Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Institut für Europäische Ethnologie

Kontakt

Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung

Ansprechperson:
Prof. Dr. Regina Römhild

Um auf dem neuesten Stand zu bleiben, setzen Sie sich auf den E-Mail-Verteiler.

Aus der ethnologischen Perspektive ist Europa nicht einfach gegeben, sondern - historisch und aktuell - ein sich in vielen global verflochtenen Projekten entwickelnder, konfliktreicher politischer und kultureller Prozess. Das ethnologische Paradigma der Europäisierung steht für diesen Prozess. Und eine kritische Europäisierungsforschung reflektiert diesen Prozess aus einer postkolonialen, globalen Perspektive. Dabei setzt sie nicht nur im „Zentrum“, bei den Politiken und Institutionen der Europäischen Union oder der Definitionsmacht der westlichen europäischen Gesellschaften an, sondern gerade bei jenen Akteuren und Zonen an den Rändern des heutigen Europas, deren Zugehörigkeit historisch und aktuell umstritten ist: etwa den heutigen Grenzregionen des Mittelmeerraums, des "Balkans" und Osteuropas, den Migrant_innen, Minoritäten und Marginalisierten, die Europa mit seinen umstrittenen und oft ausgelassenen globalen Geschichten und Gegenwarten in einer postkolonialen, postmigrantischen, postsozialistischen Welt konfrontieren. Gerade hier zeigen sich die Herausforderungen und Zumutungen der Europäisierung besonders deutlich, ebenso wie gerade diese scheinbar peripheren Akteure und Zonen sich als sehr viel bedeutsamer für die Gestaltung Europas erweisen als vielfach angenommen.

Das Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung versteht sich als Hierarchien übergreifender, selbst gestalteter Diskussionsraum, in dem zu diesem Schwerpunktthema des Instituts nachgedacht und geforscht wird. Das Labor vernetzt Forscher_innen (Studierende, Doktorand_innen, Projektmitarbeiter_innen, Lehrende) im Institut und interessierte „Externe“ entlang von inhaltlichem Engagement und Expertise.

Anregungen und neu hinzukommende Interessent_innen sind herzlich willkommen!

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Aktuelles

Amo Kollektiv Berlin lädt ein:

Geschichten verflechten – Nachbar*innen werden

rund um die AW Amo-Straße

Ein öffentlicher Stadtrundgang

Freitag, 8.9.2023, 17:00 – 19:00

Anton Wilhelm Amo-Salon, c/o Institut für Europäische Ethnologie

AW Amo-Straße (ehemals M*Straße) 40, 10117 Berlin

Mit Kwame Aidoo, Melanie Garland, hn. Iyonga, Eliana Pliskin Jacobs, Ingri Pavesi, Nicole Pearson, Carla J. Maier, Nastassja Mrozinski, Regina Römhild, Savannah Sipho, Adela Taleb, Piero Trias, Eryn Staiblin, Elisa Virnau, Michael Westrich u.a.

Unter dem Asphalt in Berlin-Mitte verbergen sich Spuren vieler Geschichten, vieler historischer Schichten. Je tiefer wir graben, desto brüchiger wird die scheinbar glatte, einheitliche Oberfläche der Stadt und rissige Spuren gesellschaftlicher Kämpfe treten hervor: Kämpfe um Freiheit, Zuflucht, Emanzipation, Anerkennung, Beteiligung, wie sie die Menschen hier, rund um die Anton Wilhelm Amo-Straße, seit Aufklärung und kolonialer Moderne, seit den Verbrechen des NS-Regimes und des Holocaust bis in die postkoloniale Gegenwart nach dem ‚Kalten Krieg‘ bewegen.

Wie lassen sich dekoloniale, konviviale Zukünfte aus dieser Perspektive vergangener, aber keineswegs abgeschlossener Kämpfe neu inspirieren? Was geschieht, wenn wir sie nicht als unverbundene, geschlossene Zeitfenster wahrnehmen, sondern als atmende Erfahrungen, die sich gegenseitig und unser Heute berühren? Können wir Nachbar*innen werden, Nachbarschaften entwerfen, die sich dazwischen aufspannen?

