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

在目前的形式中，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。促进严重的历史版本的德国的过去和边缘化的地方社区下降，从以前的殖民地人民，机构越来越多的审查由活动家要求真正的重新参与与过去。我的博士将推进这场辩论，通过探索非制度化的记忆行动主义的变革潜力，以鼓励主流记忆文化的非殖民化。这将涉及承认殖民时期是现代性的一个组成部分，重新评估权威知识和代表性，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。通过对参与这些挑战的主要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之美中心，包括访谈，参与者观察和对特定运动的研究以及对他们自己出版物的分析，我的研究将深入了解他们的方法，并全面了解变革行动主义的可能性。这将为批判性解构持续的规范性记忆提供信息，并展示非殖民化记忆的必要性和价值，弥合行动主义和主流机构之间的差距。德国对其殖民经验的参与，或缺乏殖民经验，构成了我七年工作的核心。它最初引起了我的注意，在我的BA在莱比锡，我讨论了后殖民理论作为一种思维方式（Mbembe 2008）为我的本科论文（实现一等），并与激进组织莱比锡Postkolonial合作。在2017年开始我在伯明翰硕士，我扩展了我的知识基础，并巩固了我的工作，到目前为止，在我的论文（实现区分）。在这项工作中，我进行了分析的斯特拉森倡议在柏林，一个活动家团体，寻求改变街道名称，纪念德国罪犯的殖民暴力，作为一个案例研究的未被认可的激进主义挑战规范的记忆在德国。在伯明翰，我通过更多的参与进一步巩固了我作为研究员的独特技能，比如在牛津大学的非洲研究日上展示我的工作（2018年3月），通过巴塞罗那的非殖民化知识和权力暑期学校展示我对非殖民化力量的了解（2018年7月）并通过协调在印度海得拉巴举行的全球南方认识论研讨会来发展我的研究组织技能（2018年12月），来自四大洲的50名与会者参加。

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.