BlogCourses
Geographies of Inclusion and Exclusion
3. July
2026
Students Blogposts on Geographies of Inclusion and Exclusion
The following three blog posts were written as part of the seminar Geographies of Inclusion and Exclusion, led by Prof. Dr. Tabea Bork-Hüffer at Heidelberg University. The blog posts are intended to reflect the students’ engagement with the seminar’s topic by examining its overarching theme and the readings discussed in the seminar from a specific perspective. The chosen focus is left to the authors themselves and may, for example, be a current event, a place or a specific observation.
The Height of Exclusivity
This blog post explores how seemingly inclusive spaces can reveal and reinforce social inequalities, even within ostensibly luxurious leisure environments such as the VIP section of a football stadium. Drawing on personal experiences, it critically examines who is able to move through such spaces with ease and a sense of belonging, and who is subtly excluded through spatial barriers. The central research question investigates how spatial design reproduces social and bodily norms and how geography can contribute to making processes of inclusion, exclusion, and belonging visible.
Dear Football, we need to talk!
Football is often celebrated as a game that brings people together. Yet behind the atmosphere of packed stadiums and inspiring stories of unity lies a more uncomfortable reality. Discrimination, xenophobia and exclusion continue to surface both inside stadiums and various other spaces, raising an important question: are these merely isolated incidents, or symptoms of deeper societal problems? This blog post shows why we need to rebuild the foundations of our society.
Standing at the edge oft the crowd: Protest, fear and unequal access to public space
The decision to join a protest is never just political: it is shaped by fear, uncertainty and unevenly distributed risks, rendering some more vulnerable than others
This blogpost explores how public protests are experienced differently depending on social position, feelings of safety, and unequal access to public space. Using personal reflections and geographical theories, it asks why some people feel able to participate in protests, while others hesitate even though they agree with and support the case. The blogpost focuses especially on AfD-counterprotests and feminist protest movements to examine, how fear, visibility and vulnerability shape political participation in public space.
Key Words:
Spatial Exclusion
Accessibility
Social Inequality
The Height of Exclusivity
From where I stand, I can see polished tables, champagne glasses, and rows of high, elegant chairs. Working in the VIP area of a Bundesliga football club means being surrounded by privilege. But I had also seen this space before, not only working there. My dad and I once walked through these walls on a guided stadium tour. A few years later, I was invited to the building as a guest, when a family member worked there. In both cases, I could look around and notice the design, the layout, the hierarchies, but I didn’t really feel like a part of it. I was observing from the margins, feeling slightly out of place and almost pretentious, like an intruder in a world I do not truly belong to.
Entering the VIP area from the perspective of a guest feels like stepping into a different world. Visitors walk through a separate entrance, pass a red carpet, and arrive in a large, open hall (Fig. 1). Five smiling women wait to welcome them and hand out the VIP wristbands. Today, one of those smiles is mine. I often work here as a hostess, guiding guests through the space and helping them navigate its rules and privileges. One of my main tasks is to put the wristbands on the guests’ wrists. Access to the VIP area is already exclusive, but even within this space, distinctions are carefully maintained. That means guests who are allowed to enter the “Players Lounge” or “Ehrenloge” receive wristbands in a different colour. I direct them to a colleague, who hands out these even more exclusive bands. Privilege, it seems, comes in carefully coded layers.
Standing in this space, handing out wristbands and watching these distinctions unfold, I am constantly reminded that the VIP area is not just exclusive, but carefully organized to separate, rank and sort bodies.
Figure 1: Entrance to the VIP Area
Stylish furniture fills the space. In the first area, guests gather around high tables with bar stools (Fig. 2) further inside, there are tables with regular chairs. Technically, guests are allowed to enter every section. Yet the unspoken expectation is that they remain in their designated area. If they ever did wander through the other spaces, there would be no seat available for them. To reach the stands, guests can either take the stairs or use the elevator located further away (Fig. 3). I am there because I work there, not because I could ever afford a VIP ticket. It is a world I will most likely never be part of. At the same time, those who do belong, through money, status and resources, are treated with exceptional care. Smiling faces, attentive staff and seamless service ensure that every wish seems to be anticipated before it is even spoken. In this space, belonging is not only visible, it is actively performed.
