your way of seeing will reveal things my attention would miss.
If this feels uncomfortable, sit with that discomfort. See what it teaches you.

Questions?

If anything is unclear, if you can’t find the books, if you’re lost (literally or metaphorically), email me. I’m here.
Otherwise: go walk. Read. Pay attention. I’ll send a small provocation in a couple of weeks.

See you November 18th (or in the sessions of the Writing course on Wednesday).
Victoria

Explorations, thinking about integrated research questions (multiple methods, multiple disciplines)

Round 1 (30 minutes): The students divide into three groups, each taking a different disciplinary lens:

  • Group 1: Business/Marketing Perspective
  • Group 2: Cultural Studies/Anthropology Perspective
  • Group 3: Urban Studies/Geography Perspective

Task for each group:

  1. Identify one key research question from your disciplinary perspective
  2. List 3 specific aspects from the field report that support investigating this question
  3. Outline potential research methods specific to your discipline
  4. Identify 2-3 key theories or concepts from your field that could frame the research
  5. Note what other cases/examples from Berlin could be comparative reference points

Plenary Discussion (20 minutes):

  • Each group presents their approach (5 minutes each)
  • Class discusses how the different perspectives complement or contradict each other
  • Identify potential for interdisciplinary collaboration

Round 2 (25 minutes): The groups mix so each new group has members from all three original perspectives. Task:

  1. Create an integrated research proposal that combines insights from multiple disciplines
  2. Identify specific ways the different approaches could strengthen each other
  3. Develop a timeline for the research
  4. List potential challenges and how to address them

Final Plenary (15 minutes):

  • Groups share their integrated proposals
  • Discussion of how different disciplinary approaches can be combined effectively
  • Reflection on what was learned about interdisciplinary research design

BUSINESS/MARKETING PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants in Berlin strategically balance cultural authenticity and market adaptation to appeal to different customer segments?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Strategic use of Pan-African imagery rather than Arabic cultural elements
  2. French language prominence over Arabic despite being a Moroccan restaurant
  3. Conscious decision to emphasize certain cultural elements while minimizing others for marketing purposes

Research Methods:

  • Customer surveys and interviews
  • Competitive analysis of other Moroccan restaurants
  • Sales data analysis comparing different menu items
  • Semi-structured interviews with restaurant owners
  • Analysis of marketing materials and social media presence

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Market positioning theory
  • Cultural marketing and branding
  • Consumer behavior in ethnic dining

Comparative Cases:

  • Der Phönizier (mentioned in another report)
  • Turkish restaurants in Kreuzberg adapting to gentrification
  • Vietnamese restaurants in Prenzlauer Berg

CULTURAL STUDIES/ANTHROPOLOGY PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do immigrant restaurant owners negotiate their cultural identity presentation in Berlin’s evolving culinary landscape?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Owners speaking Darija Arabic but minimizing Arabic cultural displays
  2. Selection of specific cultural symbols (Tamazigh tapestry, photos of African leaders)
  3. The tension between “traditional” branding and selective cultural presentation

Research Methods:

  • Ethnographic observation
  • Life history interviews with restaurant owners
  • Visual analysis of restaurant decor
  • Participant observation of customer-staff interactions
  • Document analysis of menus and promotional materials

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Cultural hybridization
  • Strategic essentialism
  • Performance of identity
  • Self-orientalization

Comparative Cases:

  • Lebanese restaurant in Neukölln (from another report)
  • Turkish coffeehouses in Kreuzberg
  • Arab Street (Sonnenallee) restaurants

URBAN STUDIES/GEOGRAPHY PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants contribute to the production of transcultural spaces in Berlin’s changing urban landscape?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Location in Friedrichstadt, an office district
  2. Adaptation to European customer base
  3. Creation of a hybrid cultural space through design and atmosphere

Research Methods:

  • Mapping of ethnic restaurants in the area
  • Analysis of neighborhood demographic changes
  • Documentation of physical space transformations
  • Foot traffic patterns analysis
  • Spatial analysis of restaurant distribution

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Urban transformation and gentrification
  • Production of space (Lefebvre)
  • Transcultural urbanism
  • Right to the city

Comparative Cases:

  • Restaurant clusters in Kreuzberg
  • Transformation of Sonnenallee
  • Evolution of Markthalle Neun

Each perspective offers different insights into understanding the complex dynamics at play in this case, from business strategies to cultural identity negotiation to urban transformation processes.


Title: “Negotiating Authenticity: Cultural Restaurants as Sites of Identity, Commerce, and Urban Transformation in Berlin”

  1. INTEGRATED RESEARCH COMPONENTS:

Core Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants in Berlin navigate the interplay between cultural authenticity, commercial viability, and urban space-making in an evolving metropolitan context?

