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Building capacity on Berlin's urban dancefloor: How club culture shapes sustainable urban transformation while negotiating contested space

Klibingat, Nina LU (2026) In Master Thesis Series in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science MESM02 20261
LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
Abstract
Cultural spaces remain underexplored in sustainable urban transformation research. Berlin’s club culture is entangled with contested urban spaces and currently threatened by acute urbanization pressures. This qualitative case study draws on six expert interviews and participant observation to explore club culture’s role in Berlin’s sustainability transformation, interpreted through cultural sustainability (Soini & Dessein, 2016) and urban transformative capacity (Hofstad et al., 2026) frameworks. It reveals that club culture builds primarily experimental and ideational capacity through sustaining itself, with civil society intermediaries as drivers. Actors negotiate plural and contested understandings of sustainability, shaped by... (More)
Cultural spaces remain underexplored in sustainable urban transformation research. Berlin’s club culture is entangled with contested urban spaces and currently threatened by acute urbanization pressures. This qualitative case study draws on six expert interviews and participant observation to explore club culture’s role in Berlin’s sustainability transformation, interpreted through cultural sustainability (Soini & Dessein, 2016) and urban transformative capacity (Hofstad et al., 2026) frameworks. It reveals that club culture builds primarily experimental and ideational capacity through sustaining itself, with civil society intermediaries as drivers. Actors negotiate plural and contested understandings of sustainability, shaped by institutional context. Space emerges as central contested resource and material precondition for building transformative capacity, undertheorized by the UTC framework. The key challenge is not mere preservation but protecting the conditions of affordable space, governance autonomy, and temporary use rights to allow club culture and Berlin to transform together. (Less)
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author
Klibingat, Nina LU
supervisor
organization
course
MESM02 20261
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Sustainability Science, Cultural Sustainability, Urban Transformative Capacity, Club Culture, Berlin
publication/series
Master Thesis Series in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science
report number
2026:011
language
English
id
9230405
date added to LUP
2026-06-04 11:46:20
date last changed
2026-06-04 11:46:20
@misc{9230405,
  abstract     = {{Cultural spaces remain underexplored in sustainable urban transformation research. Berlin’s club culture is entangled with contested urban spaces and currently threatened by acute urbanization pressures. This qualitative case study draws on six expert interviews and participant observation to explore club culture’s role in Berlin’s sustainability transformation, interpreted through cultural sustainability (Soini & Dessein, 2016) and urban transformative capacity (Hofstad et al., 2026) frameworks. It reveals that club culture builds primarily experimental and ideational capacity through sustaining itself, with civil society intermediaries as drivers. Actors negotiate plural and contested understandings of sustainability, shaped by institutional context. Space emerges as central contested resource and material precondition for building transformative capacity, undertheorized by the UTC framework. The key challenge is not mere preservation but protecting the conditions of affordable space, governance autonomy, and temporary use rights to allow club culture and Berlin to transform together.}},
  author       = {{Klibingat, Nina}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{Master Thesis Series in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science}},
  title        = {{Building capacity on Berlin's urban dancefloor: How club culture shapes sustainable urban transformation while negotiating contested space}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}