Figure 2: High tables with bar stools Figure 3: Stairs that lead to the stands
This sense of comfort and care ends the moment the spatial limits of the VIP area become visible. These limits appear quickly for anyone with a physical impairment. I witnessed this when a guest with short stature entered the area assigned to him by his ticket. The only available seating consisted of high bar stools (Fig. 2). Sitting down was not possible without assistance. Designs like these create barriers that go beyond inconvenience. They turn everyday actions, such as sitting at a table, into moments of dependency. For wheelchair users, these spaces are even more restrictive. The tables are too high to reach, leaving no possibility to use the area independently. Although the space complies with disability access regulations and is therefore formally accessible, it remains practically limited in its usability. The viewing platform for wheelchair users is positioned to the side and at a distance from the main seating area, rather than being centrally integrated into it.
What this seemingly small detail in the VIP area reveals is that space is never neutral. Space can be understood as a product of interrelations, shaped by social relations, power structures and material practices (Massey, 2005:9). The VIP area therefore does not simply exist, it is actively produced in a way that allows certain bodies and social groups to “fit” more easily than others. High bar stools, narrow seating and a design oriented towards wealthy, non-disabled bodies make visible who is imagined as the “normal” user of this space. Other bodies, such as those of short-statured people or wheelchair users, are not explicitly excluded, yet they are clearly not taken into account. Exclusion does not operate through formal rules, but through spatial design.
At the same time, space can be understood as the sphere of the possibility of multiplicity, as a simultaneity of “stories-so-far” (Massey, 2005:9). A football stadium makes this particularly visible. Ultras in the stands, dedicated fan groups known for their highly organized and passionate support, spectators on regular seats, and guests in the VIP area all experience the same match, but from very different spatial and social positions. These spaces exist alongside one another, yet they are far from equal. While the VIP area promises proximity to the pitch and maximum comfort, it quietly reproduces social and bodily norms that determine who can move through the space with ease and who cannot.
At this point, the perspective of feminist geography also becomes relevant. It examines how power relations are spatially organized and how they are expressed in concrete places and situations (Valentine, 2007:9). The VIP area is a particularly illustrative example of this, as it arranges bodies, roles and practices within a geometry of subordination. Some sit comfortably and are served, while others work, control or remain invisible. Certain bodies experience themselves as naturally belonging, whereas others feel out of place or are simply unable to make use of specific offerings. This order is not accidental but is spatially produced and made tangible through everyday experience.
Yet it is also crucial to note that space is never fixed, but always in the process of becoming (Massey, 2005:9). The VIP area, too, could be and maybe will be one day organized differently, in ways that are more accessible, less exclusionary and less oriented towards a narrow idea of the “normal” body. Its current design produces forms of low-level prejudice; subtle, everyday experiences of discomfort and exclusion that are rarely articulated as discrimination but nonetheless shape who feels entitled to occupy a space. This demonstrates that even seemingly ordinary leisure spaces can reproduce disablist norms and, in doing so, create invisible forms of violence and fear. Such experiences are particularly powerful in determining who feels welcome in a space and who remains marginalized within it (Hall, 2019:251).
The view into the VIP area demonstrates that inclusion is not merely a question of access, but of the actual usability of space. Exclusive places such as VIP lounges promise comfort and belonging yet simultaneously reproduce exclusion when they are designed around a supposedly “normal” body. This makes clear that privileged spaces are actively involved in geographical processes of inclusion and exclusion.
The VIP area in the stadium is therefore not an isolated case, but a condensed example of broader spatial dynamics. Similar forms of quiet exclusion can be found in cafés, offices, universities and other leisure spaces that are oriented towards specific bodies, behaviours and social positions. A geographical perspective reveals that spaces are made and can thus be made differently.
Standing in the VIP area, surrounded by high chairs and polished tables, I am reminded of the very literal heights that exclusivity can reach. What started as a glance at the design of a few bar stools reveals how comfort, privilege and belonging are carefully measured, coded and distributed. From the first smile at the entrance to the unseen barriers for those whose bodies do not match the imagined norm, the VIP area encapsulates how spaces include some and quietly exclude others.
The height of exclusivity is not just a clever pun, but it is an everyday reminder that inclusion is never automatic. It is designed, maintained and can always be redesigned. And just as a bar stool can elevate some while leaving others struggling to reach, spatial decisions shape who feels welcome and who does not. In noticing these heights, we are reminded that privilege is not only social, but spatial and that spaces, too, have a responsibility in shaping belonging.
