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In this article, I discuss comparison in urban anthropology from two perspectives. Using the fundamental epistemological significance of comparison as a starting point for all ethnographic cultural studies, I first present different comparative perspectives in urban anthropology and their concepts. These range from typological thinking to urban specificity and relational urbanity. Secondly, I examine comparison from the perspective of the anthropology of knowledge as an everyday academic practice in order to understand its subjectification and spatial dimensions. The possibilities and limitations of comparison resulting from everyday academic practice are thus seen as a prerequisite for establishing any concept of comparison. Finally, I critically explore the specific requirements of ethnographic comparison via the figure of the entrepreneurial-ethnographic self.

The planning of urban districts involves ideas of how people in cities would like to and should best encounter each other. The term "encounter capacity", which denotes social as well as material dimensions of enabling "social mix", has emerged in the reflexive planning practice of Hamburg's HafenCity to increase the realisation of encounters through planned public space. This article explores the conception and reality of encounter capacity. It is based on commissioned research in the districts of the urban development area which were completed in 2015. The term "multiplicity of encounters", developed from ethnographic observation and borrowed from the work of Doreen Massey, refers to the multiplication of encounters within specific horizons of meaning: neighbourliness, eventfulness and trendiness. The high-priced housing and consumption possibilities, the image of an exclusive district and the group-specific rhythms of everyday life are selectively but never completely cancelled out by these factors.

Weltausstellungen versammeln Wissen auf paradoxe Weise: trotz ihrer seit Beginn konstatierten Ineffizienz, trotz der Selbstkritik von Weltausstellungsmacher*innen besteht das Format fort. Wir suchen nach einer Umdeutung dieses Weltwissens, die eine emanzipierende Auseinandersetzung mit der Welt fördert, wie sie in pandemischen und klimakatastrophischen Zeiten notwendig ist.

This thesis examines urban partition in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, and how its changing roles and shifting perceptions in a post-conflict setting reflect power relations, and their constant renegotiation. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, was officially divided in 1974 in the aftermath of an eighteen-year-long conflict between the island's Turkish- and Greek-Cypriot communities. As a result, a heavily militarized Buffer Zone, established as an emergency measure against perpetuation of intercommunal violence, has been cutting through its historic centre ever since. This thesis departs from a genuine interest in the material and ideational dimensions of urban partition. How is it constructed, not merely in physical terms but in the minds of the societies affected by conflict? How is it established in official and everyday discourses? What kinds of mechanisms have been developed to maintain it, and make an inseparable part of the urban experience? Moreover, taking into account the consensus in relevant literature pertaining to the imperative for its removal, this thesis is inquiring into the relevance of peace agreements to overcoming urban partition. For this purpose, it also looks at narratives and practices that have attempted to contest it. The examples examined in this thesis offer pregnant analytical moments to understand Nicosia's Buffer Zone as a dynamic social construct, accommodating multiple visions of and for the city. Its space 'in-between' facilitates encounters between various actors, accommodates new meanings, socio-spatial practices and diverse imaginaries. In this sense, urban partition is explored in this thesis as a phenomenon that transcends scales as well as temporalities, entwining past, present, and future.

This thesis examines urban partition in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, and how its changing roles and shifting perceptions in a post-conflict setting reflect power relations, and their constant renegotiation. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, was officially divided in 1974 in the aftermath of an eighteen-year-long conflict between the island's Turkish- and Greek-Cypriot communities. As a result, a heavily militarized Buffer Zone, established as an emergency measure against perpetuation of intercommunal violence, has been cutting through its historic centre ever since. This thesis departs from a genuine interest in the material and ideational dimensions of urban partition. How is it constructed, not merely in physical terms but in the minds of the societies affected by conflict? How is it established in official and everyday discourses? What kinds of mechanisms have been developed to maintain it, and make an inseparable part of the urban experience? Moreover, taking into account the consensus in relevant literature pertaining to the imperative for its removal, this thesis is inquiring into the relevance of peace agreements to overcoming urban partition. For this purpose, it also looks at narratives and practices that have attempted to contest it. The examples examined in this thesis offer pregnant analytical moments to understand Nicosia's Buffer Zone as a dynamic social construct, accommodating multiple visions of and for the city. Its space 'in-between' facilitates encounters between various actors, accommodates new meanings, socio-spatial practices and diverse imaginaries. In this sense, urban partition is explored in this thesis as a phenomenon that transcends scales as well as temporalities, entwining past, present, and future.