Seite - 118 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 3/2017

118 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Nora Scholtz, Anke Strüver | Homeless people in Hamburg’s entertainment district St. Pauli The methods that were applied were more than ever beneficial for our research design: In the go-along interviews the participants talk about their daily social and spatial practices as well as about their emotions in situ, whereas sketch mapping provides visualized insights into the parti- cipants’ social and spatial (and “atmospheric”) perceptions. Combining both methods enabled us to portray subjective and highly emotional results of immense diversity. Moreover, they are explicitly suitable for power sensitive research situations. This contribution intends to broaden the empirical research perspective on urban atmos- pheres with its focus on homeless people whose situation has rarely been addressed in urban studies and/or research dealing with urban atmospheres. Our empirical material consists of go-along interviews and accompanying sketch maps with six homeless persons aged between 17 and 51, two women and four men, who were willing to participate. With their help, we were able to identify particular practices, social groups and the power structures imposed by the local police department as transmitters of atmospheres and as influencing homeless people’s mobilities. Furthermore, their narrations open up insights into the local social structures and the local complex of changing atmospheres along the Reeperbahn; special emphasis is put on the participants’ status as homeless people, which has turned out to be highly relevant for expe- riencing atmospheres. In addition, we have discovered actual practices developed by our parti- cipants as coping mechanisms for everyday street life that help them to avoid the incorporation of unwanted atmospheres – which they nonetheless have to encounter as they do not have any private place such as a home. We have discovered that all of our participants’ spatial preferences are linked to either social or symbolic aspects, which refer to the presence or absence of particular people and their practices. At the same time, there have hardly been indications on the relevance of architec- tural artefacts, street lighting or urban vegetation for the construction and perception of atmo- spheres. Yet, the presence of specific practices such as prostitution or the red-carpet-like parades of “the noble people” in front of theaters do create atmospheres. These are atmospheres our interviewees are not willing to encounter: they emphasize the ways the feel misplaced because of their own bodies and how their corporeal sensations are incommensurable with the dominant atmospheres at these places. This incommensurability even influences their mobilities since their activity radius at times is narrowed down by avoiding the theaters along the southern part of the Reeperbahn. In addition, the local police station is situated next to the theaters. Home- less people strictly avoid this place as it is a symbol of state power, triggering several strongly negative emotions in them. What is more, some homeless people have developed everyday coping practices through which they can perform power along the Reeperbahn themselves: for example when they behave in vulgar manners in public places (being drunk, playing extremely loud music or shouting at and thus offending tourists passing their spot). These practices are able to evoke unpleasant, even terrifying atmospheres along the Reeperbahn, especially for tourists. But they represent the mechanisms used by our participants to keep unwanted persons at a distance and to per- form power themselves. Our investigation of the perceptions and experiences of atmospheres in Hamburg‘s enter- tainment district St. Pauli by homeless people has disclosed power structures and structures of feeling on the micro level. ‘Feeling’, however, in this research context also comprises tracking