Decolonial Thinking - Learning to Unlearn

Editorial

from the magazine 'INTERVENTIONEN. Artistic Interventions as Decolonial Strategy?' introduces the ongoing colonial intertwining within the German-speaking cultural sector and shows possible strategies and projects that intervene in these colonial structures.

Drei Ausgaben des Magazins "Interventionen" liegen übereinander. Eines ist aufgeschlagen.

"Decolonial thinking is neither a discipline nor a method. It is a way of being, thinking, doing, and becoming in the world.(Walter Mignolo)

"When it comes to decolonizing thought, it must be made to vibrate constantly." (Maria do Mar Castro Varela)

Vera Heimisch vor weißer Backsteinmauer
Vera Heimisch

A small virtual tour through the programmes of German (cultural) institutions in January 2020: A postcolonial performance is shown at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. In Berlin, a seminar on decolonial art approaches is taking place at the same time at the University of the Arts and a short press release from the Humboldt Forum informs that the opening of the Forum will be postponed for several months after all. The postcolonial discourse seems to be omnipresent. The confrontation with the colonial past and present is reflected in the programmes and projects and currently occupies numerous cultural workers. A cultural-political debate will also begin at the latest with the 2018 museum debate, which will deal with, among other aspects, the handling of restitution claims and looted art; there are calls from many quarters for a decolonization of art institutions and the arts. (1)

Julia Wissert, the first Black and youngest artistic director in Germany (Schauspielhaus Dortmund), observes that the hype about German colonialism started on German-speaking stages after the summer of migration in 2015 (2). She criticizes, however, that this new post-colonial German aesthetic is still based on a white perspective as a starting point and that productions are still imagined for a white audience. This can be seen, for example, in the lack of BIPoC perspectives or their external contextualization on stages and shows that clear gaps still exist. With a few exceptions, the artistic management teams of German state theaters consist mainly of white people mainly; particularly of men. A similar pattern can be seen in the cast of the ensembles.

But what exactly does this have to do with postcolonialism and what is actually meant by the term? After all, colonialism is long gone, and Germany was only a colonial power for a short time in comparison to other imperial powers at least that's what was often argued when talking about the relevance of the topic. Why is there a discussion about how decolonization is possible when the majority of the formerly colonized states have long since become independent? 

But behind these terms are structures that are still effective today. The effects of colonialism are strongly linked to our current living realities, ways of thinking and working and power structures and are also reflected in cultural institutions and artistic practices. I will examine these links in more detail to show that a decolonization of the arts in Germany is urgently needed to break up hegemonic structures.

To this end, it is first of all central to take a closer look at the concepts and ideas behind the terms postcolonialism and decolonization: The sociologist Stuart Hall makes it clear in his essay "When was the ‚post-colonial‘?"(3) that postcolonialism is not to be understood as an epochal concept. This is an important starting point of the discourse. For it is not a closed epoch, colonialism in its manifold forms is not over. Numerous scholars, notably Hall, criticize this linear orientation of the concept and its associated periodization. For Hall, postcolonialism does not only stand after colonialism; it goes beyond it. This means that the effects of colonization do not end with the independence of the formerly colonized states and communities; on the contrary: we are still in the midst of the process of decolonization; the formal end of the colonial empires is not the same as the end of colonial structures of rule. Reparation payments –  not yet refunded to this day – are only a first step, rather, a comprehensive decolonization must be started. One area, for example, is the decolonization of knowledge: what is understood by so-called world literature, or what is the educational canon of the school systems?

A central mechanism of colonial structures is the binary orientation and division into categories such as colonialized/colonized or here/there and then/today, which are still found in discourses today. The periphery is pushed to the edge by the center, in cultural institutions there is still a strong tendency towards a hierarchical division into high culture/low culture. The historian Achille Mbembe criticizes this division into opposites. In his opinion, this binary division rather obscures the postcolonial connecting lines and makes it difficult to reveal postcolonial continuity in structures and processes (4).