References
Massey, D. B. (2005). For space. SAGE.
Valentine, G. (2007). Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist
Geography*. The Professional Geographer, 59(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
9272.2007.00587.x
Hall, E. (2019). A critical geography of disability hate crime. Area, 51(2), 249–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12455
Further credits
Figure 1: Entrance to the VIP Area (Name: Amelie Beger; Source: own photograph; License: author’s own work), 29 January 2026.
Figure 2: High tables with bar stools (Name: Amelie Beger; Source: own photograph; License: author’s own work), 18 January 2026.
Figure 3: Stairs that lead to the stands (Name: Amelie Beger; Source: own photograph; License: author’s own work), 29 January 2026.
Key Words:
Discrimination in Football
Structural Racism
Social Exclusion
Dear Football, we need to talk!
Discrimination, xenophobia, racism. Football still faces forms of exclusion. These problems are not limited to the stadium, but they reflect deeper societal structures. Action days and anti-racism campaigns are not enough to break this vicious circle. This blog post shows why we need to rebuild the foundations of our society.
Figure 1: Fans leaving the Fritz-Walter-Stadion after the domestic cup match between 1. FC Kaiserslautern and Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2020.
Football is not separate from society
“That’s why in every position I can help speaking up to be a better society […] I will be there.” It’s a normal press conference, like thousands of others, held during a football season. On the day before the second leg of the League Cup semi-final between Manchester City and Newcastle United, coach Pep Guardiola faces the journalists. The press conference resembles a choreographed question-and-answer game until a journalist asks him about the speech he gave at a charity event in Barcelona a week before: “Why do these subjects matter so much to you?” Guardiola seizes the moment. He speaks about conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and the United States. He calls the killing of innocent people an injustice and insists: “Injustice, from my point of view, […] you have to talk, otherwise injustice moves on.” (BeanymanSports, 2026). Both the timing and the clarity of the message are remarkable in a football world that otherwise prides itself on empty platitudes. Yet, despite the importance of his message, he avoids addressing injustice within football itself. But football needs to clean up its own backyard first.
So, let’s talk about injustice, but not in the way Pep Guardiola imagines it. First, we need to acknowledge that football does not exist in isolation from the rest of society. Its connection to society is visible in the numbers alone. Around 31 million spectators visited the stadiums in Germany’s top leagues for women and men in 2024 (UEFA, 2024). Even more are watching football on TV. In an internal study by the DFL (German Football League), 41% of respondents said that the Bundesliga alone was in the top 3 of their leisure activities (DFL, 2025). In addition, they mention the Bundesliga’s potential to be a meeting place for people and to strengthen identity (DFL, 2025).
Racism is not an “isolated incident”
A glance at football stadiums shows that football can still be just as exclusionary. In August of last year alone, there were four known incidents of racism in the first round of the domestic cup. That’s four too many. And it’s also four too many to be dismissed as isolated cases. That’s because clubs and the association tend to condemn them as a matter of course (Koch, 2023). Two incidents occurred inside the stadiums, where spectators directly insulted players in Stahnsdorf and Leipzig. Two further incidents involved online hate speech following the matches Essen vs. Dortmund and Dresden vs. Mainz (Spiller, 2025). After the incident in Leipzig where spectators insulted and booed Schalke player Christopher Antwi-Adjej, his coach Miron Muslic said: “It makes me sick. […]. The whole stadium understood why the game was interrupted. And the whole stadium booed, not just one individual. Unfortunately, it’s so commonplace that people downplay it and dismiss it as the actions of one idiot.” (Spiller, 2025). This reaction highlights the real issue: racism is often minimized.
Why does this keep happening?
In its status report, the DFB (German Football Association) states that violence and discrimination in amateur football are on the decline. However, this trend is questioned by academics and grassroots organizations. The number of unreported cases is probably much higher because many incidents are not recorded for various reasons, such as overwhelmed referees and gaps in electronic data collection (Jansen, 2025). Another incident during the second division match between Dynamo Dresden and Fortuna Düsseldorf in November 2025 shows the structural nature of racism. Even without being asked, former Fortuna coach Markus Anfang commented on the racist insult directed at his player Emmanuel Iyoha as follows: “People always generalize, and it’s difficult when one person or another shouts something out in the heat of the moment. It’s not nice when that happens. But generalizing doesn’t help our football […].” Downplaying racism as something that happens “in the heat of the moment” shows that Anfang and many others have failed to realize how deeply rooted racism is in our society. A few days later, he attempts to revise his statements by listing people from his circle of friends and acquaintances who have a migrant background (Nowak, 2025). Anfang’s assertion that having friends with migrant backgrounds precludes him from being racist is a weak defence and does not excuse or mitigate his comments.
