{"id":11523,"date":"2024-01-22T21:06:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T20:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/?post_type=decolonizinganthro&#038;p=11523"},"modified":"2024-06-19T16:25:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T14:25:23","slug":"anti-rassismus-in-der-lehre","status":"publish","type":"decolonizinganthro","link":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/decolonizinganthropology\/anti-rassismus-in-der-lehre\/","title":{"rendered":"Session 10 | 25 Jan 2024 | Anti\/Rassismus in der Lehre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>\n\t.dkpdf-download-icon { height: 1.5rem; }\n<\/style>\n\n\n\n\t<div class=\"dkpdf-button-container\" style=\" text-align:right \">\n\n\t\t<a class=\"dkpdf-button\" href=\"\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology\/11523?pdf=11523\" target=\"_blank\">\n\t\t\t<img src='\/wp-content\/themes\/boasblogs\/dkpdf\/download_red.svg' class=dkpdf-download-icon'\/>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t\n\t\t<!-- <a class=\"dkpdf-button\" href=\"\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology\/11523?pdf=11523\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"dkpdf-button-icon\"><i class=\"fa fa-file-pdf-o\"><\/i><\/span> Download PDF<\/a> &rarr; -->\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mpi-eth.webex.com\/weblink\/register\/r19490e9e1c5c8ec3e41eda9c2e2f9c40\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Registration<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- Account des oeffentlichen Bereichs genutzt --><br \/>\n<video id=\"ref_20\" poster=\"https:\/\/rs.cms.hu-berlin.de\/ethnoa-medien\/plugins\/api_resource\/?ref=20&amp;key=jEO_M0EpEI4pq0Go_EjA-ZZ3YNXU1MX3G_6m9VSI9YjlUpG8WiA8mBTiSr2KsnjONFs6Ug,,&amp;preview=1&amp;skey=4a150f3828c579ba266ba15e0c653fe2\" preload=\"none\" controls=\"controls\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\"><source src=\"https:\/\/rs.cms.hu-berlin.de\/ethnoa-medien\/plugins\/api_resource\/?ref=20&amp;alt_ref=52&amp;key=jEO_M0EpEI4pq0Go_EjA-ZZ3YNXU1MX3G_6m9VSI9YjlUpG8WiA8mBTiSr2KsnjONFs6Ug,,&amp;skey=5f5a3b3a918e306b939b7b42c53a83b8\" type=\"video\/mp4\" \/><source src=\"https:\/\/rs.cms.hu-berlin.de\/ethnoa-medien\/plugins\/api_resource\/?ref=20&amp;alt_ref=51&amp;key=jEO_M0EpEI4pq0Go_EjA-ZZ3YNXU1MX3G_6m9VSI9YjlUpG8WiA8mBTiSr2KsnjONFs6Ug,,&amp;skey=0ac661e1c883d60e48419edb37479a32\" type=\"video\/webm\" \/><source src=\"https:\/\/rs.cms.hu-berlin.de\/ethnoa-medien\/plugins\/api_resource\/?ref=20&amp;key=jEO_M0EpEI4pq0Go_EjA-ZZ3YNXU1MX3G_6m9VSI9YjlUpG8WiA8mBTiSr2KsnjONFs6Ug,,&amp;skey=e2abba0686ab99f42bcfed94b316c509\" type=\"video\/mp4\" \/><\/video><\/p>\n<p>Lizenz: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In January 2023, students at the department of Anthropology at the University of Vienna hung up satirical posters suggesting anti-racist new year\u2019s resolutions for the department. The posters were hung in the hallways, lecture rooms, and on two office doors at the department. While the response from lecturers was varied overall, with some praising the actions taken by students, many were upset. As I had been seen putting up posters, I ended up defending my actions in a number of meetings with staff, and, in one case, being warned of potential lawsuits (for an excellent analysis of warnings, see Ahmed 2021, 70). In one such meeting, a lecturer, exasperated at what they saw as a demand for performative anti-racism, exclaimed, \u201cHow could an anthropology department be racist?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the same month, the inaugural meeting of the \u201cWorking Group Against Racism and Intersectional Discrimination\u201d took place. The formation of the working group had been jointly planned between students and lecturers of the department, as a reaction to reports of racist conduct submitted by students. Unlike the posters, the working group was viewed favourably by most lecturers. Many, including some who had vocally opposed the posters, praised it in lectures, in staff meetings, and in private conversations. What stood out to me was that none of these established, accomplished anthropologists, who were now describing the working group with adjectives like \u201cimportant\u201d and \u201cnecessary\u201d, had taken the steps to initiate its formation. It had taken the complaints of bachelor\u2019s students, most only in their third semester. \u201cHow could an anthropology department be racist <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">without noticing it?<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d, I kept wondering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the last year, this question has been at the core of much of my work as a student (representative), and as an activist. It has shaped how I engage with classmates, lecturers, professors, university administrators, and the field of anthropology more broadly. What has stood out to me throughout these engagements is how keenly most anthropologists are aware of the discipline\u2019s colonial past. The lecturer who, in the opening vignette, questioned how an anthropology department could be racist, knows the fascist history of our department (Berner et al. 2015, 45-56). The organisers of the \u201cDecolonising Anthropology\u201d lecture series, too, make explicit reference to the \u201clong-repressed history(s) of [anthropology\u2019s] colonial entanglements.\u201d Yet it often seems to me that these colonial entanglements are framed as belonging to the past, contrasted by imaginaries of Anthropology\u2019s bright, decolonial future. Such imaginaries also feature in the lecture series\u2019 description, as in the \u201cfocuses on methods, forms of knowledge, and practices that can support the process of decolonization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this past\/future dichotomy, the present can fade from sight. Yet, as a student representative, and as an anthropologist, my primary concern must be the present. A present in which non-white students have disenrolled at my department over repeated experiences of racism and over the department&#8217;s inaction. A present in which none of the student unions I interviewed at anthropology departments in Germany and Switzerland knew of any collective measures undertaken by their departments\u2019 staff to combat issues of racism. How can we, as students and lecturers, academics and activists, engage with such a present?