Asylum Seekers Struggle to Recover the Everyday: the Extended “Emergency Shelter” in Tempelhofer Feld as a Site of Continuous Crisis

Abstract

This study demonstrates how the iconic hangars at Tempelhofer Feld designed to temporarily accommodate asylum seekers prior to relocating them to various other parts of Germany became a protracted and regimented accommodation site in Berlin for some. The shelters housed several hundred asylum seekers for two and a half years, were regimented and in several respects they proved to contradict the so-called Willkommenskultur that Germany prided itself with. Drawing on Vigh’s (2008) notion of continuous crises, this study argues that the asylum seekers came to reside in a state of perpetual regimentation, which they understood as detrimental to their well-being. It also shows that nevertheless, they sought to find well-being and dignify their lives by striving to normalise it.