Why football mirrors societal racism
These cases exemplify what Ash Amin criticizes about our society in his article “Land of Strangers” (2013). In everyday life, people often coexist peacefully. But this coexistence is fragile. It can quickly turn into exclusion when stereotypes take over. For example, “racist stacking”, as defined by Nobis and Lazaridou (2023, p. 1), “is a phenomenon in team sports in which Black players are underrepresented in tactical and leading positions, while they are overrepresented in decentralized and physical positions.” Consequently, it reduces players to physical traits like speed or strength (Nobis & Lazaridou, 2023). This shows how racism can exist even without explicit insults. Additionally, multiculturalism in football often depends on the success of individual players or a team. As soon as this is no longer the case, racism resurfaces. This is increasingly taking place in online spaces, where perpetrators can give free rein to their extremism under the protection of anonymity and the impression of algorithmic logic (Breiwe et al., 2026; Cable et al., 2022).
These overlaps between online and offline spaces show that the spaces of football are closely intertwined with society. We must move away from the idea of viewing the football pitch or stadium as an isolated space. Spaces like stadiums are constantly shaped by social interactions (Massey, 2005). However, we also see from the example of racism how things happening in a stadium influence other areas of our society. This means racism in football does not start in the stadium, but it is brought into it and can be reinforced there. According to Amin (2013), one of these influences is catastrophic biopolitics. By framing social, environmental, economic, or cultural developments as existential threats, it creates a fear of change and produces the narrative of a cozy, loyal, and resilient community that must be protected (Amin, 2013). The catastrophic biopolitics also balances the interplay of aversion and sociability towards other people. The xenophobia that is omnipresent in Europe is the product of public institutions, the media, and opinion makers such as politicians. The most prominent example in the context of football are statements by politicians from the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, a far-right political party) who, for example, do not want to have a German national player with a migrant background “as a neighbour” (Koch, 2023). This creates a simple but dangerous logic: it is now only about us versus them, and the unknown and foreign are a threat to us. Football, with its strong identities and rivalries, can easily reproduce this divide. In short: forms of discrimination occur where these binary and hierarchical structures exist, transforming differences into inequalities and injustices (Breiwe et al., 2026).
So, how do we tackle these injustices in football?
Assuming that spaces are constantly changing, there is also a great opportunity for improvement. We ourselves must move away from superficial, fragile coexistence and act. Amin (2013) places an obligation on all of us by calling for a pluralistic community. However, anti-racism campaigns and action days are not enough on their own if, when the next incident of racism occurs, we once again resort to empty phrases about isolated cases and then return to business as usual. As FC Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany put it: “No consequences, no nothing… And I have a voice. What do you think for the people without a voice? The problem is not necessarily the incident. The main problem is what happens afterwards to water it down and bury it.“ (11Freunde, 2026).
What needs to change
The solution must be much more fundamental. On the one hand, like Muslic and Kompany, we need more voices from those who are in privileged positions to talk about it. On the other hand, we need to rethink how football is organized. One key issue is commercialization. Financial interests often take priority over clear action against racism. Matches continue, sanctions are weak, and image matters more than consequences. Secondly, rising prices for tickets or subscriptions – particularly in England (Seifert, 2023) – make stadiums less accessible. This reduces social diversity and turns football into a space for the privileged. Furthermore, there are hardly any democratic structures left in international football today. In most clubs and associations, the law of the (financially) strong prevails – not the strength of the law. The same trends even become visible in amateur football.
