PUBLICATIONS
THE TRANSIENCE OF PRISONERS’ MEMOIRS IN ABBAS KHIDER’S DIE ORANGEN DES PRÄSIDENTEN
August 2021
The peculiarity of prisons lies in the ambivalence of walls as spaces of both disappearance and appearance. While the overt purpose of these boundaries is to limit individuals in their ability to practice the freedoms of movement and speech, epigraphs can be understood as prisoners’ way of disrupting the politics of the prison panopticon. This paper focuses on what can be learned from epigraphs in carceral narratives to understand the significance and difficulties of writing memory in in-between places. Using Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘space of appearance’, I provide a reading of Die Orangen des Präsidenten, a 2011 novel by Iraqi diaspora author, Abbas Khider, to trace how writing on walls can function as an act of claiming space. I discuss the ambiguity of the wall as a metaphor of both boundary and passage. In the novel, the young protagonist Mahdi Muhsin consults the architectural space for clues about prison experiences. While the walls transmit knowledge about the space’s inhabitants, Mahdi discovers that the architectural modifications hint to the power struggles undergone to make them visible. The presence of individual testimonies on the walls is contrasted with the impact of the wardens’ efforts to erase these stories and the prisoners’ bodies, and with that any traces of the writers’ presence. I argue that the constant mark-making in the carceral complex leaves traces of the silenced prisoner voices, and can be seen as an act of claiming space. The deeply engraved notes are their way to appear in a space whose sole function is to erase their existence.
BOOK REVIEW: BORDERING OXFORD LAW FACULTY
April 2021
Like a swarm of angry bees, repeating images of walls, fences, and other barriers communicate that there is something vital at stake in political and social life across the globe today. In addition to discernible material barriers at state borders, there are invisible bordering processes and border brutalities that constitute and control the everyday lives of people. Bordering offers a multi-local ethnography of material and immaterial “bordering scapes”, a term that refers to the spatial zones in which local and global hierarchies govern the mobility of some but not all people. The book pays particular attention to how border performances in everyday lives in the UK inform citizenly behaviour, identity constructions and claims to belonging. ....
ANTI-RACISM IN EUROPE: AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH TO THE DISCOURSE ON EMPOWERMENT THROUGH THE EU ANTI-RACISM ACTION PLAN 2020-2025
April 2021
Anti-racism in Europe operates in political, policy, and civic spaces, in which organizations try to counter racial discrimination and violence. This paper applies a textual analysis to the European discourse of the transnationally connected anti-racism movement that shaped the European Union (henceforth EU) anti-racism action plan 2020–2025. The plan seeks to address structural racism in the EU through an intersectional lens. Alana Lentin, however, cautions that the structuring principles of anti-racism approaches can obscure “irrefutable reciprocity between racism and the modern nation-state”. Against the backdrop of a critique intersectionality mainstreaming in global anti-racist movements, this paper draws on Kimberly Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality to critically examine the practices outlined in the EU anti-racism action plan to understand (1) the extent to which the EU anti-racism action addresses the historical baggage of European imperialism, (2) the influence of transnational anti-racism organizations such as the European Network Against Racism (henceforth ENAR) in reinforcing universalisms about notions of humanity in anti-racism activism through language and (3) the limitations that the EU anti-racism action plan poses for the empowerment of racially marginalized groups of people.
VITAL BUT NOT WELCOME: THE MIGRANT ACTIVIST
Febrary 2021
There is a need to interrogate prevalent understandings of migrant activists’ positionality in contemporary protest movements in Germany to evaluate the way in which migrants’ engagement in social movements in the country influences migrants’ sense of belonging and opportunities to social and political participation. accessible via: https://imiscoephdblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/09/vital-but-not-welcomed-the-migrant-activist/
CURATING POLITICAL FELLOWSHIP AT THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN MUSIC AND ACTIVISM
January 2020
Following Irish Republican leader James Connolly’s statement, that “no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetic expression,”[ix] this article explores how contrasting resistance groups in Germany use the affective relationship between audiences and familiar music to curate political fellowship. Drawing on 2017-19 ethnographic research on music activism conducted in the city of Dresden, Germany, I show how two groups with opposing political ideology use the same musical material in the service of their disparate agendas. Audiences’ responses to music are guided by music’s potential to evoke affective responses. Popular music, specifically, interlaces perceived and felt emotions and lends itself to communicating information. The question that my study, thus, seeks to answer is what happens if the same familiar music is used to communicate contrasting information? Link to full article here: https://activisthistory.com/2020/01/29/curating-political-fellowship-at-the-intersections-between-music-and-activism/
MUSICAL BORDER-NESS: CONTESTING SPACES THROUGH CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT. (FORTHCOMING IN CROSSINGS: JOURNAL OF MIGRATION AND CULTURE)
Winter 2019/20
The recent rise of right-wing conservatism and renewed nationalisms in Europe has shaped new lines of separation. Across the European nations the binary distinction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has been reinforced and transcultural conceptions of belonging and membership put to question. At the same time, the increased visibility of barriers and borders has spawned public responses from artistic and cultural institutions that not only seek to counter discriminatory rhetoric but also to promote united societies.
