Republishment: Back to the Postindustrial Future

In May 2020, Felix Ringel’s book “Back to the Postindustrial Future: An Ethnography of Germany’s Fastest-Shrinking City” will be republished as paperback. You can find it here.

“How does an urban community come to terms with the loss of its future? The former socialist model city of Hoyerswerda is an extreme case of a declining postindustrial city. Built to serve the GDR coal industry, it lost over half its population to outmigration after German reunification and the coal industry crisis, leading to the large-scale deconstruction of its cityscape. This book tells the story of its inhabitants, now forced to reconsider their futures. Building on recent theoretical work, it advances a new anthropological approach to time, allowing us to investigate the postindustrial era and the futures it has supposedly lost.” (Berghahn Books)

Felix Ringel is an assistant professor in Social Anthropology in Durham, England and a member of the CityIndustries Network. Check out his profile here.