To this end, it is immensely important to maintain the 50+1 rule in Germany. This rule stipulates that more than 50 percent of club shares must be held by the members and decisions are made in a democratic way. In addition, public space and places of encounter must be continuously expanded. Specifically, we must defend football venues (stadiums, leisure facilities, pubs) as pluralistic and indivisible. Only if we finally take diversity for granted, we can overcome racist structures. We must also consider the intersectionality of football: exclusion also occurs in other forms of discrimination and barriers. The stadium must not be a pseudo-reflection of society that excludes marginalized groups. The “Fortuna für alle” project in Düsseldorf, which offers free tickets for selected matches, shows that all these things are possible.
Fans from all around the world have proven that they can unite for a common purpose. There is a reason for the saying: “Separated by colors, united in purpose.” Or, to quote Spanish striker and homophobic slur victim Borja Iglesias: “Hopefully we will use football more to improve society, because it has the potential to do so.”
References:
11Freunde (2026; February 25): „Es spielt keine Rolle, wie Viní Jr. jubelt.“ https://www.11freunde.de/bundesliga/das-epische-statement-von-vincent-kompany-im-wortlaut-es-spielt-keine-rolle-wie-vini-jr-jubelt-a-f1216ffc-931a-4c6f-b94f-9266ed2dccc3
Amin, A. (2013). Land of strangers. Identities (Yverdon, Switzerland), 20(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2012.732544
BeanymanSports, (2026): https://youtu.be/IGwrKJ5tPb4?si=w1AYRLlhDevkbi7B
Breiwe, R., Schwehr, M. Y., Monstadt, F., Dittmann, L., & Schlag, S. (2026). #EURO2024 – Fußball und Digitalität im Spiegel gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheitsverhältnisse. Eine explorative Studie zu Inhalten und Äußerungen in Social Media zur Fußball-Europameisterschaft aus diskriminierungskritischer Perspektive. FuG – Zeitschrift für Fußball und Gesellschaft, 6(1–2024), 83. https://doi.org/10.3224/fug.v6i1.07
Cable, J., Kilvington, D., & Mottershead, G. (2022). ‘Racist behaviour is interfering with the game’: Exploring football fans’ online responses to accusations of racism in football. Soccer & Society, 23(8), 880–893. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2022.2109804
DFL. (2025). Mehr als nur ein Spiel: Die wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Bedeutung der Bundesliga. McKinsey & Company. https://www.dfl.de/de/ueber-uns/publikationen/wachstumsmotor-bundesliga/
Jansen, O. (2025). Es brodelt an der Basis: DFB-Lagebericht zu Gewalt und Diskriminierung im Amateurfußball. sportschau.de. Abgerufen 14. Februar 2026, von https://www.sportschau.de/fussball/amateurfussball/gewalt-im-amateurfussball-es-brodelt-an-der-basis,gewalt-amateurfussball-100.html
Koch, A. (2023). The paradoxical reality of racism: German soccer and the irreversibility of multiculturalism. Soccer & Society, 24(2), 139–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2022.2042266
Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: Sage.
Nobis, T., & Lazaridou, F. (2023). Racist Stacking in Professional Soccer in Germany. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 58(1), 23–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902221081125
Nowak, P. (2025, Dezember 9). Störgeräusche bei Fortuna: „Habe signalisiert, dass ich gerne reden würde“ – Anfang geht nach Rassismus-Banner auf Fans zu. RP ONLINE. https://rp-online.de/sport/fussball/fortuna/fortuna-duesseldorf-nach-banner-der-f95-ultras-anfang-regt-austausch-mit-fans-an_aid-140408047
Seifert, E. (2023, August 5). Teures Vergnügen. https://www.11freunde.de/international/premier-league/ticketpreise-premier-league-a-601d8bd2-0004-0001-0000-000008980812
Spiller, C. (2025, August 19). Rassismus im Fußball: Ganz schön viele Einzelfälle. Die Zeit. https://www.zeit.de/sport/2025-08/rassismus-fussball-antwi-adjei
UEFA (2024). The European club talent and competition landscape 2024. Union of European Football Associations. https://de.uefa.com/news-media/news/0291-1bd6990356eb-1cfa571a1d16-1000–neuer-bericht-zur-europaischen-klubfussballlandschaft-zeig/
Further credits:
Figure 1: Fans leaving the Fritz-Walter-Stadion after the domestic cup match between 1. FC Kaiserslautern and Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2020 (Name: Malte Golz; Source: own photograph; License: author’s own work), 4 February 2020.
