Governing the future of a shrinking city: Hoyerswerda, East Germany GRIBAT, Nina Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/7027/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/7027/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. Governing the Future of a Shrinking City: Hoyerswerda, East Germany Nina Gribat A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2010 Abstract The notion of ‘shrinking cities’ emerged in the context of population loss and economic decline in East Germany around the turn of the 21st century. Different practices, policies, academic research and public debates developed, which were mainly concerned with how to deal with this problem. However, the emergence of shrinkage as an urban problem in Germany and what it entails have so far rarely been examined. This includes the starting points and assumptions on which different approaches to shrinkage are based. In employing Foucault’s notion of problematisation in a research perspective of governmentality, this thesis argues that taken-for-granted practices and rationalities of governing shrinkage can be decentred and attention can be drawn to the contingencies of practices, rationalities and techniques which emerged in relation to shrinking cities. A particular focus on conflicts and contestations shows the extent to which practices and assumptions are contested or not. Fieldwork was undertaken in the city of Hoyerswerda in Saxony, once the booming Second Socialist City of the GDR, which has lost almost half its inhabitants since German Unity in 1990. The empirical material gathered comprises semi-structured interviews and a diverse set of documents. The main analytical focus was on how spaces, times, subjectivities and subjects were problematised in the future discourses and practices in Hoyerswerda and on the issues around which conflicts, contestations and counter-conducts emerged. The research found a unanimous agreement in the examined shrinkage discourses that a difference can be made locally if shrinkage is governed properly. The differences of opinion and the conflicts over policies centre around rationalities, practices and techniques of how to govern shrinkage and which spaces, times and subjectivities are considered beneficial or detrimental to the future. The main conflict in the government of shrinkage in Hoyerswerda concerns the question of how to deal with the city’s GDR past: which historical and spatial continuities to avoid or to foster and the subjectivities associated with these spaces and times. ii Acknowledgements The openness, warmth and generosity with which I was welcomed in Hoyerswerda were overwhelming. I would like to thank the participants of this study, not only for sharing their views on how to deal with shrinkage in and beyond Hoyerswerda, but also for generously supporting me in many other ways. Special thanks go to Dorit Baumeister, Mirko Kolodziej, Uwe Proksch, Martin and Helene Schmidt. I am very grateful for the support, advice and calmness of Dr. Alan Patterson, my Director of Study who often managed to give me peace of mind when things were getting desperate. A huge thank you goes to Dr. Margo Huxley, my second supervisor, for the continuous and very generous guidance, for the rich stream of suggestions, challenging questions and suggestions, for often bending over backwards, for all the exciting exchanges about many things beyond the PhD and her care and warmth. The Graduate School of D&S was a ‘home’ for my work during times in Sheffield. I would like to thank Samm, Bev, Ann and Pam for making it all run smoothly, for encouragement and banter. I am grateful for the financial support of the Graduate School to attend conferences and for a few of my transcriptions. I much appreciated the opportunity to attend PhD Forums at CRESR and also several outings of URS. This project would not have been possible without a bursary from the Faculty of D&S at SHU. In the writing-up phase I received much needed and appreciated financial support from FAZIT foundation in Germany and later from the German Academic Exchange Foundation (DAAD). I thank Win, Dave and Emmie for friendship and endless PHD talks, discussions about life, politics and other things; Mel, Daniel and Wei for making our two houses homes and for wonderful cooking sessions, for going out and all the little things. A special thank you goes to my family, Renate, Heiner, Wilfried, Inge and Moritz for supporting me in whatever I do and for the trust that it will all work out even when I doubted. This is for Sheena, for being in my life since I started doing this PhD and for bearing that it sometimes ate me, most of all for our exciting and wonderful journey together. iii Table of contents List of figures............................................................................................................. vi List of tables.............................................................................................................. vii Glossary of foreign terms........................................................................................ viii Acronyms used in the text ......................................................................................... ix 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The emergence of shrinkage............................................................................. 2 1.3 Structure of the thesis......................................................................................17 2 Governmentality, subjects and subjectivity........................................................21 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................21 2.2 Decline in the wider literature .........................................................................21 2.3 Governmentality .............................................................................................32 2.4 Liberal governmentality and subjectivity.........................................................41 2.5 Conclusion......................................................................................................46 3 Space, time and conflict.......................................................................................48 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................48 3.2 Space, time and power in the wider literature ..................................................49 3.3 Government, space and spatiality....................................................................53 3.4 Government, time and temporality ..................................................................60 3.5 Contestations, conflicts and counter-conduct...................................................66 3.6 Conclusion......................................................................................................74 4 Methodology.........................................................................................................76 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................76 4.2 Research questions, methodological approach.................................................77 4.3 Methods..........................................................................................................86 4.4 The research process .......................................................................................92 4.5 Conclusion....................................................................................................102 5 Hoyerswerda, an exemplar of a shrinking city.................................................104 5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................104 5.2 From small rural town to Second Socialist City.............................................105 5.3 Post-German-Unity developments.................................................................119 iv 5.4 Problematisations in post-Unity discourses ...................................................126 5.5 Conclusion....................................................................................................139 6 Managing shrinkage ..........................................................................................142 6.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................142 6.2 Spatial management of shrinkage..................................................................142 6.3 Temporal management of shrinkage..............................................................155 6.4 Managing shrinkage as a concern for subjects and population .......................172 6.5 Conclusion....................................................................................................180