Das Dekoloniale Flanieren ist ein Format des öffentlichen, performativen Stadtrundgangs, zu dem das Amo Kollektiv Berlin in diesem Jahr zum vierten Mal einlädt. Auch 2023 lassen wir uns dabei inspirieren von dem antirassistischen, kosmopolitischen Geist des afrodeutschen Aufklärungsphilosophen Anton Wilhelm Amo, dem neuen Namensgeber der ehemaligen M*straße in Berlin-Mitte. Entlang der diesjährigen Route erwarten uns Entdeckungen im Zentrum deutsch-jüdischer Konfektionsmode, rund um den Salon der Rahel Varnhagen, entlang des kolonialen Warenhandels, inmitten von Spuren der DDR-Geschichte und am Schauplatz anhaltender Straßenumbenennungskämpfe. So öffnet sich an diesem Ort der Stadt eine Perspektive auf die verflochtenen Geschichten der Vertreibungen, Auslöschungen und Versklavungen, der Migrationen, Fluchten und Befreiungen, die den Untergrund unserer postkolonialen und postmigrantischen Gegenwart ausmachen.

Amo Kollektiv Berlin ist eine Gruppe von Studierenden, Künstler*innen, Wissenschaftler*innen und Mitgliedern der Zivilgesellschaft mit Sitz im Amo-Salon, c/o Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Das Kollektiv ist aus den antirassistischen und dekolonialen Kämpfen um die Umbenennung unserer Straße (M*Straße) nach dem afrodeutschen Aufklärer und antirassistischen Pionier des frühen 18. Jahrhunderts - Anton Wilhelm Amo – hervorgegangen.

Der performative Rundgang findet in englischer Sprache statt. Zum Rundgang wird es ein Begleitheft in deutscher Sprache geben.

Amo-collective.org (Website im Aufbau)

Das Projekt Geschichten verflechten - Nachbar*innen werden ist Teil der Initiative DRAUSSENSTADT, gefördert vom Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis sowie von der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaflichen Zusammenhalt.

Amo Collective Berlin presents:

Relating Histories - Becoming Neighbors

around AW Amo Street

A public city walk

Friday, 8.9.2023, 17:00 - 19:00

Anton Wilhelm Amo-Salon, c/o Institute for European Ethnology

AW Amo-Strasse (formerly M*Straße) 40, 10117 Berlin

With Kwame Aidoo, Melanie Garland, hn. Iyonga, Eliana Pliskin Jacobs, Ingri Pavesi, Nicole Pearson, Carla J. Maier, Nastassja Mrozinski, Regina Römhild, Savannah Sipho, Adela Taleb, Piero Trias, Eryn Staiblin, Elisa Virnau, Michael Westrich and more

Beneath the asphalt of Berlin-Mitte lie hidden historical layers and untold stories. The deeper we dig, the more cracked the dominant, uniform surface becomes. Taking a closer look, we begin to notice the traces of social struggles for freedom, refuge, emancipation, recognition, and participation. These struggles have moved people around Anton Wilhelm Amo-Straße since the Enlightenment and the colonial modern, through the crimes of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, up to the post-colonial present after the 'Cold War'.

How can the decolonial, convivial futures be reinvigorated from the perspective of the past and these ongoing struggles? What happens when we recognize them not as disconnected, separate time capsules but as breathing experiences that intersect in our present? Can we become neighbors and imagine neighborhoods between histories, struggles and experiences?