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This article is informed by the research I am conducting with student representatives of other departments. Through my research, I explore whether and how student unions at German-speaking Anthropology departments perceive and engage with issues of racism in their departments.My writing is also a reflection of my own experiences as a student and\u00a0 student representative. I recognize that I am not an expert on theories of education, or anthropology, or racism, or colonialism. Yet, as I will argue, I believe that something is currently being lost in the process of becoming an academic. The conventions and notions of \u201cobjective\u201d research which many academic institutions seem to expect and teach fall short of enabling students to adequately express their experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus, I recognise the value which my positionality can contribute to the discussion of decolonising anthropology. I make meaning of worlds through reflecting on my own experiences, which intersect with those of my interlocutors and the students, both white and non-white, with whom I interact.\u00a0 Navigating the complexities of intersecting roles, such as peer, colleague, representative, and researcher, is inherently messy. It is also important\u00a0 to acknowledge that I have never\u00a0 been the target of racism. This also informs my work. To question how an Anthropology department can be ignorant to its own racism is to interrogate the ways in which I myself am ignorant.In short, it is also an interrogation of\u00a0 the position and placement of one\u2019s own whiteness in the context of decolonisation and anti-racism activism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many authors (e.g. Ermine 2007; Said 1978)\u00a0 have convincingly argued for the need to decenter whiteness, to decenter white voices. This, however, does not absolve white people from reflecting on and addressing their oppressive complicity. In the context of overwhelmingly white Anthropology departments, it is not the responsibility of non-white minorities to educate their white colleagues. To overcome \u201cthe perversion of remaining silent\u201d (Ahmed 2000, 166-167), we need to tackle racism not as white saviours, but from a position of genuine understanding that this affects everyone (Dabiri 2021, 130; Lorde 1981, 10).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>On the Centrality of Emotion<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2022, when students at my department started organizing around the issue of racism, we heard through the grapevine that a racism watchdog was already investigating our department due to a disproportionately high number of reports (a claim we have not been able to verify). When we shared this with lecturers from our department, one of the replies was that surely, the high number of reports was a reflection of how sensitized anthropology students had become to issues of racism. A high number of reports seemed almost to be a good thing, proof that the department was successful in its anti-racist teaching goals. I found this re-framing egregiously distasteful. How could racist conduct and teaching serve as a sort of testing ground for students\u2019 new-found political awareness? How would this affect racialized students? Yet, at the time, I wasn\u2019t entirely unconvinced. Surely, this had to at least be a factor. After studying Anthropology for several semesters, it seemed inevitable that students would have developed greater sensibility towards racist speech. I had bought into the promise of anthropology as anti-racist. I was imagining a future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet it wasn\u2019t my education that drove me to speak out. I was moved by anger. In my interviews, I did not ask about emotions, yet all student representatives who work on issues of racism mentioned them as a primary motivator. None credited their education. One representative I interviewed summed up our interview with the words: \u201cWir sind frustriert.\u201d &#8211; \u201cWe are frustrated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">None of this should come as a surprise. The emotional nature of activism has long been discussed, particularly by Black feminists. In Audre Lorde\u2019s seminal piece, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Uses of Anger<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, she describes anger and rage as not only appropriate and inevitable responses\u00a0 to racism, but also as s the fuel and tool for its dismantlement. \u201cAnger is a source of empowerment we must not fear to top for energy rather than guilt. When we turn from anger we turn from insight\u201d (Lorde 1981, 9). {Anger is also a way of knowing the world.} Building on Sara Ahmed\u2019s concept of anger as a form of \u2018against-ness\u2019, Sarah Orem writes that \u201canger can open feminists to the possibility of better future\u2026 [because] anger identifies the object to which it is opposed and propels the feeling subject away\u201d (Orem 2021, 967-968).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crucially, progress here is characterized as a move <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">away from<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> oppression, rather than <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">toward<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> better futures. This aligns with my findings that show anger or frustration over the present to be a necessary component of activism, and thus of meaningful change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What are we (un)learning?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite anthropology\u2019s engagement with the above mentioned theorists, neither I nor the student representatives I interviewed felt empowered by our departments to leverage\u00a0 our anger. On the contrary, students\u2019 anger is often perceived by lecturers as \u201cinsulting\u201d or \u201cunprofessional\u201d. The demand that students correct their tone not only reinforces institutional hierarchies, it also acts to silence them (Silver 1983, 340). It is at once a refusal to engage with their critique, and it threatens to take away an important means of expression, whilst shunning the responsibility for structural change. Though we may try to reject such demands, there is evidence to suggest that anthropology departments are successful in teaching their students to suppress their anger, to communicate in what we are taught is a professional, academic tone that is constructed as \u201cneutral\u201d and \u201cobjective\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One student representative engaged in anti-racist activism at their department, complained