Structures of feeling in two creative cities

This chapter animates Raymond Williams’s notion of ‘structures of feeling’ to investigate the affective underpinnings of doing cultural work in London and Berlin. Working and living in London is experienced as hard, insecure, inescapable, and yet also exciting. By contrast, the structure of feeling in Berlin is characterised by a sense of affordability, which may not last, thus giving rise to a feeling of insecurity. In examining the structures of feeling in London and Berlin, the chapter offers a nuanced and situated account of the interplay between cultural work, subjectivity, and urban contexts.