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The relation between politics, ontology, and space remains one of the most contested concerns in human geography, often leading to a dismissal of ontology in favor of the politicization of space. In contrast, this article mobilizes post-foundationalism to propose a political ontology of space. After reviewing geographers’ engagements with politics, post-politics and the political, the article demonstrates how a post-foundational geography radically uproots geographic understandings of political and socio-spatial realities. Grounded upon parameters of negativity, contingency, and antagonism, the article equips geographers to grapple with the crumbling foundations of an uncertain present, and unknown futures.

The article unpacks the multiple political implications of commissioned murals in contested urban space. It examines public artwork in Hogan’s Alley, a historically Black neighborhood in Vancouver, BC, situated on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish Nations. Drawing from ethnographic field research and semi-structured interviews with local artists, policymakers and community activists, I read the mural Remember Hogan’s Alleny (2019), covering the sidewall of a subsidized housing project, as a contested public space. In this conflictual space, multiple pasts appear, disappear and reappear, oscillating between the celebration of Black culture, food and entertainment and the systematic displacement of Black residents and businesses. By contrasting diverging rationales, expectations and dreams regarding murals’ contributions to memory-making and cultural reconciliation, I trace where and how conflicts about public art inscribe themselves into the urban cultural fabric. The article intervenes into the predominantly ‘positive’ discussion of sanctioned public art to develop a more conflict-attuned understanding of artworks placed in the public realm. It deploys a framework of hauntology to discuss the appearance of ghosts invited into the public realm via official art commissions. These ghosts, becoming visible on urban walls via acts of placemaking, conjure memories of spatial displacement and racial discrimination, as well as stories of community care and healing. In sum, the article argues that the analytic of ghosts assists to foster an understanding of public art as always-already conflictual, thus inviting to stay with conflicts of belonging and memory, rather than to suppress them or shy away. By reflecting on what public art does politically – unpacking diverse narratives of the past that continue to mark present racial inequalities – the article contributes to sketching a conflict-oriented understanding of public space that is needed in cities wounded by racism and displacement.

The paper explores the politics of (dis)assembling borders within Europe. It examines the performance of the Berlin-based artist collective Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (Center for Political Beauty, ZPS) in 2014, in which artist activists temporarily removed white border crosses commemorating death at the former Berlin Wall. With this unauthorized displacement, ZPS sought to problematize ongoing violence and death at European borders. Via a three-part analysis of the performance Erster Europäischer Mauerfall (First European Fall of the Wall), the paper outlines a political framework for understanding art around and against borders – contributing to accounts on border art and the politics of borders. Staged as critique against the official commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, perceived by ZPS as festivalized and thus apolitical event, the multiple performance acts highlight material and emotional movements. They oscillate between past and present border death, commemorated and forgotten border objects, bodies, places. In particular, ZPS aimed to denounce (implicit) hierarchies regarding how and whose death at European borders is remembered via acts of (dis)assembling. By unsolicitedly (re)moving Berlin’s border crosses (Act I), mobilizing over 100 activists to dismantle border fences and temporarily installing replica crosses at Southern EU borders and placing them in the hands of contemporary refugees (Act III), ZPS mobilized public concern about contemporary border politics and commemoration. The paper contributes to border studies that view borders as inherently complex and contingent symbolic, socio-spatial arrangements, which affect and are affected by objects, bodies, and policies that oscillate between contested absence and presence. Accompanied by controversial media coverage, the performance gathered (im)mobile bodies, moving objects, and multiple emotional responses about the what, where and who of Europe. Ultimately, politics of (dis)assembling unfold absence and presence to articulate mo(ve)ments of ‘the political’ as contestation against complacency and border violence.

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Berlin is a growing city. Almost 48,000 people permanently moved to Berlin in 2013, and the number of national and international tourists is constantly rising: 30 million tourist overnight stays are expected in over 700 tourist accommodations in 2016. This massive influx of people challenges the existing built capacities, leading to a tense housing market with increasing rents, selling prices and standard land value, especially in attractive inner-city neighborhoods. The politicization of real estate development and rent prices has produced several regulatory housing policy measures such as the increase of the land purchase tax (2014), Subpoena on the Prohibition of the Misuse of Living Space (2014), and Rent Control (2015). The development of Berlin’s real estate market into one of the most attractive capital investment markets took place at unprecedented speed: inter alia, the transformation of rental property into condominiums or the transformation of residential into commercial usages, vacancy rates have decreased to around 2 percent today. These developments have resulted in a strongly articulated demand for new (residential) constructions requesting about 20,000 additional dwelling units in Berlin.In a four-field-matrix developed elsewhere (Landau/Wellner, 2014), the variable of ‘tourist accommodations’ (TA) is being examined as influential factor on the changing residential quality in inner-city residential neighborhoods in Berlin, where tourism has an increasing impact on both economic development as well as on social cohesion. Tourism has evoked resentment and protest amongst some residents of areas that are heavily frequented by tourists. The variable TA is divided into an official or formalized accommodation segment, i.e. hotels and hostels, as well as an informal sector, i.e. privately-rented sublets or vacation rentals whose number is estimated at 12,000 in all over Berlin. The dimensions of residential quality will be differentiated into built features (location, quality of building etc.), economic (rent level, tenant mix etc.), social (neighborhood atmosphere, security, fluctuation etc.), ecological and health-related (noise, pollution etc.) aspects, thus contributing to the conceptualization of ‘residential quality’.