Decolonial Flanerie is a format of a public, performative urban walking event, conceptualized and presented by the Amo Collective Berlin. This year, we are once again inspired by the anti-racist, cosmopolitan spirit of the Afro-German Enlightenment philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, the new namesake of the former M*straße in Berlin-Mitte. Along this year's route, we will traverse the center of German-Jewish ready-to-wear fashion, pass by Rahel Varnhagen's salon, explore the colonial merchandise trade, delve into traces of GDR history, and engage with the scene of ongoing street renaming struggles. Around AW Amo-Straße, we can immerse ourselves into the entangled histories of expulsions, erasures, and enslavement, as well as migrations, escapes, and liberations: layers that make up the foundation of our postcolonial and postmigrant present.

Amo Collective Berlin is a group of students, artists, scholars and members of civil society based at the Amo Salon, c/o Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. The Collective emerged through the anti-racist and decolonial struggles surrounding the renaming of our street after Afro-German Enlightenment philosopher and anti-racist pioneer of the early 18th century: Anton Wilhelm Amo.

The performative walk is in English. At the walk, a booklet in German will be available.

Amo-collective.org (Website under construction)

The project Geschichten verflechten - Nachbar*innen werden is part of the Initiative DRAUSSENSTADT, funded by Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis and Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaflichen Zusammenhalt.

Dekolonisierung heute - und die Rolle der Religion.

Der lange Befreiungsprozess versklavter Guarani im Süden Boliviens

mit Hermann Stoffel (Pfarrer und Berater indigener Organisationen, Huacareta/Bolivien) und Willma Durán Benavides (Professorin für Entwicklungs- und interkulturelle Kommunikation, Universität San Francisco Xavier, Chuquisaca/Bolivien)

Fr 5.5.2023, 16:00-18:00

Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Anton Wilhelm Amo-Str. (formerly: M*Straße) 41, 10117 Berlin

Raum 107a

Im Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung untersuchen wir gemeinsam mit Interessierten aus Universität und Gesellschaft aktuelle Phänomene eines postkolonial & global verflochtenen Europas. In dieser Veranstaltung werden die langen Nachwirkungen der Kolonialisierung mit Blick auf die indigene Bevölkerung Boliviens thematisiert. Mit unseren Gästen Pfarrer Hermann Stoffel und Prof. Wilma Durán Benavides werden wir, nach einem historischen Abriss und Einordnung des Befreiungskampfes der Guarani in die gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen, über die jeweiligen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer unterstützenden Religion/Kirche diskutieren: Inwieweit ist ein „gemeinsames“/„geteiltes“ Befreiungsprojekt möglich? In welchem Zusammenhang steht dieses Projekt mit aktuellen Prozessen und Diskussionen der Dekolonisierung in Berlin & Europa?

Hier ein Link zu einem Youtube-Video, das die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem ehemaligen Pfarrer Hermann Stoffel und anderen Unterstützenden mit der Selbstorganisation der Guarani in Bolivien thematisiert - ein sehr interessanter Einblick in aktuelle Kämpfe indigener Gruppierungen um Dekolonisierung und Befreiung aus versklavender Abhängigkeit.

Das Video „Yaikoavei Iyambae“ (20 min.) ist auf Spanisch mit deutschen Untertiteln: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnsvMcm9vV0

Dekoloniales Flanieren III in der rbb Abendschau

https://box.hu-berlin.de/f/e65abce0027441b0b52b/

Anton Wilhelm Amo & W.E.B. Du Bois:

Auf den Spuren der vergessenen Geschichte Schwarzer Wissenschaftler in Berlin

Ein öffentlicher Stadtrundgang

Anton Wilhelm Amo & W.E.B. Du Bois:

Tracing the Silenced History of Black Scholars in Berlin

A public walk

Reframing post- and decolonial knowledge production over the epistemic East / West divide CONTINUED - Europanization processes in academia and activism

The event was conceptualized and organized by Lucia Sunder-Plassmann, Victoria Kravtsova and Ronda Ramm

07.05.2021 10:00 - 13:00  on Zoom

In this session we focus on knowledge hierarchies between the Global East and West in the anthropological discipline, as well as within activist and academic circles engaged with queer feminism. To this end, there will be two short presentations on the current state of the Romanian ethnology & anthropology and of feminist activist-scholars in Central Asia within Europeanization dynamics. We will then enter into a joint discussion with scholars and activists from Romania, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. 

