Ulrike Hamann

Ulrike Hamann works in a post-doctoral position in the Diversity and Social Conflict section of the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin, and is a member of the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research. Sandy Kaltenborn runs the communications design office image-shift.net. They both live at Kottbusser Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg and are part of Kotti & Co., a renters’ initiative. This was founded in 2011 to fight rising rents in public housing and evictions. The initiative established a gecekondu (protest house) at Kottbusser Tor in which renters could gather, urban policy initiatives could meet and counsel could be offered. Over the years Kotti & Co. has acquired extensive expertise in urban and housing politics. Along with extensive protest actions, the initiative has developed Kotti into one of the main sites for negotiating a social urban development policy. In addition Kotti & Co. has initiated the renters’ referendum, which has advocated for a more social orientation in communal housing enterprises.