Christine Hentschel

Vita

Christine Hentschel studied Political Science, Francophone Cultures, and Comparative Religious Studies in Leipzig and IEP Paris. Her Master’s thesis investigated new regimes of moralizing and regulating prostitution in France and Germany. She then worked at the Department of African Studies in a research collaboration project on ‘Intellectuals and Violence in Russia, Mexico, and South Africa’ before engaging in her PhD research at the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Leipzig in collaboration with the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town. Her PhD thesis, entitled ‘The Spatial Life of Security: Durban, South Africa,’ explored how post-apartheid urban space and urban citizenship are re-imagined and transformed through various practices of (self-)governance and survival in a city perceived as dangerous. Christine’s research interests currently revolve around urban space and the urban everyday, postcolonial theory, as well as aesthetics and consumption. She is part of the ‘Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism’ and the ‘African Urbanism Initiative,’ a new platform seeking to develop alternative theoretical approaches to African cityness.

ICI-Project

KippCity. Figuring Multistable Neukölln
KippCity is an experiment in theorizing urban space as in motion. It works through grasping and reassembling different, partly competing apprehensions and future scenarios of one and the same object: the Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln. The project thus captures the nonstatic, nervous, and fluid spatiality of a city district (perceived as) changing its guise. In this moment of flickering urbanity, KippCity Neukölln tips along multiple axes towards different urban futures, for example toward becoming Berlin’s no-go-zone of failed integration or its new alternative hub of creativity. This ethnographic project is inspired by the recent call of African Urbanist scholars (Mbembe, Nuttall) to postcolonize urban research, bringing this call to a Northern city with a neighborhood branded as poor, violent, and failing. Walls, markets, bars, and numerous ordinary and special time-spaces are my sites for conceptualizing the flickering urbanity of KippCity Neukölln. I read these spatialities through their aesthetic and affective expressions (Thrift) and as always performed and performing (Rose).

Recent Publications, Lectures, and Panels

Articles

2011    'City Ghosts. The haunted struggles for downtown Durban and Berlin Neukölln’ In Tony Samara (ed.): Right to the City in the Global South: Transnational Urban Governance and Socio-spatial Transformations, University of Minnesota Press (under review).

2011    'Outcharming Crime in (D)urban Space.’ Social Dynamics, 37, 1: 148-164.

2010    ‘Policing South African Cities: Plural and Spatial Perspectives.’ In: Cools et al. (eds.) Police, Policing, Policy and the City in Europe: Eleven International Publishing, The Hague: 147-173, with Julie Berg.

2010    ‘“We are Durban!” Städtische Angst und Sicherheit im Instant Space.’ In C. Haferburg and M. Steinbrink (eds.) Megaevent und Stadtentwicklung im globalen Süden: Die Fußballweltmeisterschaft 2010 und ihre Impulse für Südafrika: 117-139. (‘”We are Durban!” Urban Fear and Instant Security.’)

2008    ‘”Rat Breeding Colonies": Städtische Gewalträume und ihre Regulierung in Durban, Südafrika.’ Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 1, 2008. (‘”Rat Breeding Colonies:" Violent Urban Spaces and their Regulation in Durban, South Africa.’)

2007    ‘Making (In)Visible: CCTV, „Living Cameras,“ and their Objects in a Post-Apartheid Metropolis.’ International Criminal Justice Review 17 (4): 289-303.

2006    ‘Der schlanke Staat und der dicke Konsument. Zur Regierung der Fettleibigkeit.’ In J. Lamla and S. Neckel (eds.) Politisierter Konsum - konsumierte Politik. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 113-131. (‘The Downsized State and the Supersized Consumer: The Governance of Obesity.’)

Lectures and Conference Papers

2011    ‘Hard to resist: A Berlin neighbourhood’s flickering feelings’. Paper at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Seattle, April 12-16.

2011    ‘Space power : emotional.’ Guest Lecture at the Departments of Anthropology and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, April 1^st.

2010    ‘Crime and the City: from Panopticon to flirty Surfaces.’ Guest lecture at the Department of Anthropology, The New School for Social Research, New York, September 15.

2010    ‘Outcharming Crime in (D)urban Space,’ African Urbanism Colloquium, American University of Cairo, 30 May.

2010    ‘Night Time Bubbles: Conceptualising Governable Spaces in Time,’ Groupe Européen de Recherche sur les Normativités (GERN): Workshop Urban Nightlife – Transgression and Governance, Berlin, 21 May.

2010    ‘The Spatial Life of Security: Durban, South Africa.’ Guest lecture at Colloquium Place, Space, Power, Department of Sociology, University of Darmstadt, 11 May.

 

2010     ‘Lights in the Dark. On the uses of atmosphere against danger in the city.’ European Social Science History Conference, Gent, 16 April.

2010    ‘Governmentality meets Spatial Theory in the Postcolony,’ Workshop ‘Glocal’ Practices of Security Governance in the Postcolony, Free University Berlin, 23 January.

2009    ‘Instant Space.’ European Conference on African Studies, Leipzig, 6 June.

2009    ‘Space, Affect, Security: Reflections on “Outcharming” Crime in the City.’ African Urbanism Colloquium, University of Cape Town, 3 April.

 

2009    ‘Spatial Actants in Security Governance.’ Nodal Security Governance Colloquium, Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town, 27 March.

Workshop and Panel Organisation

2011     "Utopia : Wreckage" at the ICI Berlin, 16 June.

2011    “Affective Spaces” at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Seattle, Washington, 12-16 April.

2009    "Fragmented and Fluid Urbanities," European Conference on African Studies, Leipzig, 6 June.

2008    "Governing Security and Making Space.” Collaboration between the DFG Research Training Group „Critical Junctures of Globalization“ and the Berlin Research Centre 700 „Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”, Berlin, 5 September.