Page - 117 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

Academic research on homeless people in Germany often revolves around demographic or socioeconomic aspects of homelessness (see for example Schaak 2003), while the inside perspec- tive of their everyday lives as well as their views on urban encounters and local developments affecting them as urban citizens are being neglected. We intend to bring their lives to life, focusing on their perceptions of atmospheres along the street “Reeperbahn”. The Reeperbahn in Hamburg (Germany) is the epicenter of the cities´ most famous entertainment district St. Pauli and comprises nightclubs, bars, theaters, casinos and restaurants to fit any budget, as well as red light venues, street prostitution, drug trafficking, visible homelessness and a strong police presence. However, the street and its surrounding residential areas have also been gentrified for almost two decades, increasing the number of tourists, who crowd St. Pauli every day and night (Goritz 2004; Wischmann 2016). How do homeless people perceive the emotional qualities of sites in this heterogeneous envi- ronment? Do governmental and social power structures shape site specific emotions among the homeless and in what way does their corporeality and their individual knowledge about their own homeless body influence these emotions? In which ways exactly do atmospheres influence their local mobility? In this contribution, we approach these questions relying on ethnographic fieldwork and concentrate on homeless people’s perspectives on encounters, atmospheres and mobilities along the Reeperbahn. Based on narrative and mobile go-along interviews and accompanying sketch maps as power sensitive research methods, we focus on homeless people’s emotional attachments and (socio-) spatial perceptions in order to address atmospheres in general and, in particular, to explore the ways in which they trigger local mobilities. The research design rests on everyday practices of homeless people, relying on a neo-pheno- menological background and, specifically, on Hermann Schmitz´ conception of atmospheres as emotions (1998; 2003; 2005; 2012). This is combined with the theory of social practices proposed by Andreas Reckwitz (2012; 2015), in which he suggests 1) that people are affected by relational settings of artefacts, people and/or practices and 2) that ‘affects and space share the quality of a materiality that seems to exceed the normative, the rational and the cultural-semiotic’ (Reck- witz 2012: 242). Against this background, we develop a (working) definition of atmospheres as the potentially interpersonally perceptible emotions shaping a site. These emotions can be evoked by subjects, practices and artefacts like street furniture, buildings, urban vegetation or personal belongings. Homeless People in Hamburg’s Entertainment District St. Pauli: Their Perceptions and Experiences of Atmospheres Nora Scholtz, Anke Strüver Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal, Vol. 3 2017, 117-120 Peer reviewed article Open Access: content is licensed under CC BY 3.0