For the process of decolonization, it is thus central to break away from binary categories and to understand the present as well as the past as intertwined:

"History, according to the postcolonial credo, does not run linearly, but meandering, multi-layered and contingent much like a rhizomic network that has numerous links and interdependencies and in the process constantly produces new and unexpected fruits.“ (5)

The ethnologist Katharina Schramm uses the term rhizome (6) from botany to describe postcolonialism. She sees in postcolonial criticism the possibility of a historical change of perspective that reveals this ongoing interweaving. Also, in the sense of Shalini Randeria's concept of 'entangled histories', everything is interrelated. The ethnologist draws a transnational picture of history made up of dependencies, interferences and interdependencies, which makes the persistence and after-effects of the effects of colonial rule clear. (7)

Of particular importance for the concepts of postcolonialism is a Latin American research group that studies forms of decolonization in detail. The starting point is the very continent that has experienced various forms of colonial power for 500 years. Despite the processes of independence that numerous Latin American countries have been experiencing since the 19th century, social conditions have hardly changed. The interdisciplinary research group Modernity- Coloniality/Decoloniality takes Aníbal Quijano's concept of coloniality (8) as the linchpin of its research.                            

Coloniality and modernity are inevitably linked with each other. The Western concept of modernity, which was established by the Enlightenment, was even first brought about by colonialism, enslavement, and exploitation after Quijano. He divides coloniality into coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of nature: whether it is the control over economic and educational systems, or whether it is the expropriation of land and exploitation of natural and human resources the threads of coloniality are spun all over the world.

In order to deconstruct and unlearn these colonial power structures, the existing hegemonic structures of power over economy, politics, body, and knowledge production must be critically questioned. The literary scholar Walter Mignolo, who is part of this research group, speaks of the process of delinking, which is set in motion in order to break up coloniality.(9)

Both Hall's thoughts on postcolonialism and the Latin American research group around Quijano and Mignolo focus on the continuity of colonial power relations. In doing so, they show that colonial entanglements and unequal distribution of power continue to have an effect to the present day. Exposing these entanglements without reproducing them is one of the main challenges of decolonization processes.

Audre Lordes' principle The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house (10) is a central motto in this process. With her symbol, Lorde very aptly describes the crux of the matter: decolonization is not possible with colonial tools. Mignolo also emphasizes the importance of establishing new, individual instruments of thought: "Thinking in/on our own terms is crucial for you cannot tear down the fiction with the same concepts with which the fiction was constructed“(11).

It is therefore evident that strategies for decolonization are necessary and numerous scholars are examining how colonial continuities can be broken up. The virtual foray through the current cultural landscape at the beginning of the text makes it clear that there are many different ways of discussing and artistically working on this issue in the cultural sector as well. Cultural institutions, artists and curators are looking for decolonial strategies and artistic approaches. It can be observed that numerous strategies have been tested in recent years, for example, sharing concepts and collaborative forms of cooperation. Especially in cultural institutions, there has been a rapid increase in these "collaborative, decolonial projects", which were intended to break through the previous hierarchies and the sovereignty of white decision-makers in the interpretation and decision-making process for artistic projects. In my opinion, however, the implementation of these concepts is questionable in many cases, the Master's tools are still used and thus colonial patterns are reproduced, which should actually be avoided. Perhaps terms such as decolonial and collaborative are currently used so inflationarily by institutions because it is easier to acquire funding.

In many museums, the "call for multi-perspective exhibitions" (12) and a reflection of the projects, which were predominantly carried out by white artists and curators, followed as a reaction to the decolonization demands. For the ethnologist Andrea Scholz, decolonization of cultural institutions means above all a self-reflective, critical examination of one's own working methods and history. But this self-reflection carries with it the problem of self-referentiality, since the white perspective is in focus and is thought of as the starting point; thus, centuries-old structures are reproduced anew.

