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Outputs (23)

Beyond outmigration: Im/mobilities and futures in peripheral postindustrial cities (2023)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2023). Beyond outmigration: Im/mobilities and futures in peripheral postindustrial cities. Mobilities, https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2023.2209829

This paper explores negotiations of futures within and beyond Germany’s formerly fastest shrinking city, the East German city of Hoyerswerda. Originally built for the German Democratic Republic’s miners and energy workers, its model socialist New Cit... Read More about Beyond outmigration: Im/mobilities and futures in peripheral postindustrial cities.

The time of post-socialism: On the future of an anthropological concept (2022)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2022). The time of post-socialism: On the future of an anthropological concept. Critique of Anthropology, 42(2), 191-208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275x221095930

When accounting for changes in the post-socialist era, anthropologists were forced to carefully distinguish between what had remained the same, what had actually changed and what was emerging anew and on its own terms. As a sub-discipline, the anthro... Read More about The time of post-socialism: On the future of an anthropological concept.

Tides of Concrete: Sensing Infrastructural Times in a Former Socialist Model City (2021)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2021). Tides of Concrete: Sensing Infrastructural Times in a Former Socialist Model City. Roadsides, 006, 72-80. https://doi.org/10.26034/roadsides-202100610

This is an episodic sensorial biography (Desjarlais 2003) of a city made of concrete. It recounts how urban modernist infrastructures, shaped by their main construction material, created a new historical-sensorial experience. It tracks an infrastruct... Read More about Tides of Concrete: Sensing Infrastructural Times in a Former Socialist Model City.

Contextualising Expectations: Reconfiguring Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Era (2021)
Book Chapter
Ringel, F. (2021). Contextualising Expectations: Reconfiguring Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Era. In E. Kirtsoglou, & B. Simpson (Eds.), The time of anthropology : studies of contemporary chronopolitics. Routledge

Like the rest of this volume, this paper emerges out of the 2016 annual meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth (ASA). The conference took place just ten days after the UK referendum on EU membe... Read More about Contextualising Expectations: Reconfiguring Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Era.

Postsocialist Dialectics or Postindustrial Critique? On Discomfort in a Former Socialist Model City in East Germany (2021)
Journal Article
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

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

Future-Making in Times of Urban Sustainability: Maintenance and Endurance as Progressive Alternatives in the Postindustrial Era (2021)
Book Chapter
Ringel, F. (2021). Future-Making in Times of Urban Sustainability: Maintenance and Endurance as Progressive Alternatives in the Postindustrial Era. In M. Kazubowski-Houston, & M. Auslander (Eds.), In Search of Lost Futures (129-149). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63003-4_6

Different times evoke different relations to the future. Recent additions look discouragingly conservative: sustaining, maintaining, and enduring describe practices that look like they are aimed at preventing change rather than provoking it. However,... Read More about Future-Making in Times of Urban Sustainability: Maintenance and Endurance as Progressive Alternatives in the Postindustrial Era.

Brexit as postindustrial critique (2020)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2020). Brexit as postindustrial critique. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 10(2), 361-366. https://doi.org/10.1086/709780

Anthropologists and other commentators struggle to make sense of pre-COVID-19 political developments in the postindustrial Global North. Various narratives were created to explain these dramatic events and changes, deploying an armory of social scien... Read More about Brexit as postindustrial critique.

Sensing late-liberal state failure: Ecologies of resistance in a post-industrial German city (2020)
Book Chapter
Ringel, F. (2020). Sensing late-liberal state failure: Ecologies of resistance in a post-industrial German city. In A. Dundon, & R. Vokes (Eds.), Shifting States: New Perspectives on Security, Infrastructure, and Political Affect. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003086673

Harbour cities smell differently: the sea mixes its own odours of fish and seaweed with the exhaust gases of heavy ships and marine industries. In one of those major seaports, the German city of Bremerhaven, my informants noticed a different smell in... Read More about Sensing late-liberal state failure: Ecologies of resistance in a post-industrial German city.

Ruins of pre-gentrification: Schrotthäuser and urban standstill in a postindustrial city (2020)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2020). Ruins of pre-gentrification: Schrotthäuser and urban standstill in a postindustrial city. Time & Society, 29(2), 563-580. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463x20906652

The Goetheviertel is the poorest district of Germany’s poorest city, the postindustrial harbour city of Bremerhaven. However, for many local inhabitants it is also the city’s most beautiful district with its 19th century architecture and central loca... Read More about Ruins of pre-gentrification: Schrotthäuser and urban standstill in a postindustrial city.

Class, CO2 and urban climate change mitigation: On saving energy in a post-industrial German city (2018)
Book Chapter
Ringel, F. (2018). Class, CO2 and urban climate change mitigation: On saving energy in a post-industrial German city. In A. Szolucha (Ed.), Energy, Resource Extraction and Society: Impacts and Contested Futures (124-139). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351213943

As part of its urban redevelopment strategies, the city of Bremerhaven transformed itself into Germany’s centre for the offshore wind energy industry. Locally produced wind turbines have come to embody the promises of the city’s regeneration in the c... Read More about Class, CO2 and urban climate change mitigation: On saving energy in a post-industrial German city.

On expectations in the aftermath of the ‘refugee crisis’: Ethnographic prospects from a post-industrial German city (2018)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2018). On expectations in the aftermath of the ‘refugee crisis’: Ethnographic prospects from a post-industrial German city. Anthropology Today, 34(3), 26-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12437

At the height of the ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe, right‐wing critics challenged refugees’ rights to asylum. One of the ways they did this was by predicting chaotic, doom‐laden futures. In reality, nobody – neither the communities hosting the refugees,... Read More about On expectations in the aftermath of the ‘refugee crisis’: Ethnographic prospects from a post-industrial German city.

Beyond temporality: Notes on the anthropology of time from a shrinking fieldsite (2016)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2016). Beyond temporality: Notes on the anthropology of time from a shrinking fieldsite. Anthropological Theory, 16(4), 390-412. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499616659971

With the help of ethnographic material from Germany’s fastest shrinking city, I critically engage in this paper with the term ‘temporality’. By bringing together recent insights from the anthropology of time and the future, the literature on post-soc... Read More about Beyond temporality: Notes on the anthropology of time from a shrinking fieldsite.

Can Time Be Tricked? - A Theoretical Introduction (2016)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2016). Can Time Be Tricked? - A Theoretical Introduction. Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 34(1), 22-31. https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2016.340104

This theoretical introduction develops a conceptual argument stemming from the concept of ‘time-tricking’. Whilst most theories of time in anthropology develop a coherent definition of the nature of time – for instance, as ‘cyclical’ or ‘linear’ – I... Read More about Can Time Be Tricked? - A Theoretical Introduction.

Post-Industrial Times and the Unexpected: Endurance and sustainability in Germany's fastest shrinking city (2014)
Journal Article
Ringel, F. (2014). Post-Industrial Times and the Unexpected: Endurance and sustainability in Germany's fastest shrinking city. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20(S1), 52-70. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12093

This paper investigates the impact of recent politico-economic changes on contemporary experiences of time from the perspective of the future. By discussing endurance, permanence, and sustainability in Germany's fastest-shrinking city, I present a se... Read More about Post-Industrial Times and the Unexpected: Endurance and sustainability in Germany's fastest shrinking city.