Report 2nd Workshop Young Scholars Network Black Diaspora and Germany: Gendering the Black Diaspora
In theories of Black Diaspora – e.g., Paul Gilroy’s ‘Black Atlantic’ or Edouard Glissant’s ‘creolization’ – gender often remains a neglected category. This is why the Young Scholars Network ‘Black Diaspora and Germany’ – funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – titled its second workshop ‘Gendering the Black Diaspora’.
Three main topics were addressed: first of all, the theoretical and methodological implications of the issue of gender within the Black Diaspora in Europe and Germany; secondly, the impact of gender concerning the formation of an Afro-/Black German identity and the political struggles that were/are related to this identity; and lastly, the constructions of Black masculinities and femininities, along with the issue of agency and counter-discourses of Black men and women throughout various periods of German historiography. Apart from two keynote lectures by scholarly experts as well as political activists, three members of the Young Scholars Network presented their current research projects. A film screening and a presentation of a forthcoming film project completed the interesting and inspiring program.
In her opening remarks, HEIKE PAUL (Erlangen-Nürnberg) pointed out the fact that gender was not only a marginal issue in early Black Diaspora works but race has also been marginal within the constitution of gender studies. Paul referred to a conference that took place in Munich in 1994, where scholars and researchers of gender studies in Germany were confronted for the first time with the question of race and its impact on power structures and exclusionist practices. The question was brought up especially by guest lecturers from the Netherlands who were already dealing with race and the intersections between
race and gender. The reflection on differences within gender studies was put on the agenda. Paul’s anecdote reminded of the early struggles and disputes that challenged the German academic landscape and made possible things such as the foundation of the Young Scholars Network ‘Black Diaspora and Germany’ with its focus on the interrelations between race and gender.
In the first presentation CASSANDRA ELLERBE-DUECK (Mannheim) discussed the
concept of a matrilineal diaspora and how it can be operationalized in theoretical and methodological terms. In the beginning Ellerbe-Dueck referred to the importance of the Afro-American feminist writer Audre Lorde, not only for her own political socialization, but also for the constitution of feminist Afro-/Black European activist networks in Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Switzerland.
For example, the foundation of the ISD e.V. (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland) and ADEFRA e.V. (Schwarze deutsche Frauen und Schwarze Frauen in Deutschland) in mid-1980s West Germany were influenced and inspired by Audre Lorde – by her writings and also by discussions with Lorde during her visits to Germany. Furthermore Ellerbe-Dueck reported from the fieldwork she conducted during the formation of the Black European Women’s Council (BEWC) in 2007/2008. Activists declared that they were influenced not only by Afro-American or Afro-European theorists or writers (apart from Audre Lorde, the Afro-German poet May Ayim is often mentioned in this respect) but also by their female ancestors in Africa.
Ellerbe-Dueck concluded that the matrilineal inheritance makes it possible for
Afro-/Black Women in Europe to find a voice, create a sense of community,
become political subjects and thus visible. Accordingly, her research focuses
on the question how Black women in Germany and Austria are currently utilizing
this matrilineal inheritance.
The first topic of the discussion was the question to what extent the two
dimensions of the matrilineal inheritance – the familial on the one hand and
the intellectual on the other – point to different concepts of kinship in
Europe and Africa. Another remark stated that the matrilineal inheritance is a
way of relaying subjugated knowledge.
Concerning the question of operationalizing the matrilineal diaspora concept the need for a master theory was denied. It might be more useful – as one participant suggested – to follow the methodological parameters of a thick description in which the lived concepts, categories, and experiences of the women should come to the foreground. In doing so one has the possibility to show how exactly kinship is defined and how knowledge is transmitted. Finally, the question arose how conflicts occur and are managed within the matrilineal inheritance – due to the fact that white feminists of the third generation often break with the familial and intellectual traditions of former activists. In this context one discussant stated that while comparing the scopes of action of white and Black women it is necessary to reflect about racism and how it shapes different forms of stability as conditions for conflict.
The second presentation by KATHARINA GERUND (Duesseldorf) questioned the modes and conditions of global solidarity. As the topic of her analysis, she chose three pop songs (one by the Rolling Stones, one by John Lennon and Yoko Ono and one by the German songwriter Franz Josef Degenhardt), which were released in 1972 and which declared solidarity with the imprisoned African-American activist Angela Davis.