This also applies in particular to (museum) archives. These European institutions are central instruments of power in historiography and reflect the (often racist and inhuman) anthropological collecting practices of past centuries. It must be questioned which objects and materials ended up in the archives as a result of which decisions, and what in return was not archived because it was considered irrelevant, or because it escaped archiving. The cultural studies scholar Britta Lange is concerned with how existing archives can be dealt with in the future: "In this sense, an archive of the future would be one in which something is inscribed that is not archived, but which one would like to have archived the imaginary as a preliminary exercise for the real archive, so to speak and it would thus be a level of negotiation that puts the other archives into a relationship"(13).

Postcolonial power relations in the practice of art and collecting are thus already being questioned, both in the exhibition context and in other fields and on other levels; for example among staff and the public. But as Julia Wissert criticizes, the current uptake of the postcolonial debate by cultural institutions and artists is not synonymous with automatic decolonization: although according to Natalie Bayer (among others), "(...) many people speak of 'postcolonial' and 'postmigrant' museum approaches, this often happens while at the same time continuing eroticizing, hierarchizing and juxtaposing narrative patterns" (14). BIPoC artists and their perspectives are included in so-called postcolonial projects, but in many cases they continue to function as objects instead of participating and co-creating as subjects of knowledge production. The magazine focuses on artistic interventions because I think that artists use them as a decolonial strategy to break through and reveal these narrative patterns.

For a sustainable, seriously pursued decolonization of art, the basic foundations must be laid: concepts, goals, methods and strategies must be critically questioned in order to abolish hegemonic structures, privileges of individuals and exclusions. Both institutions, white artists, and cultural workers must take a critical look at their modes of production. For not every project that is described as postor decolonial is automatically immune to the perpetuation of hegemonic structures. Inequalities persist and become entrenched; the precarious financing of artistic projects also plays a significant role here. Hegemonic funding structures hardly allow for long-term cooperation and sustainable collaboration, but rather maintain the positions of power of a few institutions and individuals.

As a reaction to this, collaborative cultural spaces are increasingly emerging and are initiated by BIPoC cultural practitioners spaces in which marginalized perspectives are heard and which are not exclusively or not at all conceived for white recipients. The online magazine Contemporary And (C&), which reflects contemporary art practice from an African perspective and the diaspora and thus creates digital spaces for multi-perspective voices, is an example of this process. SAVVY Contemporary (15) in Berlin, which describes itself as a space for epistemological diversity and critically questions Western art practice and dissects constructs and M.Bassy in Hamburg as a public salon for encounters with contemporary African and African-influenced artists and creative people are further examples. These projects show how numerous new strategies are already being developed to integrate decolonial processes into artistic working methods and structures or take them as a starting point.

Thoughts are set in vibration, as Maria do Mar Castro Varela so aptly writes (16). There are already numerous projects and institutions that are in the process of dismantling the Master's tools and replacing them with new tools this process is ongoing and is far from being complete.


 

Sources

 

(1) Vgl. Förster, Larissa (2019): Der Umgang mit der Kolonialzeit: Provenienz und Rückgabe. In: Edenheiser, Iris/ Förster, Larissa (Hg.): Museumsethnologie. Eine Einführung: Theorien, Debatten, Praktiken. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer-Verlag. 78103

(2) Vgl. Wissert, Julia (2018): Was würden wir atmen, wenn weiße Menschen nicht die Luft erfunden hätten? In: Liepsch, Elisa / Warner, Julian/ Pees, Matthias (Hg.): Allianzen. Kritische Praxis an weißen Institutionen. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. 244260

(3) Vgl. Hall, Stuart (1997): Wann war „der Postkolonialismus? Denken an der Grenze. In: Bronfen, Elisabeth/ Marius, Benjamin/ Steffen, Therese (Hg.): Hybride Kulturen. Beiträge zur anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte. Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verlag. 219246

(5) Schramm, Katharina (2017): Einführung. In: Bauer, Susanne/ Heinemann, Torsten/ Lemke, Thomas (Hg.): Science and technology studies. Klassische Positionen und aktuelle Perspektiven. Berlin: Suhrkamp-Verlag. 471494 (475)

(6) Das Konzept des Rhizoms wurde von Gilles Deleuze und Félix Guattari (3) eingeführt, die Metapher des Wurzelgeflechts dient dazu, vernetzte, heterogene Strukturen zu beschreiben, wie zum Beispiel das Aufkommen des World Wide Web in den 1990er Jahren. // The concept of the rhizome was introduced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The metaphor of the root network serves to describe networked, heterogeneous structures, such as the emergence of the World Wide Web the 1990s.

