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Decolonizing the Public Space in Germany and its former African Colonies : Memory, civil society and the arts

Appel à contributions


Convenors :

 Heike Becker (University of the Western Cape)
 Cordula Weisskoeppel (Bremen University)


Short Abstract :

The panel addresses processes of memory, activism, arts, and the public space in Germany and its former African colonies. Using a memory activism bottom-up approach, it will explore approaches of memory activists in civil society, whose critical interventions often challenge the state’s approaches.


Long Abstract :

Panel sponsored by AFRICA : Journal of the International African Institute

Memory and heritage as contested processes of past-based meaning production in the present and in future-making have played a big role in decolonize activism in Germany and its African ex-colonies. The panel addresses memory, activism, arts, and the public space. Using a memory activism bottom-up approach, this will include explorations of different approaches of memory activists in civil society, whose critical interventions often challenge the state’s approaches. Presentations will be based on research by the convenors and speakers, who work on decolonizing the public space, memory, and memory activism in the formerly colonised and the colonising nations. We encourage paper proposals from African, German, and international researchers.

The panel focus areas :

a) ’Civic action and the urban public space’ engages with contestations around the historical staging of former colonial empire in the built environment, with special emphasis to memorial sites and the naming of streets.

b) ’Museums as spaces of representation and battlegrounds over decolonization’ draws attention to the role of museums and decolonization in Germany and its former African colonies, critical approaches and collaborations in museum practice and scholarship.

c) ’The visual and performing arts as spaces, in which the meanings of remembrance are being negotiated through aesthetics and the senses’, emphasises the role of the visual and performative arts in memory and memory activism in Germany and the formerly colonised African countries, where artistic interventions have included counter-memorial paintings, installations, films, exhibitions, and performance and theatre productions.

More information/propose paper