Between 'creative' boost and political dysfunction: An exploration of class, culture and economic dislocation in East Berlin

Abstract

Abstract In cities where tourism, creative industries and new service economies are boosting, the continuing impact of de-industrialization is less prominent than in discussions of, for example, former Rustbelt cities. Yet, these cities display new forms of intra-urban inequalities that are, beyond the discussion of gentrification, not strongly visible in urban sociology discourses. While scholarly work on Berlin focuses on its gentrification and touristification, urban social movements and forms of migration, less attention is paid to the city as a site of de-industrialization, economic dislocation, class-based defamations and the resulting labelling of political dysfunctionality of certain parts of the population. Exploring the less visible yet ongoing effects of de-industrialization in the post-socialist context of a formerly divided city, this article contributes to a better conceptual understanding of the economic dislocation of the (previous) working classes of East Berlin. It is argued that effects of deindustrialization are related to the cultural and relational production of class through the organization of socialist industrial work and that these effects are ongoing, yet silenced. Lastly, the article outlines a set of hypotheses regarding the friction of a decreasing public, yet continued personal relevance of industrial and working-class heritage, socially and materially, in the city.