Performing the global through the local—globalisation and individualisation in the spatial practices of young East Germans

Abstract

This paper aims to show how young people in former East Germany respond to the globalising processes that are part of the transformation of their society from a state-socialist to a capitalist one. It focuses particularly on the differential ways in which young people perform their identities as global/local subjects through the uses that they make of urban space. While emphasising the agency of young people, the paper seeks to examine the dialectic between globalising forces that are largely beyond their control and the negotiation of these forces in everyday practices of identity-formation. Conceptually, the paper draws particularly on the work of Beck (2000) Beck, U. 2000. “What is Globalization?”. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press. [Google Scholar], Beck and Gernsheim (2002) Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. 2002. Individualization. Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] and Giddens (1994) Giddens, A. 1994. Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar] in order to conceptualise the connections between globalisation and individualisation, as well as on feminist and recent geographical work on performativity (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London and New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar], 1993 Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, London and New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]; Rose, 1996 Rose, G. 1996. “As if the mirrors had bled: masculine dwelling, masculine theory and feminist masquerades”. In BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, Edited by: Duncan, N. 56–74. London and New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]; Gregson and Rose, 2000 Gregson, N. and Rose, G. 2000. ‘Taking Butler elsewhere: performativities, spatialities and subjectivities’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 433–452. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Thrift, 1996 Thrift, N. 1996. Spatial Formations, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury, 2000 Dewsbury, J.-D. 2000. ‘Performativity and the event: enacting a philosophy of difference’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4): 473–496. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Dewsbury and Naylor, 2002 Dewsbury, J.-D. and Naylor, S. 2002. Practicing geographical knowledge: fields, bodies and dissemination. Area, 34(3): 253–260. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in order to gain an embodied understanding of the ways in which individuals construct themselves as global/local subjects.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 71 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.