We are going to discuss which theoretical frameworks can conceptualize the global entanglements of activist and academic work within the Global East. 

We will raise questions such as: Can critical Europeanization studies be a productive lens in order to engage in a decolonial knowledge production in those cases? How can Western scholars be engaged in the processes of decolonization? Is there still a Western ignorance of anthropological traditions in the Global East or are there already more spaces for reciprocity in interest? What structural changes are needed to counter inequality in knowledge production?

You can access the session via Zoom: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/66677490444?pwd=d3pMOHoxdWZUQlRRUlUySnZyYWEwUT09

Altynay Kambekova will present her essay “Stuck between the past and the present: coloniality of queer activism in Central Asia” and reflect on the attachment of the discourses on queer feminism to both the USSR and the West and the subsequent challenges encountered by the Central Asian activists-scholars working in this field.

Altynay Kambekova researches the topics of decoloniality, feminist movements in Central Asia and the interweaving of nationalism and gender issues in the region. You can contact Altynay by mail: akambekova@gmail.com.

Lucia Sunder-Plassmann will present her master thesis on Europeanization processes within the Romanian ethnology and anthropology. As a snapshot of the Romanian disciplines, her research focuses on current strategies of negotiation and self-positioning of local scholars within Europeanized realities, as well as resulting dynamics among them that become visible.

You can read an abstract of the thesis here.

Lucia Sunder-Plassmann studied Social/Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Leipzig and HU Berlin and is currently working on her PhD application. Her research interests include the question of how a dialogue or constructive collaboration at eye level between Western and Eastern ethnologies/anthropologies can come about, and what is necessary for a future (European) anthropological knowledge production in this sense.

Reframing post- and decolonial knowledge production over the epistemic East / West divide CONTINUED- Temporality, Decoloniality and Liminality

Labor Migration / Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung 

The event was conceptualized and organized by Magda Buchczyk, Katrin Kremmler, Soph Petzelberger and Ronda Ramm.

05.02.2021, 10:00 - 13:00 on Zoom 

In our last session, we began to explore the boundaries between the ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the geopolitics of labour and knowledge production, highlighting their hierarchical entanglements. We were interested in how Eastern European/Global East/post-socialist places emerge as epistemic spaces, discussing how the divisions come to matter and how they inflect decolonial practice. The last session pointed out that knowledge-making in the Global East is frequently imagined as “lagging behind” and “in a dire need to catch up” with the epistemic centre. This session explores how different actors, through mobility and creativity, work to negotiate and translate this positionality into artistic, scholarly and activist work. 

In the session, we focus on how the East /West divide and it’s boundaries are mediated and reworked through time and space. The session will include two case studies about Queer post-Soviet diaspora in Germany, and artistic work engaging with Kazakh memory discourses. Through these cases, we examine how temporality gets entangled with decoloniality “on the ground” both within the Global East and through mobilities. Our aim is to understand how this may help us reframe post/decolonial knowledge production by locating it betwixt and between the perceived epistemic divides. 

For the Zoom access send a mail to: ramronda@hu-berlin.de

Queer post-Soviet migration in Germany – Geotemporal dance between (un)visibility and (self)exotisation

In 2010, Borchard argued that lesbian Russophone migrants in Germany were consolidating and building communities in very subtle ways. In comparison to other queer migrant communities, Russophone lesbians seemed to avoid political identities and gathered around club culture. Positive self-identifications and empowerment were possible almost only through non-verbal practices, ephemeral communities and practices of belonging. Ten years later we can speak not only about the evolving post-Soviet LGBTIQ+ migrant movement, but also about internal differences, hierarchies and multiple political self-identifications. These phenomena are still overlooked in queer diaspora and post-soviet migration research. How do post-Soviet queers perceive time and locality in diaspora? Which self-determined counter-discourses of queer post-Soviet diaspora exist outside of the dichotomy of invisibility and (self-)exotisation? What can we understand about German "Dominanzkultur" and post-Soviet queerness through the diasporic perspective? This talk reflects on the issue of spatiality and temporality of queer post-Soviet diaspora in Germany.