Multidisciplinary Components:

  • Business: Market positioning and economic sustainability strategies
  • Cultural Studies: Identity negotiation and cultural representation
  • Urban Studies: Spatial dynamics and neighborhood transformation
  1. STRENGTHENING INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS:

Business + Cultural Studies:

  • Economic data can help explain cultural presentation choices
  • Cultural analysis can inform marketing strategies
  • Combined understanding of both customer expectations and cultural authenticity

Cultural Studies + Urban Studies:

  • Spatial analysis provides context for cultural expression
  • Cultural patterns inform understanding of neighborhood changes
  • Combined insight into how space shapes cultural presentation

Urban Studies + Business:

  • Location analysis influences business strategies
  • Economic data helps explain spatial patterns
  • Combined understanding of neighborhood development and market forces
  1. RESEARCH TIMELINE:

Phase 1 (3 months): Preliminary Research

  • Literature review across all disciplines
  • Mapping of research sites
  • Development of research instruments
  • Initial stakeholder contacts

Phase 2 (6 months): Data Collection

  • Business data gathering: customer surveys, sales analysis
  • Ethnographic fieldwork: observations, interviews
  • Spatial analysis: mapping, demographic study
  • Cross-disciplinary team meetings for integration

Phase 3 (3 months): Analysis

  • Individual disciplinary analysis
  • Cross-disciplinary analysis sessions
  • Integration of findings
  • Preliminary conclusions

Phase 4 (2 months): Integration and Writing

  • Synthesis of findings
  • Writing of integrated report
  • Stakeholder presentations
  • Publication preparation
  1. CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS:

Methodological Challenges:

  • Different disciplinary approaches might conflict Solution: Regular cross-disciplinary meetings to align methods and share insights

Language Barriers:

  • Multiple languages involved (German, Arabic, French) Solution: Recruit multilingual research assistants, work with cultural mediators

Access Issues:

  • Restaurant owners might be hesitant to share business data Solution: Build trust through cultural mediators, ensure confidentiality, offer valuable feedback

Integration Challenges:

  • Difficulty merging different types of data Solution: Develop integrated analysis framework early, use mixed methods approach

Time Management:

  • Different research components require different timeframes Solution: Create flexible timeline with clear coordination points

Cultural Sensitivity:

  • Risk of misinterpreting cultural elements Solution: Include researchers from relevant cultural backgrounds, maintain ongoing dialogue with community members

Data Organization:

  • Managing diverse types of data from different disciplines Solution: Create centralized database with clear categorization system

Theoretical Integration:

  • Reconciling different disciplinary frameworks Solution: Regular theory workshops to develop integrated conceptual framework

Kreuzkölln, Dekoloniale Stadtperspektiven: Warum wir anders über Stadt nachdenken müssen

Die Sonnenallee in Berlin trägt viele Namen: “Arabische Straße”, “Orient in Neukölln”, “Klein-Beirut”. Diese Bezeichnungen verraten mehr über die Sprechenden als über die Straße selbst. Sie zeigen, wie stark koloniale Denkweisen bis heute unseren Blick auf Stadt prägen – auch in der Wissenschaft. Wer definiert eigentlich, was “arabisch” oder “orientalisch” ist? Und warum müssen Orte überhaupt solche Etiketten tragen?

Die kritische Stadtforschung nennt das “methodologischen Nationalismus”: Die Angewohnheit, Menschen und Orte in nationale oder ethnische Schubladen zu stecken. Als wäre ein Café entweder “deutsch” oder “türkisch”, als gäbe es da nichts dazwischen. Die Realität sieht anders aus: Der “türkische” Bäcker verkauft italienisches Gebäck an deutsche Studierende, während nebenan im “arabischen” Café ein internationales Publikum sitzt. Die Stadt funktioniert längst postmigrantisch, wie Naika Foroutan es nennt: Migration ist keine Ausnahme mehr, sondern Normalität.

Das hat Konsequenzen für die Stadtforschung. Edward Said zeigte schon 1978, wie der akademische Blick auf den “Orient” von kolonialen Fantasien geprägt war. Bis heute wirkt das nach, wenn Stadtforscher*innen “authentische” Orte suchen oder “traditionelle” Praktiken dokumentieren wollen. Dabei übersehen sie oft die eigentlich spannenden Prozesse: Wie Menschen Räume neu interpretieren, wie sie verschiedene kulturelle Praktiken kombinieren, wie sie mit Erwartungen spielen. Der Sahara Imbiss in Neukölln ist weder “authentisch sudanesisch” noch einfach “deutsch” – er ist etwas Neues, das sich den üblichen Kategorien entzieht.

Eine dekoloniale Stadtforschung muss diese Kategorien hinterfragen. Sie muss genau hinschauen, wer eigentlich spricht, wenn von “Integration” oder “Parallelgesellschaften” die Rede ist. Sie muss fragen, wessen Wissen als wissenschaftlich gilt und wessen nicht. Warum gelten mündlich überlieferte Rezepte weniger als gedruckte Kochbücher? Warum sind bestimmte Formen des Zusammenlebens “traditionell” und andere “modern”? Diese Fragen führen zu einem anderen Verständnis von Stadt: Nicht als Container verschiedener “Kulturen”, sondern als Ort ständiger Transformation.