This account will shed light on how the discourse on borders has shaped the practices of local cultural institutions in Germany. I draw on observations of three music initiatives in the city of Dresden to show how “border-ness”, a term used by social anthropologist Sarah Green to describe the sense of border, is experienced through and lived in music, educational practice and political activism.
Banda Internationale’s transcultural music contests notions of “Heimatmusik” [traditional German folk music]. Collaborations with refugee musicians and transformations of repertoire through border-experiences inform how spaces of music-making can become cultural borderlands themselves. Together with ‘MUSAIK’, ‘Banda Internationale’ engages in what I would term a debordering of culture in music education which yields a transcultural dialogue in the classroom. Thirdly, a discussion of the ‘Montagscafé’ traces the chances and struggles of addressing gender-specific needs in cultural programming to provide specifically women the opportunity to participate.
My observations and interviews with these three initiatives shed light on how the production of culture has been complicit in molding empowered speakers and critical voices from excluded communities. I show how cross-cultural exchanges emplaced new discursive spaces in established settings that allow for the presence and participation of new and formerly marginalized voices.
DISCUSSING MOBILITY IN LIMINAL SPACES AND BORDER ZONES: AN ANALYSIS OF ABBAS KHIDER’S DER FALSCHE INDER (2008) AND BRIEFE IN DIE AUBERGINENREPUBLIK (2013).
November 2019
Traversing through different geographical and temporal spaces can render social worlds that make plain the interdependencies of power and movement. Practices of everyday life are enmeshed in new cultures of discourse that are localized in spaces of transit. Liminal spaces and border zones have become today’s stages of negotiating both the concept of an abject human body and the possibility of new social realities. This paper focuses on what can be learned from the strategies revealed in narratives of mobile subjects to understand the significance and difficulties of writing social life in in-between places. Using Victor Turner’s conceptions of “liminality” and “comunitas”, I provide a comparative reading of Abbas Khider’s Der falsche Inder (2008) and Briefe in die Auberginenrepublik (2013) to trace how different forms of movement can function as indicators for the destabilization of identities and dislocation of a sense of belonging, but also open up opportunities to recognize agency.
I discuss the ambiguities of the conditions of contemporary borderlands which Khider’s protagonists inhabit and utilize. Experiencing the conditions of indefinite liminality, Rasul Hamid struggles to establish relationships to the places through which he journeys in Der falsche Inder. While he gets to know many people on his way, it is only with those already marginalized that he can form temporary relationships. His social world is characterized by uncertainties, with which he only comes to terms in writing himself into being in his diaries and notes. Articulating himself, his aspirations and sexual desires, however, becomes a dangerous affair as he is struggles to negotiate the different cultural codes that he encounters. I argue that Rasul’s account can be seen to signify the new position of borderland men as what Giorgio Agamben terms “denizens”. The lack of belonging and relationship to place characterizes the organization of social spheres in borderzones portrayed in the novel. The threshold condition looms large as circulating subjectivities adapt to their precariousness.
In Briefe in die Auberginenrepublik, Salim who is already in exile in Bengasi sends his love Samia a letter to Bagdad, which builds the narrative framework of the novel. A list of characters are introduced as his writing crosses borders, and his deeply personal account meets their lives. Even though, Samia has long left Bagdad and there is no one to receive Salim’s writing, the letter serves as a trope that reveals the struggles which communal practices encounter in war zones. Despite the destabilized political order, quotidian traditions and rituals remain recurrent practices with which characters reassure themselves their purpose in the places of transit and uncertainty. I argue that the arrangement of personal accounts through the narrative structure of the letter facilitates a discussion in which the strategies of mobility and survival become visible. Rearticulating pre-existing perceptions of threshold people against the framework of “helplessness” is useful for recognizing agency amidst chaos. While everyday practices are imbued by conflict and displacement, individuals develop coping strategies for alternative organizations of a life on the border.
