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Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin
Author(s) -
Rosol Marit
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x
Subject(s) - neoliberalism (international relations) , outsourcing , promotion (chess) , politics , rationality , state (computer science) , sociology , space (punctuation) , public space , public administration , political science , political economy , engineering , law , architectural engineering , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
The task for critical urban research is to analyze processes of neoliberalization “on the ground”. This paper examines—based on original empirical research—in how far the outsourcing of former local state responsibilities for public services and urban infrastructure is expressed in the promotion of community gardening in Berlin (Germany). It shows the contradictory outcomes: on the one hand, a failing strategy of outsourcing towards residents and the opening up of opportunity structures for other interests. On the other hand it shows how far the emergence of open green spaces maintained by volunteers can only be understood against the background of “roll‐back” neoliberal urban politics and that their rationality cannot be separated from “roll‐out neoliberalism”.