Back to the Postindustrial Future. Felix Ringel
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a social scientist. Consequently, we keep on travelling back in time, trying to capture what was there. However, studying the relations to the future of my informants and their hometown might tempt author or readers to evaluate which past predictions prove true. This book argues we should avoid such temptations. We have to take the present we explored as what it was: a short stretch of time, during which we have shared life with the people we study. This book aims to take the reader back to Hoyerswerda in 2008 and 2009 and to account for the conditions and problems that were prevalent then. These problems might resemble the ones ‘currently’ important in Hoyerswerda, but to establish whether they are the same, is impossible.
To capture the present I encountered in sixteen months of fieldwork is hard. There is simply not enough space to represent the ethnographic material that I assembled during this time in one singular argument. In hindsight, I have not captured this particular present or period in its entirety, and my argument restricts itself to matters of time, particularly of the future. Since the future was on everybody’s mind then, I am assured that my informants will appreciate why it takes centre-stage now. Sadly, this means I had to leave many things out. Therefore, the readers will not read about Waltraut Skoddow’s delicious asparagus salad or the resounding laughter of elderly women from the Cultural Factory’s knitting club. They will not be taken at night to the spooky emptiness of an abandoned eleven-storey apartment block awaiting demolition. They will not stand on its roof, seeing the lights and straightforward lines of the New City’s impressive modernist architecture. They will not see the numerous pieces of art that decorate the interiors of so many apartments in the city or sit around a dinner table with one of my host families, discussing matters of the day, tidings from the local newspaper or plans for the weekend. There is also not enough space to see the many sculptures from the socialist past displayed throughout the city, or the local zoo, another true accomplishment from the same historical period. We will not enjoy ourselves in absurd costumes at the local anarchists’ ‘Coke, Puke, Communism II’ (Koksen, Kotzen, Kommunismus II) party or dance the conga line with the seniors’ club Spätlese e.V. after its annual fashion show, where the models were recruited from among their own active crowd. We will not go on a wolf tour with Stephan, join a few of the remaining miners on their way to work much too early in the morning, or carefully cycle home after a splendid Weinclub-dinner at the best restaurant in town on a bike exhibiting a sticker advocating the renovation of a house in the city centre with the slogan (in English) ‘Born to Survive’. We will not stop for a beer in front of the Schlucki drinks market, listen to a private Gundermann concert by young singer-songwriter Florian in district 5 or visit Moni on her lovingly cared for garden plot that is part of what is still called the ‘Bright Future’ (Frohe Zukunft) allotments. We will not stand on stage with the grandmother who, in lieu of her grandchild, awaits the introductions for the ceremony of the former socialist confirmation equivalent: her grandchild will arrive the next morning from her family’s new West German home, where the East German Jugendweihe is not celebrated.
As I focus on drastic postindustrial decline and the presumed loss of the future, the readers will not be introduced to the ‘normal’ small city lives that people, too, live in Hoyerswerda. They will be taken to moments of conflict and argument, of critical commentary, creative work and existential negotiations. These moments do not allow much time for silence and introspection. But for the sake of the argument of this book, they are important to attend to because they help to underline that the everyday life of a shrinking city is in many ways not normal. The future looms over it and demands thought, care and reflection. This book documents this postindustrial urban community’s response to a presumed loss of the future and the new kinds of social relations this loss creates.
Acknowledgements
I owe thanks to the citizens of Hoyerswerda, foremost for teaching me so much about life, but also for their hospitality, openness and kindness. When I arrived in Hoyerswerda in January 2008, it was the height of the international financial crisis. My informants could only shrug at this crisis. ‘A new crisis? We had a crisis for years already.’ With the same stubborn attitude, they first eyed a young anthropologist embarking on his first fieldwork. What then happened was as unexpected for them as it was for me. Cycling through the city, from an appointment in the New City to a meeting in the Old City and then back to a party in some abandoned apartment house at the outskirts, I met a lot of very different people. They always treated me kindly, answered my numerous questions, and guided me through the city and its surroundings. Young and old shared a lot of thought, wit, tea and cake with me. Many schools, clubs and other institutions opened their doors to me, and endured the odd onlooker into their professional and private lives. I think it is fair to say that we have mutually learned a lot from one another on a very transparent journey back to a city that kept on shrinking in the meantime.
