Paper short abstract:

Doing ethnography of the urban means researching different kinds of cities and situations. Realities of diversity in a smaller city challenge daily life as well as cultural analysis.

Paper long abstract:

Diversity is one of the main characteristics of urbanism as considered by Georg Simmel in his famous article "The Metropolis and Mental Life" from 1903. With 125 000 people nowadays, the capital of the Tyrolean Alps is not a Global City but the highly frequented centre of a region related to a global network via the media and economic exchange. Edward Soja talks about Cosmopolis as an essential discourse of postmodern cities. Even in Innsbruck diversity of society is growing as well as the city's hinterland. More than a quarter of its population is counted with a so called migration background. Tourists from all over the world visit the city, people from all over the world do their businesses or work in Innsbruck and refugees from all over the world cross the city on their ways through Europe. But how does a comparatively small city like Innsbruck deal with diversity? In 2012 August Penz, owner of a hotel and local politician of Austria's right-wing party (FPÖ), started a poster campaign with the slogan: "Heimatliebe statt Marrokanerdiebe!" which means something like loving home is better than thieves from Morocco. Because of the following discussions and trouble with his guests Penz stopped the campaign. "Innsbruck celebrates its diversity", the local newspaper Tyroler Tageszeitung reported in September 2014. Doing ethnography of the urban means researching different kinds of cities and situations. Realities of diversity in a smaller city challenge daily life as well as cultural analysis.