Der zweisprachige Band The Art of Urban Intervention / Die Kunst des urbanen Handelns zeigt anhand einer Bandbreite künstlerischer Projekte in verschiedenen Städten Europas, wie Künstler_innen als Gestalter_innen von Stadt eine aktive und kritische sowie teilweise auch widerständige Rolle in urbanen Transformationsprozessen einnehmen. Sie ermöglichen Begegnungen und Beziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen lokalen Akteur_innen – von Nachbar_innen, Migrant_innen und Händler_innen bis hin zu Immobilienentwickler_innen oder Investor_innen – und werden so Teil von Gemeinschafts- und Sinnstiftung in den vor Ort herrschenden Lebenswelten. Teilweise mit den pragmatischen Realitäten seitens der Stadtplanung und entwicklung konfrontiert, eignen sich die beteiligten Künstler_innen nicht nur Räume, sondern auch Formen des Einflusses auf die Ausgestaltung der Stadt von morgen an. Neben der rezensierenden Analyse gehen wir zudem kritisch auf den Umgang mit den Begriffen ‚Handeln‘ und ‚Intervention‘ ein.

Berlin is a growing city. Almost 48,000 people permanently moved to Berlin in 2013, and the number of national and international tourists is constantly rising: 30 million tourist overnight stays are expected in over 700 tourist accommodations in 2016. This massive influx of people challenges the existing built capacities, leading to a tense housing market with increasing rents, selling prices and standard land value, especially in attractive inner-city neighborhoods. The politicization of real estate development and rent prices has produced several regulatory housing policy measures such as the increase of the land purchase tax (2014), Subpoena on the Prohibition of the Misuse of Living Space (2014), and Rent Control (2015). The development of Berlin’s real estate market into one of the most attractive capital investment markets took place at unprecedented speed: inter alia, the transformation of rental property into condominiums or the transformation of residential into commercial usages, vacancy rates have decreased to around 2 percent today. These developments have resulted in a strongly articulated demand for new (residential) constructions requesting about 20,000 additional dwelling units in Berlin.In a four-field-matrix developed elsewhere (Landau/Wellner, 2014), the variable of ‘tourist accommodations’ (TA) is being examined as influential factor on the changing residential quality in inner-city residential neighborhoods in Berlin, where tourism has an increasing impact on both economic development as well as on social cohesion. Tourism has evoked resentment and protest amongst some residents of areas that are heavily frequented by tourists. The variable TA is divided into an official or formalized accommodation segment, i.e. hotels and hostels, as well as an informal sector, i.e. privately-rented sublets or vacation rentals whose number is estimated at 12,000 in all over Berlin. The dimensions of residential quality will be differentiated into built features (location, quality of building etc.), economic (rent level, tenant mix etc.), social (neighborhood atmosphere, security, fluctuation etc.), ecological and health-related (noise, pollution etc.) aspects, thus contributing to the conceptualization of ‘residential quality’.

Real estate markets are influenced by diverse factors from both the supply and demand side. One influential dimension of real estate developments is tourism. On the one hand, the rising attractiveness of a city or region leads to changing configurations in the services and retail industry in order to consider tourists’ consumption and leisure practices. On the other hand, the real estate market is affected by an influx of tourists, aiming at accommodating the various needs of tourists. Berlin, which has remarkably risen as tourist destination in the past years, now ranking third after Paris and London in Europe, is affected by tourism in various ways: the hotel and catering industry is expanding, especially in the low budget travelling sector (hostels etc.), sometimes rivalling previous usages of the city space. With an estimated number of over 12,000 vacation rentals, many Berlin tourists stay in apartments, which were formerly regular apartments on the rental market. This practice of ‘authentic living’ creates more scarcity of affordable rent space in the city. The present paper discusses the concept of ‘touristification’, partially seen as side effect of gentrification, and its influences on the development of rent prices, modernization efforts and tenant structures. We are investigating the short- and long-term implications for both property owners, looking at higher short-term gains by renting to tourists, and tenants’ perspectives, facing higher pressure on their rents.To this point, the concept of ‘touristification’ has not received much scholarly analysis. Being present in popular discourse in Berlin’s city-specific political debates, the term is commonly used, however weakly defined. With the present research, we seek to conceptualize what phenomena the term ‘touristification’ seeks to describe and in what ways ‘touristification’ has an impact on real estate prices, on the housing market for property owners, as well as national and international tenants. In the present paper, we will delineate research questions and preliminary hypotheses on this very current topic. Applying a mixed-methods approach of real estate know-how and social sciences methodologies, we will present our interdisciplinary research design. We will give insight into the study design, which brings together perspectives on the (perceived and physical) influences of tourism on Berlin neighbourhoods from property owners, tenants and tourists.