Masha Beketova has studied Slavic Languages, Cultures and Literatures and Gender studies at the HU Berlin and RSUH Moscow with focus on intersectionality, queer studies and contemporary Russian and Ukrainian literatures. Currently Masha is working on a PhD thesis “Enough is not enough! Queer post-soviet Migration in Germany between (Un)visibility and (Self)exotisation” in Slavic cultural studies and holds a Rosa-Luxemburg Scholarship. 

The Kazakh Famine of the 1930s in Contemporary and Public Art of Kazakhstan

In the early 2010s discussions around the topic of the Kazakh famine arose and intensified, with one side conceiving it as a simple tragedy and miscalculation and the other as a genocidal crime perpetrated by the Soviet state against the Kazakh nation. The government renewed famine monument production in the biggest cities of Kazakhstan with a goal to create a narrative that was meant to convey a certain way of remembrance that fit into the current political and cultural ideology of the ruling party. At the same time, another kind of art production has recently emerged in Kazakhstan that deals with memory production of the Kazakh famine. (Semi)independent contemporary artists, curators and galleries started to create deeper and more nuanced representations of this hard and complex traumatic episode in history. In my presentation I will shortly talk about those two kinds of memory production and will focus on the differences between the two. How do artistic, aesthetic and rhetorical approaches of the two discourses on the famine differ? Why do they use different kinds of visual language and how does different language produce different kinds of historiography?

Saltanat Shoshanova studied Art History in Saint-Petersburg and Vienna. She recently finished her master’s degree in Art History at the Free University Berlin. Her research interests focus on queer feminism and decolonilatity in the Post-Soviet countries.

Reframing post- and decolonial knowledge production over the epistemic East / West divide - Critical perspectives from the Global East

The event was conceptualized and organized by Magda Buchczyk, Katrin Kremmler, Soph Petzelberger and Ronda Ramm.

Labor Migration / Labor Kritische Europäisierungsforschung 

22.01.2021, 10:00 - 13:00 on Zoom

In the current pandemic condition, we witness rapid reconfigurations as well as enduring and deepening inequalities with regard to the interrelations of human bodies, migration and marginalization. A glaring example of this came to the fore in German media discussions of exempting Eastern European workers from Corona travel restrictions in order to ensure cheap seasonal labor in the agricultural sector. Here as elsewhere, it became obvious that divisions between East and West still matter and continue to figure in various ways throughout Europe. 

In this session, we will explore an emerging field of critical inquiry into these East-West divisions through a focus on decolonial perspectives on knowledge production from areas that are differently called post-socialist, post-soviet or the Global East. Bringing together contributions of three scholars and activists whose academic work unfolds from within those areas, we hope to approach the inequalities between the West and the East in our academic settings and beyond. We are interested in how Eastern Europe emerges as an epistemic space entangled in structural inequalities and aim to follow the relational knots of power and knowledge at work in various instantiations of East-West divisions.

For the Zoom link, please write a mail to: ramronda@hu-berlin.de

Speakers:

Dr Alexandra Urdea is currently working in the Behavioural Science Team for the Dept for Work and Pension of the UK government. Alex has completed a PhD in anthropology at Goldsmiths. This research examined how folk objects are mobilized in national ideologies, transmissions of personal and family memory, museological discourses, and artistic acts. Alex's postdoctoral research at the University of Sussex focused on Romanian migration in London which will be the focus of today's short input on the relations between mobilities, labour and ethnic and racial identities 

Victoria Kravtsova, MA in International Relations: "Between the posts, into the void: making sense of feminism and decolonialization in Bishkek and Almaty", Vica has been co-organizing the Feminist Translocalities / Feminist Utopias platform https://feminisms.co/en. She holds a permanent position as project manager at Dekrabisten e.V. in Berlin and is currently working on her PhD application. Her main topics of research and activism are feminism and decolonization in the post-Soviet space.

