'Hermeneutics of the Street': How Actors Perceived, Assessed, and Navigated the Situation during Violent Clashes in the Context of Protests Against the G20 Summit in Hamburg 2017

What are the characteristics of situations in which rioting occurs? And how do individuals and groups act within this setting? The literature on collective violence has introduced concepts such as “moral holidays” or notions of “emotional contagion”, suggesting a collective state that, in one way or another, leads individuals to act on primitive impulses and, basically, irrationally. Emotional dynamics are, without any doubt, highly relevant and participants often recount stories of individuals being “carried away” by the rush of the moment. Yet, interviews with participants and a more detailed reconstruction of patterns of interaction during riots also reveals a different side of these events: pragmatic assessments of the situation that focus on situational power-balances rather than collective sentiments; groups who are surprisingly competent in reading and navigating the situation; and deliberate strategies by some actors to shape the situation to their advantage. Based on an in-depth analysis of violent clashes in the context of protests against the G20-summit in Hamburg in 2017, this paper examines the actors’ perception of the situation as well as patterns of interaction from which the spatial and social setting of the riots emerged. Drawing on Jack Katz concept of “hermeneutics of the street”, it thereby seeks to show that far from being the passive object of collective emotional dynamics, very different kinds of actors competently perceived, assessed, and navigated the situation, and creatively used and shaped it to their advantage.