Social Change and the Everyday Practice of Dealing with Difference in the City: Banal Transgression in Allotment Gardens
Final Report Abstract
From the perspective of social practices, this study has explored the extent to which 'major' social changes and urban developments are also negotiated at the microsocial level of allotment garden associations. Taking the example of allotment garden associations in two large German cities, the project was able to demonstrate through sociological and human geographic concepts that, depending on the social situation and constellation, individuals refer to difference and corresponding categories of differentiation in social processes as a way to connect with other people or to set oneself apart from them. In terms of difference theory, people use difference to explore being-in-relation-with-others; the relational perspective makes visible how actors in social processes relate to their social embeddedness. "Other-than" or "similar-to" indicate relations in which individuals constitute themselves as socially related, and not as independent from each other. The project conceptualizes the negotiation of difference in terms of sociological conflict theory. This means not seeing conflicts as something socially undesirable for which there must be immediate solutions. Rather, conflicts are interpreted as an indication of vital social struggles and the possibility of negotiating social integration. An intersectional perspective on conflicts can show the differentiated social processes that underlie these small everyday negotiations. Thus, the conflicts in the allotment garden are only superficially about e.g. how gardening should be done and what is the "right" use of a plot. The analysis shows that the garden-related negotiations often implicate a negotiation of power relations and social sovereignty in the field of garden associations, in which social relations have become unstable. The conflicts offer insight into the processes of negotiation between the formerly dominant social group and the new members with a higher social status; furthermore, members renegotiate other lines of difference such as gender and race. Conceptualizing allotment associations as urban micropublics has made it possible to explore the possibilities they offer for everyday change. In the analysis of situations in which people who were initially strangers to each other meet at eye level, it turns out that members use difference in social negotiations to relate to each other in everyday interactions. In particular, the spatial proximity of the plots to each other and the common areas of the associations offer occasions and points of contact for such encounters. The project elaborates on how people negotiate encounters in the micro-publics of allotment gardens with a special focus on the role of difference as an essential point of reference.
Publications
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Diverse City. In: Dieter Rink, Annegret Haase (Hg.), Handbuch Stadtkonzepte. Analysen, Diagnosen, Kritiken und Visionen. Opladen, Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 63-85.
Schuster, Nina
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Feministische Geographien der Arbeit – Zusammenhänge von Prekarisierung, Gentrifizierung und Globalisierung. Handbuch Feministische Geographien, 120-144. Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Fraeser, Nina; Schuster, Nina & Vogelpohl, Anne
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Das „Infra-“ der Struktur. sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung, 10(2/3), 185-196.
Hutta, Jan & Schuster, Nina
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Infrastrukturen städtischer Intimität. sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung, 10(2/3), 97-113.
Hutta, Jan & Schuster, Nina
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Diversity in Public Space. Eine Einleitung. In: Field Trips in Public Space. Diversity in Public Space. 2022. Wien: TU Wien, future.lab, 2-5
Schuster, Nina
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Stadtraum, Macht und Geschlecht. In: Journal Netzwerk Frauenund Geschlechterforschung NRW 51, 52-57
Schuster, Nina
