Search

In this article, we scrutinise the concept of 'affective atmosphere' at the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, Germany. By unpacking key moments and elements in the Breitscheidplatz's history, when measures of security and counterterrorism transformed, we investigate how the felt experience of city dwellers and users of the square altered. We argue that the concept of atmosphere, taking the affective dimension of urban life into account, offers an enriching layer of understanding the everyday life in European cities. By focusing on the spatial and affective securitisation that was implemented before and after the attack in 2016, this paper converges everyday urban geopolitics and the concept of affective atmospheres. Bringing together the engagement with experiences of everyday urban life and the atmospheric situation that security and counter-terrorism measure entail in European urban spaces. This paper approximates the felt experience and intangible elements with the help of sensory ethnographies. Shedding light on the aesthetic and sensorial paradoxes of securitisation and counterterrorism measures, hegemonic practices of affective politics and discriminatory spatial expulsion are unravelled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are terror threats and counterterrorism measures experienced in everyday urban spaces? We argue that thinking atmospherically about the spaces of urban encounters with (counter)terrorism is important, firstly, to identify and question feelings and dispositions shaped by discourses, practices, and infrastructures of (counter)terrorism; secondly, to contribute spatial perspectives of felt experience to literatures on security and (counter)terrorism in geography and beyond; thirdly, to connect official understandings of (counter)terrorism with its everyday felt experiences and materialities. We highlight two conceptual and empirical arenas – the crowd and the question of difference – where atmospheric approaches to urban (counter)terrorism can be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]