Neighbouring as a Practice of Care

: : on Proximity and Contested Spaces

As I contemplate what it means to be a neighbour — a good one, for that matter — I think of the many people I encounter in the course of the day. We do not, after all, necessarily choose our neighbours. Or do we? 

“Who is my neighbour? Is she the woman rummaging for food in the back streets of an Asian shanty town? Is he the man in South America in prison for leading a trade union? The people dying in Africa for lack of medical care, or clean water, are they my neighbours? What about those who are dying in the spirit in the villages of India for lack of a job, or an education or hope? Are my neighbours the children running from the sounds of gunfire in the streets of Beirut? If we, the people of the North, say yes, then we will act; we will act together to keep hope alive. If we say no, then they are doomed and so are we.”[1]

—    Pierre Trudeau

I find myself asking similar questions, trying to bring them closer to home — because if we cannot relate to what is immediate, what is near, what stands before us, how can we embrace Trudeau’s proposition? 

Am I your neighbour simply because we inhabit the same building, perhaps separated only by a wall? Am I your neighbour for the fleeting span of a shared seat on the U-Bahn or the bus? Am I your neighbour because I hold the elevator door — or because I kneel beside you to gather the groceries scattered from a torn paper bag? I suppose what I am trying to say is this: am I your neighbour because of what I do for you? And are you then my neighbour because I do these things for you? Must this relationship be reciprocated? Would we still be neighbours if we paid no attention to one another? 

To begin to approach questions such as these — to reason through them rather than simply feel our way around them — let us turn to how the dictionary defines the word “neighbour”.

As a noun:

• 2a. a person or thing near or next to another [2]

As a verb:

• 3. to be or live close (to a person or thing) [3]

The Collins English Dictionary, like many others, defines “neighbour” in a way that implies mere proximity. By such a shallow definition, the answer to my questions becomes both true and false at once. The moment either of us gets off the U-Bahn, we cease to concern ourselves with one another — out of sight out of mind — if there was ever any concern to begin with. 

I want to suggest that mere presence — mere proximity — is not enough, and perhaps some of you agree. Consider the person whose groceries lie scattered across the pavement: if we walk past, or worse, pause only to observe without helping, can we still claim the name “neighbour”?

Then there are what I call neighbours by virtue of relatedness — or of shared struggle. As you can probably tell, this has little to do with physical nearness, and much more to do with the embodiment of a shared vision or common cause. Such a relation becomes possible only when our concern for one another transcends the brief encounter on the U-Bahn. Proximity may be where the practice of neighbouring begins, but it is only by learning to care for one another in closeness that we begin to approach the questions Trudeau poses.

A compelling example of being a neighbour by virtue of relatedness can be seen in contemporary socio-political and human rights activism. The Black Lives Matter movement, which began in the United States in 2013 and gained unprecedented global momentum in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, did not remain confined within American borders.[4] What unfolded was not mere sympathy from afar, but a wave of solidarity that spanned continents. From Berlin to Paris, from London to Sydney and Tokyo, hundreds of thousands gathered in public squares to protest systemic racism and police violence.[5] In many of these cities, demonstrators did not simply echo events in the United States; they connected Floyd’s death to their own national histories of racial injustice and discrimination. In doing so, they enacted a form of neighbourliness untethered from geography. These were not neighbours by proximity, but neighbours by shared struggle — bound together by a common insistence on dignity, justice and the value of Black lives.

Yet solidarity does not emerge only from shared protests. It can also arise from structural entanglement — from the recognition that our lives are materially bound together, even when we would prefer not to see it. Consider the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose vast cobalt reserves power the batteries inside our smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles. Reports of hazardous working conditions and child labour in cobalt mining have drawn global scrutiny and activism[6], with human rights organizations calling on major technology companies to ensure ethical sourcing and accountability.[7] Here, the relationship is not one of visible co-presence in the streets, but of economic interdependence. Consumers in Europe or North America are connected, however indirectly, to miners in the Congo through global supply chains. To acknowledge this is to recognise a different kind of neighbouring — one grounded not only in empathy, but shared responsibility.

Let me draw these threads together in relation to the project of Mapping Post-colonial Neighbourhoods. Perhaps then the contours of this argument will become clear.

