Campsite Dissolutions or: Community Through and Beyond Territory
摘要
In the 1990s, my parents rented a year-round plot on a campsite. Each plot consisted of a space for the caravan and a small plot of land around it. On most of these permanent campsites in Germany, the caravans are installed for several years or decades. The plots are planted and developed, the caravans are secured and fitted with an extra roof for weather protection. It is not uncommon to erect a fence around the site to enclose it from the outside. The actual mobile conception of the caravan is fixed. The campsite where my parents rented a plot was situated on a meadow directly on the banks of the river Rhine. Every autumn, the river overflowed its banks, so the campers had to vacate the site and could only return in spring. On the one hand, this may have triggered feelings of insecurity and unsteadiness, but on the other hand it meant that the incrustation described above could not occur in the first place: Nobody fenced off their plot, laid artificial turf on it and sealed themselves off. There was no clear boundary between our plot and that of our neighbours. As children, we played across plots.