Abstract

SOARES DO BEM, Arim. Berlin: space and ethnicity: the symbolic reconstruction of the wall. CIDADES [online]. 2013, n.26, pp.89-99. ISSN 2182-3030.  https://doi.org/10.7749/citiescommunitiesterritories.jun2013.026.art05.

The article analyzes the discourses of inclusion and exclusion related to social and political contents, experiences and dynamics that marked the process of identity construction of young West Germans and migrants born in Berlin after the fall of the wall, in a context of open borders and refunctionalisation of the urban space as well as their struggles for social integration. For the specific objectives of this article we analyze exemplarily a series of interviews with a young West German and a young man of Turkish origin born in Berlin. The flexible construction of enemies demonstrated the centrality of ethnic logic in cognitive appropriation of their conditions of existence and in forming their structures of subjective elaboration of social relations.

Keywords : German unification; Construction of enemies; Historical change and city; Berlin Wall; Urban space and social integration.

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