(Deleuze, Gilles/ Guattari, Félix (1977): Rhizom. Berlin: Merve-Verlag)

(7) Conrad, Sebastian/ Randeria, Shalini (2013): Einleitung: Geteilte Geschichten – Europa in einer postkolonialen Welt. In: Conrad, Sebastian/ Randeria, Shalini/ Römhild, Regina (Hg.): Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Campus-Verlag. 32-70

(8) vgl. Quijano, Aníbal (2000): Coloniality of Power. Eurocentrism, and Latin America. In: Nepantla: Views from the South 1 (3), 533-580; sowie

vgl. Mignolo, Walter D. (2014): Further Thoughts on (De)Coloniality. In: Broeck, Sabine/ Junker, Carsten (Hg.): Postcoloniality, Decoloniality, Black Critique. Joints and Fissures.

Frankfurt/Main: Campus-Verlag. 21–52

(9) Diese Art des dekolonialen Denkens beschreibt die Autorin Gloria Anzaldúa als border thinking, also Denken an der Grenze. Border thinking als Zustand und Reaktion auf die Wissensproduktion der Moderne. // The author Gloria Anzaldúa describes this kind of decolonial thinking as border thinking. Border thinking as a state and reaction to the knowledge production of modernity.

(Vgl. Anzaldúa, Gloria (1999): Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, San Francisco : Aunt Lute Books)

(10) Lorde, Audre (2018): The Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house. London: Penguin Classics.

(11) Mignolo, Walter D. (2014): Further Thoughts on (De)Coloniality. In: Broeck, Sabine/ Junker, Carsten (Hg.): Postcoloniality, Decoloniality, Black Critique. Joints and Fissures.

Frankfurt/Main: Campus-Verlag. 2152 (42)

(12) Scholz, Andrea (2019): Transkulturelle Zusammenarbeit in der Museumspraxis: Symbolpolitik oder epistemologische Pluralisierung? In: Edenheiser, Iris/ Förster, Larissa (Hg.): Museumsethnologie. Eine Einführung: Theorien, Debatten, Praktiken. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer-Verlag. 162–179 (165)

(13) Kuster, Brigitta/ Lange, Britta/ Löffler, Petra (2019): Archive der Zukunft? Ein Gespräch über Sammlungspraktiken, koloniale Archive und die Dekolonisierung des Wissens. In: Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft. Heft 20: Was uns angeht. Jg.11/1, 96111 (106)

(14) Bayer, Natalie/ Kazeem-Kaminski, Belinda / Sternfeld, Nora (2017): Wo ist hier die Contact-Zone?! Eine Konversation. In: Bayer, Natalie/ Kazeem-Kaminski, Belinda / Sternfeld, Nora (Hg.): Kuratieren als antirassistische Praxis. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter-Verlag. 23–52 (23)

(15) Siehe URL: https://www.savvy-contemporary.com/de/ (10.07.2020)

Zur Arbeitsweise des SAVVY Contemporary: Ndikung, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng (2017): Perspectives from Berlin. Noa Ha and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHJ6lDcQfVE (14.04.2020)

(16) Castro Varela, María do Mar (2007): Verlernen und Strategie des unsichtbaren Ausbesserns. Bildung und Postkoloniale Kritik. URL: http://www.igbildendekunst.at/de/bildpunkt/2007/widerstand-macht-wissen… (29.05.2020)