Beyond "colonial amnesia" - Decolonising German institutional memory through transformative social activism

从目前的形式来看，德国占主导地位的文化记忆表现出对德国殖民主义的无知态度。宣传德国历史的严肃历史版本，以及将来自前殖民地人民的当地社区边缘化，这些机构正日益受到要求真正与过去重新接触的活动人士的审视。我的博士学位将通过探索非制度化记忆行动主义的变革潜力来推动这场辩论，以鼓励主流记忆文化的非殖民化。这将包括承认殖民时期是现代性的一个组成部分，对权威知识和代表性的重新评估，以及对排除非白人观点并支配当代记忆文化的白人规范性的批判性自我反思。通过对应对这些挑战的关键活动家运动进行广泛的定性研究，如柏林后殖民主义和政治美中心，包括访谈、参与者观察和对具体运动的研究以及对他们自己出版物的分析，我的研究将对他们的方法产生深入的理解，并对变革行动主义的可能性和可能性进行全面的洞察。这将为持续规范记忆的批判性解构提供信息，并展示非殖民化记忆的必要性和价值，弥合激进主义与主流机构之间的差距。德国对其殖民经历的参与（或缺乏这种经历）构成了我七年来工作的核心。它最初引起了我的注意，在我的BA在莱比锡在那里我讨论后殖民理论作为一种思维方式（Mbembe 2008）为我的本科论文（取得第一节课），并与激进组织莱比锡后殖民。2017年在伯明翰开始我的硕士学位，我扩展了我的知识库，并在我的论文中巩固了我迄今为止的工作（取得了优异成绩）。在这项工作中，我对柏林的Strassen倡议进行了分析，这是一个寻求改变纪念殖民暴力的德国肇事者的街道名称的激进组织，作为一个未被认可的激进主义挑战德国规范记忆的案例研究。在伯明翰，我通过额外的参与进一步确保了我作为一名研究人员的独特技能，例如在牛津大学的非洲研究日（2018年3月）上展示我的工作，通过在巴塞罗那的非殖民化知识和权力暑期学校（2018年7月）展示我对非殖民化力量的了解，并通过协调在印度海德拉巴的全球南方认识论研讨会（2018年12月）发展我的研究组织技能。来自四大洲的50名与会者出席了会议。

In its current form, Germany's dominant cultural memory manifests an attitude of ignorance towards German colonialism. Promoting a gravely historic version of Germany's past and the marginalisation of local communities descending from formerly colonised peoples, institutions are increasingly scrutinisedby activists demanding genuine re-engagement with the past.My PhD will advance this debate by exploring the transformative potential of non-institutionalised memory activism to encourage the decolonisation of mainstream memory culture. This will involve an acknowledgment of the colonial period as a constituent of modernity, a re-assessment of authoritativeknowledge and representation, and a critical self-reflection on the normativity of whiteness that excludes non-white perspectives and governs contemporary memory culture. By conducting extensive qualitative research among key activist movements engaging with these challenges, such as Berlin Postcolonial andthe Centre for Political Beauty, including interviews, participant observation and study of specific campaigns and analyses of their own publications, my research will generate an in-depth understanding of their approaches as well as a comprehensive insight into the possibilities of and for transformative activism. This will inform a critical deconstruction of persisting normative memories and demonstrate the necessity and value of decolonising memory, bridging the gap between activism and mainstream institutions.Germany's engagement with its colonial experience, or the lack thereof, has constituted the core of my work for seven years. It initially drew my attention during my BA at Leipzig where I discussed postcolonial theory as a way of thinking (Mbembe 2008) for my undergraduate dissertation (achieving a first classmark) and worked with the activist group Leipzig Postkolonial. Commencing my MA at Birmingham in 2017 I extended my knowledge base and consolidated my work thus far in my dissertation (achieving a Distinction). In this work, I conducted an analysis of the Strassen initiative in Berlin, an activist group seeking to change street names that commemorate German perpetrators of colonial violence, as a case study of underrecognised activism challenging normative memories in Germany. At Birmingham I further secured my unique skill set as a researcher through additional engagements, such as presenting mywork at the Researching Africa Day at Oxford (March 2018), demonstrating my knowledge on the power of decolonisation through the Decolonizing Knowledge and Power summer school in Barcelona (July 2018) and developing my research organisation skills through coordinating the Global Southern EpistemologiesWorkshop in Hyderabad/India (December 2018), attended by 50 participants from four continents.