In comparing these songs and the related performances, Gerund showed how race and gender functioned as organizing principles not only for the habit of the cultural artefacts but also for the solidarity movement in general. One main characteristic that could be understood as a symptom is the fact that (almost) solely white European males sang about an African-American iconic female figure. While the Stones played with – and simultaneously activated – racist and sexist stereotypes referring to the time of slavery, and while Lennon (and Ono) addressed Davis as a sister and therefore hid the different positionings resulting from raced and gendered power structures, Degenhardt staged himself as a cultural mediator relating the struggle of an African-American woman to well-known white working class heroes and thus ignored the specificity of the particular cases.
Gerund concluded that the songs – because of the reproduction of stereotypes and the missing reflection about the particular musicians’ status as white and male and its impact for the announcement of solidarity with a Black woman – were enmeshed in the very same power structures they tended to criticize.
Accordingly, she spoke about the failures of solidarity.
This conclusion was the starting point of the discussion. The question arose whether failure is the adequate analytical term or concept to deal with the
songs and their history – as they were indeed very popular and thus successful. Accordingly, it seems necessary to think in general about the
price of global solidarity or the politicization of the masses. In other words: Does solidarity or especially the popularizing personalization of the struggle against racism necessarily include forms of fetishization? Is there a nexus between the degree of commodification of cultural performances and the
scale of racism?
Furthermore, it was stated that all songs and performances can be understood as significant forms of inventing Angela Davis, and that each of these forms has to be explored very carefully – especially if we seek to develop new forms of global solidarity without re-enacting the flaws of the past. Having said this, the mediality of the cultural artefacts, i.e., the type or style of the music, should also be investigated.
In the first keynote address human rights activist and diversity trainer JUDY GUMMICH (Berlin) talked about racism and empowerment as an antiracist strategy. Gummich started with the remark that there is a specific racism against people of African descent, and that these people are most vulnerable
to racist practices.
Then she showed how racism as an omnipresent signifier determines the daily lives of Black people. Coevally, Gummich talked about the history of self-organization of Black (female) activists in (West) Germany. While mentioning the increased awareness of racism in Germany as well as the acceptance of the term ‘Schwarze Deutsche’, she clarified the achievements of the community-oriented empowerment work of institutions such as ISD e.V. or ADEFRA e.V. But Gummich also expounded the problems of the empowerment
concept. Once developed by victims of racism aiming to change power structures, due to the neoliberal imperative of self-fulfillment it has now become a tool in management consultancy.
Finally the still marginal standing of Afro-/Black German empowerment was a matter of discussion. Gummich criticized that the common approach to racism in Germany focuses on the perpetrators and not on the victims. This is why sponsorship rarely reaches the victims, i.e., networking inside the Afro-/Black German community.
The discussion started with the observation that many younger Black people are not aware of the history of Black empowerment in Germany and the existence of ISD e.V. and ADEFRA e.V. The question arose how these people can be organized and how the forms of organization can deal with the heterogeneity of the Black Diaspora. Another topic was the correlation between Black empowerment and the structure of political parties. Apparently there are some Black politicians, however only on a local level.
Finally there was a remark about a current shift in racism: The rise of the anti-Muslim resentment makes people from the former colonies – at least in the Netherlands – feel as if they were closer to power. This should be kept in mind while thinking of cooperative strategies in matters of organizing against the upcoming of right wing populist parties in many European countries.
The first day ended with a film screening of „Hoffnung im Herz: Mündliche Poesie – May Ayim“ (directed by Maria Binder). DAGMAR SCHULTZ (Berlin), co-producer of the film, gave a short introduction in which she talked about her acquaintance and various collaborations with May Ayim, about May Ayim’s life, poetry, and political activism and her early and tragic death as well as about the circumstances under which the idea to make this film was developed.
The first presentation of the second day was given by Dagmar Schultz as well.
She presented a new film project about Audre Lorde’s Berlin years (1984-1992). Schultz reported on her own acquaintance and collaborations with Lorde and made clear how much the African-American writer influenced the white feminist movement in Germany in the early 1980s.
The film consists of material that was produced during Lorde’s stays in Berlin by Schultz herself as well as by friends and other activists. Dagmar Schultz is the producer of the film. The script was developed by Zara Zandieh, who is also the director. The film shall be completed this year. There are different options to support the project (see http://audrelorde-<wbr></wbr>theberlinyears.com/deutsch/<wbr></wbr>index_mehr.html).
The second presentation by SUSANN LEWERENZ (Hamburg) dealt with colonial revisionism, gender, and Black agency in Nazi Germany. Lewerenz showed how Black male and female funfair and circus entertainers living in Germany appropriated and thereby transformed colonial revisionist narratives that circulated both in the Weimar Republic and in the Nazi state.