Eszter Kováts, MA: "Symptomatic blind spots - Inequalities between Eastern and Western Europe in German academia". Eszter Kováts holds a BA in Sociology, an MA in French and German Studies and in Political Science. She is a PhD student in Political Science at ELTE University, Budapest. Until recently she was a guest researcher at the Humboldt University in Berlin. She was working in the Hungarian Office of the German political foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) from 2009 till the end of 2019. From 2012 till 2019 she was responsible for the Foundation's gender program for East-Central Europe.

If you are interested to read introductory literature  before our session, you might have a look into the following two readings or the Feminist Utopias online platform. 

Kojanić, Ognjen (2020). Theory from the Peripheries: What Can the Anthropology of Postsocialism Offer to European Anthropology?. Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 29(2), 49-66. Access here: https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/ajec/29/2/ajec290204.xml

Tlostanova, Madina (2015): Can the post-Soviet think? On coloniality of knowledge, external imperial and double colonial difference. In: Intersections 1 (2). Access here: https://intersections.tk.mta.hu/index.php/intersections/article/view/38

Feminist Utopias platform: https://feminisms.co/en 

Through the Corona lens - Part 2: Racialized bodies

Friday, 18.12.2020, 10:00 - 13:00

Inputs provided by Celma Costa, Milena Bister, Katrin Kremmler

(How) Does the pandemic sharpen our understanding of racialized bodies?

Following up on our last lab meeting, at which we discussed issues of convivality and racism in the face of the Corona pandemic, we will explore this time relations between the pandemic, human bodies and racialization. We will bring theoretical insights on the property functions of whiteness (Cheryl Harris), the race multiple (Amade M'Charek) and European racial triangulation (Anca Parvulescu) in conversation with each other and with our understanding of the effects and implications of the pandemic.

In particular we are looking forward to explore the following questions:

The increasing politicization of COVID-19 masks in predominantly white populations in the global north gives us a chance to rethink race and racialism. Drawing from C.I. Harris' 1993 paper, "Whiteness as Property", we reflect: How has the pandemic triggered the fragilities of racialized identities?

Drawing on the material semiotic approach within science and technology studies makes us question and explore the naturecultures of the pandemic: What are bodies and race made to mean in practices related to the pandemic?

Eastern European seasonal workers, systematically exploited by the German agriculture and meat industries, found themselves in the position of „disposeable subjects" in the pandemic, undeserving of protection (Raluca Bejan). (How) Do today's structural inequalities within the EU relate to continental European imperial and post-imperial legacies and regional patterns of racialization?

please register and get the zoom link from Ronda Ramm: ramronda@hu-berlin.de

Online event - Through the Corona lens: (How) Does the pandemia sharpen our view on racism and conviviality?

The current pandemic has caused different consequences at all social, economic and political levels, which has sharpened and brought to the surface different challenges, which critically need theoretical and empirical debate. Of particular interest to this session are the significance and challenges of conviviality and racism. Is the current crisis a shared experience and causes solidarity or does it promote the self-centeredness of privileged people? We frame the discussion from a macro-liminality approach as a space for transformation and change at a global level. For this session we will examine different case studies; disability community, health care system, refugee camps and spirituality.
We also question the role of the anthropologist, ethnographer and artist and how we face this new way of doing research at present. We opened the debate to reflect on new methodological and empirical forms for our field of research; digital ethnography / virtual fieldwork, dealing with social distance, auto-ethnographical research, structural difficulties of the research situation and transdiscipline methods. We intend for the first session of The Corona Lens to start the dialogue from our intimate and ethnographic perspective to open the discussion for everyone.

Join the discussion on 27th of November, 10-13h

In order to get the Zoom invitation for the event, please send a mail to: ramronda@hu-berlin.de