Key Words:
Political Protest
Intersectionality
Public Space
Fear and Belonging
Standing at the edge of the crowd: Protest, fear and unequal access to public space
The decision to join a protest is never just political: it is shaped by fear, uncertainty and unevenly distributed risks, rendering some more vulnerable than others
Figure 1: International Women’s Day demonstration, Martha-Ndumbe Square, Berlin, 7 March 2026. The sign reading “Ni Una Menos” refers to the Argentine feminist movement of the same name.
I consider myself a political person. I have clear opinions and I am not afraid to express them in discussions with friends, family, fellow students, or colleagues. Yet, when it comes to political protests, I almost always decide to stay away. This contradiction became particularly visible to me during my time in Argentina in 2019. Living in Buenos Aires for the first time, surrounded by a diverse, multi-million metropolis, I witnessed many of my fellow volunteers actively participating in protests, especially the “Ni Una Menos” movement (“Not one [woman] less”; feminist movement that originated in Argentina), advocating against gender-based violence and for abortion rights (see Fig. 1). Because I grew up in a rather sheltered environment, this was my first encounter with people who organised themselves politically in public space. Despite feeling inspired, I often felt disconnected and left out, embarrassingly unaware of issues that seemed so urgent and self-evident to them. Even years later, with a broader and more differentiated understanding of political struggles, I still hesitate. I admire the courage of those who protest, yet to this day I remain torn between the feeling that participation matters, rational thoughts that my presence would make little difference and the uncertainty of what to expect. Perhaps I would go if my close friends did, but they seem to feel just like me. When connecting with politically active people, I sometimes even fear that my hesitation is seen as personal or apolitical. Surprisingly, geography suggests otherwise.
Key texts from literature have long argued that public space is neither neutral nor equally accessible (e.g., Valentine, 2007). Instead, it is shaped by power relations, social norms, and unevenly distributed feelings of safety and belonging. Simply sharing space with others does not automatically lead to mutual understanding or inclusion (Amin, 2002). In politically charged settings, proximity can even intensify fear rather than reduce it. In recent years, AfD (Alternative für Deutschland; a far-right political party in Germany) demonstrations and counter-protest are a perfect example of public space being explicitly framed as a site of ideological confrontation (see Fig. 2). Relating to that, urban public spaces are often experienced through anticipation of threat, where strangers are read as potential risks rather than fellow citizens (Amin, 2013). Hesitation to protest may not just be an individual attitude, but a spatially produced response to uncertainty, exposure, and the possibility of confrontation. This suggests that what appears as political disengagement may instead reflect how public space itself regulates who feels able to step into visibility. Reflecting on this, my own not-acting is only partly shaped by fear. Another part is, to be self-critical, the unease to leave my privileged position of relative safety compared to others who are more directly exposed to negative consequences in protest spaces. These dynamics become concrete when protest unfolds on the street.
Figure 2: Labour Day demonstration, Berlin, 1 May 2026. Banners with anti-establishment messages displayed in front of red flags and red smoke.
Many images merge to form a representation in the minds of many: Barriers, heavily armed police, surveillance technology, loud and emotionally charged chants and commands. Lines of riot-police separate protesters, and the threat of potential arrest, harassment or injury is always looming. Many people may be familiar with situations like this. AfD (counter-) demonstrations are rarely just ordinary gatherings in public space. Here, protest becomes a deeply physical practice where the body must endure noise, exposure, anxiety and the constant anticipation of escalation. Johnston (2018) considers such environments as precarious places where vulnerability is actively produced through intersecting relations of power, security and visibility (Johnston, 2018). Within this framework, precarity is unevenly distributed. Whereas some people move through this space with relative confidence, others may experience heightened fear, the feeling of needing to leave the situation or even long-term consequences such as criminalisation or surveillance. Viewed through this lens, not attending protests is less likely the effect of political passivity but rather the constant and embodied assessment of social, emotional and physical risks of entering such a space. Protest, then, is no longer a matter of conviction and belief but more the question of how much precarity one is willing to absorb.