For example, Black male performers of the ‘Deutsche Afrika-Schau’ made use of the myth of the ‘loyal Askari’. This myth was invented after the loss of the colonies to demonstrate the alleged ability of the Germans in terms of colonization. While inscribing in this narrative, Black men created a scope of action and therefore a strategy to fight for their rights in an increasingly racist society.
A Black female circus and variety performer called Thea Leyseck, on the other hand, borrowed from the rhetoric of the colonial women’s organizations in Germany and invented herself as a bearer of a German culture in the former colonies. Her use of colonialist narratives also created a scope of action and served to fight the repressive and threatening conditions that determined the lives of Black women in Nazi Germany. Lewerenz concluded that in the process of appropriation of colonial discourse, the colonial revisionist imaginary served as points of departure for Black male and female subversive agency, and that the mimicry of subjugation thus shifted into a mimicry of subversion.
Participants of the discussion were impressed by the wide array of archive material gathered by Lewerenz as well as by her use of Homi Bhabha’s abstract
concept of colonial mimicry in her analysis of the agency of the Afro-German performers. Her material as well as her way of analyzing it offer the possibility to approach subaltern ways of speaking and acting – and if it is true that subaltern voices were not ‘heard’, they never the less had an effect on the power structures and caused certain reactions by the Nazi authorities.
Another aspect of the discussion was the entanglement between African-American and Afro-German history shown by Lewerenz: While Thea Leyseck presented her father as an African, he was in fact an African-American who had already migrated to Germany in the 1870s.
The final presentation was a keynote address by GLORIA WEKKER (Utrecht) who shared the content and structure of the book she is currently working on. Her main focus was what she called the ‘white psyche’ or ‘white cultural archive’. The starting point of her paper was the dominant Dutch self-representation, which is characterized by three paradoxes: First of all, although the Netherlands is a nation of descendents of immigrants, the majority of the Dutch people refuses to be identified with migrants. Secondly, the nation’s historical self-perception is defined through its status as victim of German perpetration in World War II, whereas its own colonial past and the implied history of violence remain invisible. Finally, knowledge about Dutch imperial history is absent in cultural artefacts such as literature as well as in the
educational system.
Given these paradoxes, Wekker claimed an ‘innocence unlimited’ to be a main characteristic of the white psyche. On the other hand, Wekker – following W.E.B. Du Bois – talked about a Black Dutch double consciousness characterized through shame about racist treatment, which leads
into the denial of the seriousness of racist attacks. The last issue was the representation of Blacks in Dutch popular culture. Drawing on Freud and Fanon,
Wekker described negrophobia as a simultaneous mode of fear and desire. Furthermore, she related the still popular stereotype of Black people as
hypersexual and barbaric to the psychoanalytic theory that civilization is
reached through sublimation of sexuality.
Three aspects were the main subject of discussion: The way Wekker combined different discursive fields as well as theoretical concepts and methodological approaches might be very useful especially for research concerning the complex experiences and often entangled histories in diasporic contexts. But when talking about the cultural archive as a structure of feelings and attitudes and as a dominant regime of truth, how can we think about the conditions of a counter-archive and the related strategies of resistance? And when the ‘innocence unlimited’ is an effect of denial and disavowal as important modes of dealing with race, how can we relate this to the materiality of the archive and its often manifest racist propositions?
The plenary session was opened by Heike Paul, who offered some introductory remarks. In using the concept of invented traditions (Hobsbawm), she reflected
on the ways in which a Black diasporic consciousness is generated (the matrilineal inheritance, the often stated impact of Audre Lorde and May Ayim, the related founding narratives etc.). She also indicated that the representations are often coined by the experiences of urban intellectuals,
whereas the experiences of Black people from the small towns or the countryside often remain invisible.
The plenary discussion then focused on the limits of the Young Scholars Network and how it can be opened and expanded. Due to the fact that many guests – scholars as well as activists – joined the workshop and enriched the discussions it seems necessary to think about possibilities of participation and institutionalized exchange. Another topic were the racist conditions of academic employment practices. The question arose what strategies might be developed to change the exclusionist logic inherent to the institution. In this context, one participant demanded more exchange between theoretical research and technical didactics, claiming that the division has negative effects because postcolonial interventions usually do not reach the didactics department.
The workshop’s agenda and discussions were very productive and inspiring. Some issues will be picked up again during the next workshop ‘Changing Concepts in the Constructions of Race: “Critical Whiteness Studies” and Race in the Circum-Atlantic World’, which will take place in Berlin at the end of this
year.
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