Nikolai Roskamm – författare

While urban life can be characterized by endeavors to settle stable and safe environments, for many people, urban space is rarely stable or safe; it is uncertain, troubled, imbued with challenges and perpetually under pressure. As the concept of unsettled appears to define the contemporary urban experience, this multidisciplinary book investigates the conflicts and possibilities of settling and unsettling through open and speculative analysis.The analytical prism of unsettled renders urban space an indeterminate ground unfolding through routines, temporalities and contestations in constant tension between settling and unsettling. Such contrasting experiences are contingent on how urban societies confront, undergo and overcome turbulence and difficulties in time and space. Contributions drawing on theoretical reflections and empirical accounts—from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the UAE, the UK, the USA and Vietnam—give insights into plural occurrences of the unsettled, which might tie down or unleash transformative, liberatory and emancipatory potentials.This book is for students, professionals and researchers interested in the uncertainties, foundations, disturbances, inconsistencies, residuals and blind fields, which constitute the urban both as lived space and as social, cultural and political ideal.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

While urban life can be characterized by endeavors to settle stable and safe environments, for many people, urban space is rarely stable or safe; it is uncertain, troubled, imbued with challenges and perpetually under pressure. As the concept of unsettled appears to define the contemporary urban experience, this multidisciplinary book investigates the conflicts and possibilities of settling and unsettling through open and speculative analysis.The analytical prism of unsettled renders urban space an indeterminate ground unfolding through routines, temporalities and contestations in constant tension between settling and unsettling. Such contrasting experiences are contingent on how urban societies confront, undergo and overcome turbulence and difficulties in time and space. Contributions drawing on theoretical reflections and empirical accounts—from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the UAE, the UK, the USA and Vietnam—give insights into plural occurrences of the unsettled, which might tie down or unleash transformative, liberatory and emancipatory potentials.This book is for students, professionals and researchers interested in the uncertainties, foundations, disturbances, inconsistencies, residuals and blind fields, which constitute the urban both as lived space and as social, cultural and political ideal.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Die Prämisse der `postfundamentalistischen Überlegung´ ist es, dass es kein eindeutiges Fundament gibt, auf dem alles andere aufbaut: keinen Gott, keine städtebauliche Wahrheit, keinen Markt und auch sonst kein Prinzip, das den Lauf der Dinge notwendig und vorhersagbar bestimmt.

Nikolai Roskamm nimmt diesen Gedanken zum Ausgangspunkt für einen Durchgang durch die Theorien von Marx, Lefebvre, Laclau, Foucault, Arendt, Derrida, Harvey u.a. Er zeigt die Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten der dort zu findenden postfundamentalistischen Ansätze und untersucht, welche Rolle der Begriff der Stadt in diesem Denken jeweils spielt. Mit seiner These von der `unbesetzten Stadt´ konfrontiert er eingefahrene Denkroutinen auf dem urbanistischen Feld und unternimmt den Versuch einer kritischen Stadttheorie.

Identitat und kulturelles Erbe sowie dessen Aneignung oder Verwerfung spielen in den Wertedebatten der Gegenwart eine wichtige Rolle. Diesem Themenfeld, das von unsicheren Beziehungen, Ambiguitaten und Konflikten gepragt ist, widmen sich die Beitrage dieses Bandes. Interdisziplinare kulturtheoretische Analysen richten ihr Augenmerk auf Bauwerke, historische Orte und andere, hauptsachlich dingliche Uberlieferungen. Wer begreift sich als deren Erbe? Welche affirmativen Konzepte der Bildung von nationalen, sozialen und politischen Gruppierungen werden fur die mit diesen Objekten verbundenen Geschichts- und Identitatspolitiken mobilisiert? Wie konnen Kulturerbe-basierte Identitatskonstruktionen hinsichtlich ihrer inkludierenden und exkludierenden Wirkungsweisen analysiert und kritisch historisiert werden? In 18 Essays stellt der Band ausgewahlte Positionen zum Thema vor.

Post-foundationalism departs from the assumption that there is no ground, necessity, or objective rationale for human political existence or action. The edited volume puts contemporary debates arising from the »spatial turn« in cultural and social sciences in a dialogue with post-foundational theories of space and place to devise post-foundationalism as radical approach to urban studies. This approach enables us to think about space not only as socially produced, but also as crucially marked by conflict, radical negativity, and absence. The contributors undertake a (re-)reading of key spatial and/or post-foundational theorists to introduce their respective understandings of politics and space, and offer examples of post-foundational empirical analyses of urban protests, spatial occupation, and everyday life.