Protest in Germany is formally anchored as our democratic right, available to everyone (Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, art. 5 & 8). In practice, on the other hand, feminist geography has long shown that access to public space is profoundly unequal. Social relations of power, especially those structured by gender, race, sexuality, and class, shape the conditions of who and under what circumstances space can safely be inhabited (e.g., Valentine, 2007). Intersectionality, here, is about how multiple axes of difference combine to produce uneven exposure to risks. In the context of AfD (counter-) demonstrations, this means that bodies read as female, racialised, queer, or otherwise ‘out-of-place’ may be more vulnerable to harassment or violence. Therefore, although the right to protest is institutionally framed and universal, its practice may also be selective. Protest thus becomes a paradoxical political practice: while legally granted to all, it is also constrained, socially and spatially, in ways that discourage the participation especially of those, objectively bearing the greatest risks. It is exactly the space, where democratic practices should at best unfold, through which simultaneously the inequality of democratic protest is produced.
But public encounters around protest don’t only unfold on the street. They are continuously mediated, narrated, and used to tell “dominant” public stories. Whereas difference is not a fixed attribute of people or groups, encounters and representations are constantly used to relationally produce difference, particularly when certain narratives come to dominate others (Martin, 2012, pp. 118-120). Media coverage of AfD-demonstrations and counterdemonstrations often contributes to this process by reducing complex political positions to simplified categories. Protesters on the one hand become radicals, extremists and troublemakers. Concerned citizens or ordinary protesters pose the opposition. Such simple framings exemplify what Martin, drawing on Adichie, describes as the danger of “single stories”. The variety of narratives from both established media and reports of the right and the left political wing ignore both internal motives and individuality but rather fix people into readable, predictable roles (Martin, 2012, pp. 117–118). These dominant narratives do not remain abstract. They influence how individuals imagine their place within protest space.
For me as for many others these stories do not only shape how protesters are seen, but they also impact how potential participants imagine themselves within protest space. Reflecting on my own reluctance to physically join demonstrations, I begin to recognise how this absence is not only shaped by fear or uncertainty, but also by a hesitation to be read, categorised, or misrecognised within these dominant narratives. Choosing not to protest, then, is not simply a withdrawal from politics, but a positioning within the very geographies of difference that structure who appears as a legitimate political subject in public space.
Political protest is often imagined as a straightforward expression of conviction, equally available to all who hold an opinion. This blogpost has shown that such an assumption overlooks the spatial, embodied, and relational conditions under which protests take place. Drawing on feminist and relational geographies, AfD-(counter-)demonstrations emerge as contested terrains where visibility, safety, and legitimacy are unevenly distributed. Hesitation to protest, then, can’t be reduced to individual choice or apathy. It rather reflects how public space itself regulates political participation. The geographical perspective recognizes this inequality and further complicates (but not lessens) the democratic value of protest as a form of self-expression. It foregrounds important factors in the decision making of who can afford to be visible, and at what cost.
References
Amin, A. (2002). Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living with Diversity. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 34(6), 959–980. https://doi.org/10.1068/a3537
Amin, A. (2013). Land of strangers. Identities, 20(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2012.732544
Johnston, L. (2018). Gender and sexuality III: Precarious places. Progress in Human Geography, 42(6), 928–936. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132517731256
Martin, F. (2012). The geographies of difference. Geography, 97(3), 116–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167487.2012.12094349
Valentine, G. (2007). Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography*. The Professional Geographer, 59(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00587.x
Further credits:
Figure 1: International Women’s Day demonstration, Martha-Ndumbe Square, Berlin (Name: Anonymous private photographer; Source: private photograph; License: published with permission), 7 March 2026.
Figure 2: Labour Day demonstration, Berlin (Name: Anonymous private photographer; Source: private photograph; License: published with permission), 1 May 2026.
The blog posts were written as part of the seminar Geographies of Inclusion and Exclusion, led by Prof. Dr. Tabea Bork-Hüffer at Heidelberg University. The blog posts are intended to reflect the students’ engagement with the seminar’s topic by examining its overarching theme and the readings discussed in the seminar from a specific perspective. The chosen focus is left to the authors themselves and may, for example, be a current event, a place or a specific observation.
Authors:
Amelie Beger (M.Ed. Geography/French)
Malte Golz (M.Sc. Geography)
Jannick Auer (M.Ed. Geography/Sports Science, additional subject Anglistik )
This Blog is published under a CC BY 4.0 license. You are allowed to share and adapt this content under these conditions.
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Research Group Transient Spaces & Societies
Dartment of Geography Heidelberg University Berliner Str. 48, 69120 Heidelberg
Department of Geography University of Innsbruck
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