Krasny, Elke. ‘Divided We Share: On the Ethics and Politics of Public Space.’ 2019

Krasny, Elke. ‘Divided We Share: On the Ethics and Politics of Public Space.’ In Shared Cities Atlas. Post-socialist Cities and Active Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Helena Doudová, 126-133. Rotterdam: nai010, 2019.
#unteilbar was the motto of a mass rally that took place on 13 October 2018 in Berlin. #indivisible was used to demonstrate unity against the surge of right-wing populism and against racism and xenophobia. In German, just like in English, un- is a negative prefix which means not. The suffix bar translates into the English -able or -ible meaning capable of being or able to be done. The centre syllable teil interests me the most here. The verb teilen has two meanings: to share and to divide. Public space is both shared and divided, and people are divided over how to share and divide it.