Throughout my sixteen months of fieldwork, my host families and newly found friends were simply wonderful and sustained me in many ways. I want to express heartfelt gratitude to my overall seven host families for providing me with much-appreciated new homes during my fieldwork: Regina, Andreas and Franzi Schütze with Markus, Oma Helga as well as Jule and Axel Kiermeyer; Heike, Micha, Franzi and Basti Kalkbrenner; Kersten Flohe; Angela and Hajo Donath; Katrin, Rocco and Sebastian Schäfer as well as Oma Brigitte; Moni, Ralph and Genia Büchner; and Dorit, Carsten and Ria Baumeister with Dirk Lienig. Just a few of my friends include Benni, Willy, Ria, Ise, Rick, Proksch, Ollum, Fidschie, Hanni, Dennis, Alex, Florian, Uwe, Sabine, Röhli, Angela, Elke, Claudia, Marita, Jo, Ute, Gerhard (Schlegel and Walter), Waltraut, Helfried, Rosemarie, Renate and Peter. Special thanks go to Steffi Schneider for sharing the joys and burdens of the ‘AnthroCamp’ project, and to her, Mandy Decker and Inge Williams for making the ‘PaintBlock’ project happen. Mirko Kolodziej has been the best ‘office manager’ I could wish for when writing journalistically, and thinking generally, about Hoyerswerda.
I would also like to acknowledge the many members of the following social clubs and institutions, whose continuous patience and hospitality contributed enormously to my research: Seniorenakademie Hoyerswerda e.V., Kunstverein Hoyerswerda e.V., Kulturfabrik Hoyerswerda e.V., Spätlese Hoyerswerda e.V., Kulturbund Hoyerswerda e.V., Braugasse 1 e.V., AntifaAG Hoyerswerda, Initiative Zivilcourage Hoyerswerda, StadtZukunft e.V., the Hoyerswerdaer Tageblatt, the Stadt Hoyerswerda, particularly Lord Mayor Stefan Skora, and the Lessing-Gymnasium Hoyerswerda, especially the musical class and the theatre group of the year 2008/09.
I applaud the courage, enthusiasm and hard work of Hoyerswerda’s inhabitants. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, happy cities might as well be alike, and every unhappy city might be unhappy in its own way. However, cities are also unique with regard to the manner in which they reclaim their future (and) happiness, and respond to their problems. Hoyerswerda’s problems are similar to those in Flint, Michigan (United States), Yūbari (Japan), Nowa Huta (Poland) or, indeed, Durham (United Kingdom), where I am writing these lines. In particular smaller postindustrial cities have to find their very own way out of the structural crises that affect their existence. The people living in Hoyerswerda, I hope, have found their response and are – as some of my friends had it – ‘deeply relaxed’ (tiefenentspannt) about, and still ‘fervently’ (mit Inbrunst) working on, their prospects. I wish them and their city all the best for the future.
Many institutions have funded this project: the German Study Foundation, the University of Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK (PTA-031-2006-00210). I thank them for making this work possible. Parts of Chapter 2 have been published in FOCAAL 66 (2013) and an earlier version of Chapter 5 has appeared in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 20(S1) (2014).
I have presented aspects of this work at several research seminars. I owe debts to colleagues at the Anthropology Departments at Brunel (United Kingdom), Cambridge (United Kingdom), Maynooth (Ireland), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Vienna (Austria). I also owe Laura Bear and the colleagues of her ‘Conflicts in Time’ research network for inspiring conversations, Maya Shapiro for co-organizing the 2013 AAA panel on Urban Affect, and Tatjana Thelen and the Postsocialism reading group in Vienna for continuing debates. Nina