Intersectional Constructions of Gender and Race in German Media Debates About Racism

Weiß, Ana-Nzinga (2024): Intersectional Constructions of Gender and Race in German Media Debates About Racism. G-Versity Conference: Gender Diversity Across Europe – Devising Solutions from Interdisciplinary & Intersectoral Perspectives, Bern, Schweiz, 12. -14. Juni 2024.

Abstract

In an international comparison, Germany rather hesitantly discussed racism in public debates. Instead, German society frequently perceives itself as colorblind and free of inequalities based on race. This perception contrasts with the lived realities of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPoC) who experience racism in Germany. Following the paradigm of social epistemology, knowledge is produced in the context of social power relations. Accordingly, intersectional dynamics of knowledge and power have forged the hegemonic exclusion of the knowledge about racism held by BIPoC in Germany. However, the public disengagement with racism was interrupted in the summer of 2020, when German traditional mass media reacted to worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Traditional mass media were soon met with public criticism. Especially on social media platforms, users condemned traditional mass media for allegedly excluding individuals who had personal experience with racism. I argue that these responses can be analyzed in the framework of feminist, critical race theorist and decolonial approaches to redefine the subject of knowledge that have focused on the “role of experience” in the social production of knowledge “and in relation to dominance” (Almeida, 2015, p. 89) (e.g., U.S. Black feminist thought or Feminist Standpoint Theory). Through their politics of representation, the media (re-)produce epistemic hierarchies. In the proposed talk I discuss how gender and race are constructed within epistemic dynamics in the political debate about racism on German public television, YouTube, and Instagram.

• Item Type: Speech
• Faculties: Social Sciences > Department of Communications and Media (IfKW)
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology
• Language: English