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Postsocialist Dialectics or Postindustrial Critique? On Discomfort in a Former Socialist Model City in East Germany

Ringel, Felix

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Abstract

Over the last 30 years, the inhabitants of Hoyerswerda, the German Democratic Republic’s second socialist model city, have struggled through de-industrialisation, unemployment, outmigration and urban decay. With the help of Karl Polanyi’s concept of ‘countermovement’, this essay scrutinises their various critiques of contemporary forms of capitalism. I investigate how these critiques help them to navigate their hometown’s prospects in the postindustrial era in order to rethink more generally the temporal implications of the social sciences’ conceptualisations of postsocialist critique. I approach my interlocutors’ expressions of discomfort amidst current political and economic crises as complex negotiations of the postindustrial present that are not determined by their socialist past.

Citation

Ringel, F. (2021). Postsocialist Dialectics or Postindustrial Critique? On Discomfort in a Former Socialist Model City in East Germany. Europe-Asia Studies, 73(9), 1748-1767. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2021.1998380

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Dec 2, 2021
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Dec 7, 2021
Publicly Available Date Jun 2, 2023
Journal Europe-Asia Studies
Print ISSN 0966-8136
Electronic ISSN 1465-3427
Publisher Department of Central and East European Studies
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 73
Issue 9
Pages 1748-1767
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2021.1998380

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