Tahrir Is Not a Square. Wie meta-urbane Protestkommunikate städtische Territorien des Widerspruchs strukturieren.

Abstract

Summary. Inscriptions in the publicly accessible space of the city are an important research topic of sociolinguistics. Writings of all kind do not only shape urban space but also pro­duce specific places which wouldn’t exist without them. The focus of this paper is how a space of urban protest is constructed; it will be shown how communicative forms of pro­test create place. The example discussed is a stencil which specifically refers to the Tah­rir square in Cairo but at the same time accomplishes much more through interspatial, interdiscursive, and intermedial references. This stencil can be understood as part of an association of places which makes urban space describable as a territory of contradic­tion. The contribution provides a detailed ethnographic analysis of the use of stencils in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg and goes on to highlight possibilities of a sociolinguistic and semi­otic analysis of urban territories of contradiction at large.