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Mythen, Masken und Subjekte: Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland
Mehr als ein Jahrzehnt nach der wissenschaftlichen Etablierung einer kritischen Perspektive zu Weißsein in den USA nimmt die so entwickelte Kategorie ‚Critical Whiteness’ ihren Einzug in den hiesigen akademischen Diskurs.
Der vorliegende Band fasst zum ersten Mal das wohl breiteste Spektrum der Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Kategorie in Deutschland zusammen und erschließt damit einem größeren Publikum die Verlagerung des Fokus auf das ‚eigene’ weiße Subjekt im postkolonialen Diskurs Deutschlands.
Für den hiesigen Kontext einzigartig geht dieser Band auf die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Kategorie Weißsein aus einer Schwarzen Perspektive als konzeptioneller Schwerpunkt ein und würdigt damit den enormen und durchaus nachhaltigen Einfluss Schwarzer Menschen und People of Color in Wissenschaft und Kunst, die bereits seit geraumer Zeit mit einem hegemonialkritischen Blick im Diskurs um Ethnisierung und Rassifizierung arbeiten.
Mit seinem Fokus auf die Subjekte rassistischer Herrschaft entwirft das Buch neue kritische Perspektiven auf Debatten um Kolonialismus, Rassismus, Feminismus und Postkolonialiät. Es richtet sich an WissenschaftlerInnen verschiedener geisteswissenschaftlicher Disziplinen sowie an MultiplikatorInnen bildungspolitischer Arbeit, AktivistInnen antirassistischer Arbeit und gesellschaftspolitisch engagierte und interessierte LeserInnen.
Der vorliegende Band fasst zum ersten Mal das wohl breiteste Spektrum der Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Kategorie in Deutschland zusammen und erschließt damit einem größeren Publikum die Verlagerung des Fokus auf das ‚eigene’ weiße Subjekt im postkolonialen Diskurs Deutschlands.
Für den hiesigen Kontext einzigartig geht dieser Band auf die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Kategorie Weißsein aus einer Schwarzen Perspektive als konzeptioneller Schwerpunkt ein und würdigt damit den enormen und durchaus nachhaltigen Einfluss Schwarzer Menschen und People of Color in Wissenschaft und Kunst, die bereits seit geraumer Zeit mit einem hegemonialkritischen Blick im Diskurs um Ethnisierung und Rassifizierung arbeiten.
Mit seinem Fokus auf die Subjekte rassistischer Herrschaft entwirft das Buch neue kritische Perspektiven auf Debatten um Kolonialismus, Rassismus, Feminismus und Postkolonialiät. Es richtet sich an WissenschaftlerInnen verschiedener geisteswissenschaftlicher Disziplinen sowie an MultiplikatorInnen bildungspolitischer Arbeit, AktivistInnen antirassistischer Arbeit und gesellschaftspolitisch engagierte und interessierte LeserInnen.
549 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 1, 2021
A great overview work to get a deeper insight into the topic of racism in the German-speaking world.
The collection of texts by different authors reveals partly overlapping but also different perspectives on the social construction of whiteness in the German-speaking world. As a white cis man with no prior professional knowledge about racism, but with above-average knowledge for my identity, I was very challenged by the reading and probably did not understand a significant amount of it. Nevertheless, it was an insightful work because I learned many new perspectives.
I'll try to give a superficial and incomplete account of what I took away:
In a prologue, the conditions under which the book came into being are critically discussed. It is discussed that the book is a critical examination of whiteness, which, even with the collaboration of BPoC, is still created in a racist system of oppression. It discusses the meaning of racism for white and racialized subjects and how a subjective view of race is also fundamental to the discussion. In the first, more comprehensive part of the book, various texts on whiteness in Germany from a black perspective are collected. The range of topics is wide:
-It shows how the ideas of enlightenment and progress, for example in Kant, center the white subject.
-It explains how masks mask the violence and interconnectedness of white supremacy. A mask, for example, is universalist neutral objectivity, which is a subjective and violently enforced perspective of white people.
- The pre-existing imprint of colonialism on the German capital Berlin is problematized.
- Ideas from architecture such as clinically white exhibition spaces are unmasked as racist masks by documenting the history of development.
-The handling of racist violence (murders) in German society is analyzed.
-It is discussed in which contexts black people can exist in German society and how.
- It discusses how racism is practised in Germany through the appropriation of black music cultures.
- The mechanisms that ensure that there are only white constitutional judges in Germany are described.
- It shows how German gay organizations instrumentalize migrant queer self-organisations in a racist way.
In the third part, a more in-depth look is taken at the masks and contradictions of whiteness:
- The complex experience of Jews, who on the one hand can be perceived as white and on the other hand can be persecuted by Germans for being ascribed black, is presented.
-It discusses how gender studies in Germany reproduce racism by positioning gender as the defining oppression over race.
- It discusses as a mask how, especially in the academic context, white people see themselves as the good white people and thus block a full perception of their whiteness.
I hope my review might help some person sometime.
It helps me to recapitulate the book a bit.
For me, at least, the book was insightful and inspiring.
The collection of texts by different authors reveals partly overlapping but also different perspectives on the social construction of whiteness in the German-speaking world. As a white cis man with no prior professional knowledge about racism, but with above-average knowledge for my identity, I was very challenged by the reading and probably did not understand a significant amount of it. Nevertheless, it was an insightful work because I learned many new perspectives.
I'll try to give a superficial and incomplete account of what I took away:
In a prologue, the conditions under which the book came into being are critically discussed. It is discussed that the book is a critical examination of whiteness, which, even with the collaboration of BPoC, is still created in a racist system of oppression. It discusses the meaning of racism for white and racialized subjects and how a subjective view of race is also fundamental to the discussion. In the first, more comprehensive part of the book, various texts on whiteness in Germany from a black perspective are collected. The range of topics is wide:
-It shows how the ideas of enlightenment and progress, for example in Kant, center the white subject.
-It explains how masks mask the violence and interconnectedness of white supremacy. A mask, for example, is universalist neutral objectivity, which is a subjective and violently enforced perspective of white people.
- The pre-existing imprint of colonialism on the German capital Berlin is problematized.
- Ideas from architecture such as clinically white exhibition spaces are unmasked as racist masks by documenting the history of development.
-The handling of racist violence (murders) in German society is analyzed.
-It is discussed in which contexts black people can exist in German society and how.
- It discusses how racism is practised in Germany through the appropriation of black music cultures.
- The mechanisms that ensure that there are only white constitutional judges in Germany are described.
- It shows how German gay organizations instrumentalize migrant queer self-organisations in a racist way.
In the third part, a more in-depth look is taken at the masks and contradictions of whiteness:
- The complex experience of Jews, who on the one hand can be perceived as white and on the other hand can be persecuted by Germans for being ascribed black, is presented.
-It discusses how gender studies in Germany reproduce racism by positioning gender as the defining oppression over race.
- It discusses as a mask how, especially in the academic context, white people see themselves as the good white people and thus block a full perception of their whiteness.
I hope my review might help some person sometime.
It helps me to recapitulate the book a bit.
For me, at least, the book was insightful and inspiring.
Displaying 1 of 1 review