Berlin is considered a multi-layered urban lab with a contradictory landscape: luxury housing, big urban development projects next to squats, small urban garden projects, urban parks and green areas, etc. Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s till today, over 50 percent of the city’s public housing stock has been sold to private investors and the city has become a highly desirable destination for international property investment. The lack of affordable housing and a rise in the speculative real-estate market spur new discussions about gentrification. Meanwhile, inhabitants and newcomers fight for their rights in the city. The focal point of this course is an examination of the changes associated with urban development in Berlin and “counter actions” as urban social movements. This interdisciplinary course explores Berlin through urban activism with several lenses, including: housing, urban environmental activism, community gardening and political power relations in the city. In addition to that this course offers an analysis of the right to the city, participation, social justice, urban resistance, grassroots organizing, and urban development policy. Within the broad theme of “urban activism”, the course focuses on the ways in which neighborhood/inhabitant experiences and citizens’ collide to produce different forms of resistance within Berlin’s political sphere. The course offers the participants to learn, discuss and use urban activist practices and tools in their everyday life.
Language requirements: English B2, German A1
The detailed syllabus is available on the Berlin Perspectives website: http://hic.hu-berlin.de/bp
Please note: The course starts in a digital format. If the pandemic situation allows it, excursions can take place, and a seminar room for on-site meetings might be used later during the semester.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Banu Cicek Tülü