Paper: ‘But now Everywhere is the West:’ Cultural Identity in East Berlin after 1989.

Dellenbaugh, Mary. 2015. “‘But now everywhere is the West:’ Cultural identity in East Berlin after 1989.” In the Proceedings of the Smart Metropolia Conference, Gdansk, Poland.

This paper examines concepts of belonging and identity in East Berlin since the fall of the Berlin Wall through two phenomena: the East German as a “symbolic foreigner,” and the persistent cultural divide between East and West known as the “Wall in your head.” The author discusses these concepts with regard to the radical built space changes in the eastern half of Berlin since 1989, and reflects on their implications for the embodiment of nationality and national identity, and resulting cultural fragmentation in post-socialist countries.

You can download the full documentation of the conference (in Polish) here or a copy of the article in English here.

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