Before turning there, however, consider another powerful analogy for neighbours by virtue of relatedness: Saint Augustine, as R. Canning notes, describes as our “common nature”. Whether one is a person of faith or not, there is undeniable wisdom in biblical tradition — wisdom that remains strikingly relevant today. I am particularly drawn to the story of the Good Samaritan:

Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbour to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”[8]

Luke 10:30-37 NKJV

When we first began this research, as a point of departure, we turned to M*-straße and Nettelbeckplatz — both now renamed to Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Straße and Martha-Ndumbe-Platz respectively. On M*-straße stands the Institute of European Ethnology, an institute of the Humboldt University that bore the former street name for many years. When the decision was made in 2020 to rename the street in honour of Anton Wilhelm Amo, the first African-born scholar to receive a European doctorate, the change was met with resistance by some local residents.[9] The debate was not merely about signage or administrative inconvenience; it was about memory, belonging, and the right to shape the narrative of shared spaces.

And then there is Nettelbeckplatz, located in Wedding — a district marked by histories of migration and Black presence in Berlin. How ironic that a square in a neighbourhood shaped by diasporic communities would carry the name of a colonial figure associated with Germany’s imperial past.[10] A place intended for gathering, for encounter, for co-existence, named after a man whose legacy is entangled with domination and exploitation. There are many institutions and cultural spaces in the vicinity — such as SAVVY Contemporary, Silent Green, Callie’s, Sinema Transtopia — that primarily engage in post-colonial discourses across various media. What does it mean to inhabit such a space? What does it mean to call someone — in this case, such institutions — a neighbour in a landscape where the very street names reflect contested histories?

It is here that neighbouring becomes more than proximity. It becomes a practice of care — an active willingness to confront the past, to listen to those whose histories have been marginalized, and to reshape shared spaces in ways that affirms dignity rather than erase it. If as Augustine suggests, we share a common nature, and if, as the Samaritan demonstrates, neighbourliness is not measured by identity but by mercy, then the renaming of streets is not a symbolic gesture alone. It is an attempt — however imperfect — to reimagine how we live together.

And so, perhaps the question is not simple who our neighbour is, but what makes us one. Proximity is simply not enough. Shared spaces, shared systems and even shared struggles — these open the possibility of neighbouring, but they do not guarantee it. What transforms co-existence into neighbourliness is compassion. To neighbour is to see oneself in the other,[11] whether that other stands beside us in the elevator, protest beside us in the street, mines cobalt thousands of miles away, or inhabits a history embedded in the name of a square. It is to refuse indifference. It is to act, even when we could pass by on the other side. 

If there is such a thing as good neighbour, it is not an optional virtue added to our humanity; it is an expression of it. For without compassion, we may share walls, cities, or continents — but we do not truly share life. Neighbouring, then, is not merely about where we live. It is about how we choose to live with one another. And perhaps this is at the heart of the matter: we cannot be neighbours in any meaningful sense without striving towards goodness. For to neighbour is to care — and to care is to affirm the humanity we hold in common.[12]

[1] Pierre Elliott Trudeau, statement in House of Commons Debates, 1st Sess., 32nd Parl., 15 June 1981, 10593, quoted in Jeremy Kinsman, “Who Is My Neighbour? Trudeau and Foreign Policy,” International Journal 57, no. 1 (Winter 2001/2002): 57–77, https://doi.org/10.2307/40203633. 

[2] “Neighbour,” in Collins English Dictionary, accessed February 6, 2026, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/neighbour. 

[3] “Neighbour,” in Collins English Dictionary

[4] Black Lives Matter, “About,” accessed February 6, 2026, https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/.

[5] Wikipedia contributors, "George Floyd protests,"  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Floyd_protests&oldid=1335834927 (accessed February 9, 2026).

[6] Humanium, The Current State of Child Labour in Cobalt Mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2025), https://www.humanium.org/en/the-current-state-of-child-labour-in-cobalt-mines-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo/.

[7] Amnesty International and Initiative pour la Bonne Gouvernance et les Droits Humains (IBGDH), Powering Change or Business as Usual?(Amnesty Int’l, 2023), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/drc-cobalt-and-copper-mining-for-batteries-leading-to-human-rights-abuses/.

[8] Luke 10:30–37, The Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV), accessed February 9, 2026, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/LUK.10.30-37.

[9] Stuart Braun, “Berlin to Change Racist Street Name After Legal Battle,” DW, July 15, 2025, accessed February 9, 2026, https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-racist-street-name-change-stopped-again-mohrenstra%C3%9Fe-anton-wilhelm-amo-stra%C3%9Fe/a-73280857.

[10] Bezirksamt Mitte, Aus Nettelbeckplatz wird Martha-Ndumbe-Platz, Pressemitteilung, October 14, 2025. https://www.berlin.de/ba-mitte/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2025/pressemitteilung.1606457.php.

[11] Thaddeus Metz, “Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa,” African Human Rights Law Journal 11, no. 2 (2011): 532–559, esp. 534–538, discussing Ubuntu as a relational moral theory grounded in shared identity, commonly captured in the expression “I am because we are.”

[12] Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 4–6.