Shared Spaces, Contentious Places?

Public spaces are built or imagined places, where culture, history and belonging are represented, lived and negotiated. They are shared spaces, where people get together and integration and participation are practiced. And they are contentious places, where belongings and memories are disputed.

The workshop and panel discussion Shared Spaces, Contentious Places? (Re-)Negotiating Belonging in Urban Spaces and Museums will focus on the multiple relationships between public spaces, built heritage, memory and belonging. We will look at a variety of examples from Europe: the demolition, reconstruction, re-adaption and re-appropriation of historic and iconic buildings; the valorization and devalorization of socialist heritage after 1989; social and migrant struggles in urban neighborhoods; and the representation and re-negotiating of belonging in museums.

The workshop will explore concepts and practices of belonging that are connected to public space. How do the framing, appropriation and reassessment of public spaces and places enable and obstruct belonging, and challenge conventional power structures? How can urban infrastructures and environments, and built heritage represent and support democratic values, and diversity? And what role do history, memory and remembrance play in this?

The workshop will bring together members of the HERA project en/counter/points: (re)negotiating belonging through culture and contact in public space and place with associated partners and experts in the fields of urban history and heritage, migration and museums to reflect upon and discuss discourses, processes, and practices of belonging in public spaces.

Workshop 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm         

Susannah Eckersley, Newcastle University, Achim Saupe and Kristin Meißner, Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam
Introduction & Moderation

Christoph Bernhardt, Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung Erkner/Berlin
Urban Authenticity

Verena Pfeiffer, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg/Berlin
Recalling and Belonging in Urban Space

Q & A

Wulf Kansteiner , Aarhus University
Commemoration Culture and Belonging: Can Museums go Agonistic?

Elisabeth Tietmeyer, Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin
Participation and the Creation of Belonging in Museums

Q & A

After the workshop:
Public Panel Discussion "The City as a Museum - Conflicts about belonging and history in public space"
 

An event organized by the project en/counter/points: (re)negotiating be-longing through culture and contact in public space and place, funded under the HERA programme by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
                                         
In cooperation with Shared Spaces – European Dialogues about Public Spaces, a project of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Contact:
Kristin Meißner
E meissner@zzf-potsdam.de