Das bedeutet nicht, dass wir gar nichts mehr über Stadt sagen können. Im Gegenteil: Eine dekoloniale Perspektive macht den Blick schärfer für die tatsächlichen Dynamiken urbanen Lebens. Sie zeigt, wie Menschen Stadt aktiv gestalten, wie sie mit Zuschreibungen umgehen, wie sie neue Formen des Zusammenlebens entwickeln. Das ist keine theoretische Übung – es ist die Realität deutscher Städte im 21. Jahrhundert. Zeit, dass die Wissenschaft das endlich ernst nimmt.

Explorations, Beyond Location: Rethinking Cultural Heritage in an Age of Global Flows

When Nefertiti gazes out from her vitrine in Berlin’s Neues Museum, where exactly is she looking? To Egypt, her place of origin? To the thousands of tourists snapping photos? Or perhaps to a future where questions of cultural heritage transcend our obsession with fixed locations? Her presence in Berlin has sparked decades of controversy, yet the very terms of this debate might be outdated in our era of global cultural flows.

For decades, debates about cultural heritage have been stuck in a geographical tug-of-war. Should the Parthenon Marbles return to Athens? Must Nefertiti go back to Cairo? These questions assume that cultural objects belong in specific places – that somewhere, somehow, there’s a “right” location that would resolve complex historical entanglements. This thinking reflects a certain “fetishism of place” – our tendency to bind cultural meaning to fixed geographical locations, even as global flows of people, media, and ideas increasingly challenge such static notions.

Consider Berlin’s Şehitlik Mosque. Is it a piece of Turkey transplanted to Neukölln, or is it creating something entirely new? Men drinking tea in its courtyard, are they preserving a static tradition – or are they actively crafting new forms of religious and cultural practice in a transnational space? Similarly, when manuscripts from Damascus, Baghdad, and Isfahan are digitized in the Qalamos Project, they don’t simply move from physical to digital space – they enter new networks of meaning and interpretation. These spaces exemplify what might be called “cosmopolitan realism” – the recognition that cultural practices and identities are increasingly shaped by global connections rather than local rootedness alone.

Our traditional vocabulary of cultural heritage – focused on ownership, location, and authenticity – emerged in a world of nation-states and fixed boundaries. But today’s cultural flows refuse to respect these neat categories. A Syrian artist in Berlin creates works that are simultaneously local and global. A digital archive in Germany makes Persian manuscripts accessible to scholars in Tehran and Texas alike. The stumbling stones (Stolpersteine) scattered through Berlin’s streets mark absences that connect multiple geographical points into networks of memory. These aren’t just isolated examples but indicators of a fundamental shift in how cultural heritage operates in contemporary society.

The implications are profound. Rather than asking where cultural heritage should be located, we might ask how it moves and transforms. Instead of treating cultural artifacts as fixed objects with single “homes,” we could recognize them as nodes in complex networks of meaning and memory. This shift requires new frameworks for preservation and interpretation that acknowledge the multiply-situated nature of cultural heritage in our interconnected world.

Take the Jewish Museum Berlin, which offers an unexpected model for this new approach. Rather than simply displaying artifacts, it creates spaces that make visitors physically experience displacement and disorientation. Through Daniel Libeskind’s architecture, the museum suggests that understanding cultural heritage might require us to leave behind our comfortable assumptions about place and belonging. The building itself becomes a metaphor for how cultural memory operates in a globalized world – through disruption, connection, and transformation rather than static preservation.

This doesn’t mean ignoring histories of colonialism or dismissing claims for restitution. Rather, it means recognizing that cultural heritage in our globalized world might need new frameworks altogether. Instead of asking “Where does this belong?” we might ask “What connections does this enable?” Instead of “Whose heritage is this?” we might consider “What conversations does this start?” These questions open up new possibilities for how we understand and engage with cultural heritage.

Back in the Neues Museum, Nefertiti’s gaze takes on new meaning. Perhaps she’s not looking in any single direction but rather witnessing how cultural heritage in the 21st century refuses to stay put – flowing across borders, spawning digital copies, generating new meanings, and creating unexpected connections. As global flows intensify, her presence in Berlin becomes less about ownership and more about the possibilities and challenges of cultural heritage in an interconnected world.

The challenge, then, isn’t simply to determine where objects belong, but to understand how they, and the practices they embody, help us navigate a world where meaning and memory flow in multiple directions at once. In this light, Berlin’s memory institutions become not just repositories of the past but laboratories for understanding how cultural heritage works in an age of global flows – sites where we can begin to imagine new ways of preserving and sharing culture that reflect our interconnected reality.


VM