to me that first-semester students had become <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">too woke<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, that they were unfairly accusing lecturers of racism. While I can\u2019t evaluate the legitimacy of these students\u2019 complaints, I can\u2019t help but wonder whether my interlocutor has bought into institutional notions of professionalism, which are at odds with the conduct of first-semester students. In writing this, I have realized that I haven\u2019t continued my activism since hanging up the posters with anti-racist New Year\u2019s resolutions in January of 2023. I wasn\u2019t deterred by threats of lawsuits. Rather, through my role as a student representative, I have become inculcated in my department. I sit on the same committees as the lecturers I once argued with. We share coffee in the staff kitchen. Becoming an anthropologist seems to mean giving up on against-ness, giving up what <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cgives feminist politics its edge<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d (Ahmed 2014, 174).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Non-performative imaginaries<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of my lecturers tell me they were once activists. It seems that in becoming Anthropologists, they, too, have abandoned their against-ness. Their gaze has shifted from that which they were against, the object of anger, towards a decolonial future. As anthropology students, our departments continuously invite us to do the same. Instead of hanging up posters, I am now preparing a lecture for a series focused on \u201cthe formation of a new postcolonial present and future\u201d. While I don\u2019t doubt the value and importance of such projects, I worry whether optimistic imaginaries of the future of anthropology act as non-performative speech (Ahmed 2012, 119). By redirecting the gaze of anthropologists towards an imagined future and away from the present and its problems, the very future we are imagining moves further out of reach. Our discussions of decolonial anthropology \u201cdo not bring into effect that which they name\u201d (Ahmed 2012, 119).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How could an anthropology department <\/b><b><i>not<\/i><\/b><b> be racist?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My hope with this article is to have raised some questions about the way anthropology is being taught today, and about the spaces in which it is being taught. What does it mean to become an anthropologist? How can departments engage responsibly with their own whiteness? How can we work towards a better future without losing sight of the present? I don\u2019t have answers to these questions. At best, I can make some readers angry (again), and redirect their gaze towards the present.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Bibliography<\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-indent: -2em; padding-left: 2em;\">\n<p>Ahmed, Sara. 2000. <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. London: Routledge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ahmed, Sara. 2012. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Being Included\u202f: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Durham: Duke University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ahmed, Sara. 2014. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cultural Politics of Emotion<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ahmed, Sara. 2021. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Complaint!<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Durham: Duke University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Berner, Margit, Anita Dick, Julia Gohm-Lezuo, Sarah Kwiatkowski, Katarina Matiasek, David Mihola and Harald Wilfing. 2015. \u201cWiener Anthropologien\u201d. in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reflexive Innensichten aus der Universit\u00e4t: Disziplinengeschichten zwischen Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft und Politik<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, ed. Karl Anton Fr\u00f6schl, Gerd B. M\u00fcller, Thomas Olechowski, Brigitta Schmidt-Lauber, 41 &#8211; 54. G\u00f6ttingen: V&amp;R unipress.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dabiri, Emma. 2021. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. London: Penguin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ermine, Willie. 2007. \u201cThe Ethical Space of Engagement\u201d. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indigenous Law Journal, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6(1), 193-203.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lorde, Audre. 1981. \u201cThe Uses of Anger\u201d. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Women&#8217;s Studies Quarterly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 9(3), 7\u201310.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orem, Sarah. 2021. \u201cTangles of Resentment\u201d. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 46(4), 963 &#8211; 985.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Said, Edward. 1978. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Orientalism. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New York: Pantheon Books.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Magnus Gielge<\/strong> is a student and elected student representative at the department for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Their current research explores racism and anti-racism activism in anthropology departments across German-speaking universities in Europe through the experiences of student representatives. Their research interests take an interdisciplinary lens, drawing from legal studies, queer and gender studies, and anthropology.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"autor":[687],"class_list":["post-11523","decolonizinganthro","type-decolonizinganthro","status-publish","hentry","autor-magnus-gielge"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology\/11523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/decolonizinganthro"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology\/11523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11875,"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decolonizinganthropology\/11523\/revisions\/11875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"autor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boasblogs.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/autor?post=11523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}