PERFORMING CRITICAL VOICE: ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF CITIZENSHIP, BELONGING, AND THE ARTICULATION OF CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES”
July 2019
The current age of migration and mobility gave rise to right-wing conservatism and renewed nationalisms. Opposing responses manifest themselves in creative and resilient strategies of social and cultural movements. These practices bring issues of democratic citizenship and belonging to the very forefront of the debate. Shaped by the evolution of divided communities, the production of culture remains one of the few vehicles through which effective and diverse critiques can be articulated in a manner accessible to people of different backgrounds.This account explores how the production of culture has been complicit in molding empowered speakers and critical voices from excluded communities. Drawing on my 2017/18 ethnographic study of the German brass ensemble “Banda Internationale”, this paper examines what can be learned about the formation of critical voices through music-making. I allude to the processes and practices involved in constituting a critical voice in music production, performance and activism; discuss how the practices in the band relate to the fundamental principles of Marxist immanent critique; and raise the issue that questions of citizenship and belonging are, without exception, rooted in the analysis of how voicing critique becomes possible in a climate that resists and prohibits the diverse articulation of subjectivities.
"RAISING AWARENESS: PIPER KERMAN'S 'ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK' AND THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN U.S. PRISONS”
July 24 2014
Published by HYSTERIA PRESS, London.
Orange is the new Black, a TV-series based on Piper Kerman’s autobiographical narrative, is all over the news and in our living rooms attempting to give us an insight of what life behind bars is like for women. The show has been criticized for inaccurately depicting the story of Piper Chapman, as the main character is called in the series. However, the broadcast and discussion of the story draws attention to the actual narrative by Piper Kerman on which the show is based. In her autobiographical novel also entitled Orange is the new Black, Kerman narrates her life in prison after being convicted of drug offense after 10 years. As a consequence of her actions in the past, Kerman was sentenced to 13 months in a federal prison facility. After her release, she put her experiences in writing to raise awareness of the flaws of the U.S. federal prison system. In her narrative, she draws attention to a number of different issues; among them the maltreatment of women of all colors, origins, backgrounds and sexes in American prisons. Consequently, the publication of her story offers shocking insights into the way incarcerated women are treated and thus highlights the necessity to talk about these horrifying practices.
MUELLER, C., SCHWARZ, MANDY. “PERSPECTIVES IN GERMAN ART PEDAGOGY.”
2018
Co-Authored Publication in Encyclopedia of Art & Design Education (Histories and Philosophies), John Baldacchino (Ed.). Cambridge University Press, 2019.
REVIEW OF EURO-VISIONS: EUROPE IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA, EDITED BY MARIANA LIZ.
31 March 2017
Book Review of Mariana Liz's Euro-Visions
Published by Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
RESEARCH UPDATE: ‘TRACING INTERACTIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY ARTS-BASED PROTEST MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY’
November 11 2017
Published by The Global Mobility Project: The Ohio State University, 2017. https://u.osu.edu/globalmobility/2017/11/27/research-update-tracing-interactions-and-transformations-in-contemporary-arts-based-protest-movements-in-germany/
WORKS IN PROGRESS
WARC-EN-CIEL”: REFLECTIONS ON MUSIC, MOBILITY AND THE FUTURE IN BURKINA
FASO. (FOR SUBMISSION TO UFAHAMU: A JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES)
Issues of mobility and immobility have become increased concerns in the social sciences and the humanities since the turn to mobility in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Globally, the trans-local movements of people and commodities signify how social and material worlds are shaped by movement and containment, how access to mobility is determined by the mediations and transformations of one’s habitus toward becoming more socially mobile, and how the conditions of mobility are made possible by the institutions and infrastructures of immobility (Arora 2014). An awareness of the immanence of (im)mobilities in the organization and governance of social and material worlds today suggests that there is a need to learn how to conceptualize the everyday practices and the formation of identity from the perspective of mobility.
This account wishes to provide insights into this line of questioning from the perspective of reflecting on the personal mobilities of the authors of this paper. We use the qualitative method of ethnography to present a personal narrative about Euro-African mobilities. This article then brings into conversation the considerations arising from transcultural musical encounters with broader socio-cultural questions. Finally, we reflect on how musicians and cultural workers may contribute to challenging the idealized image of Europe in Burkina Faso to help recognize the structures of (im)mobility, stabilize access to education, and provoke meaningful change in the future.
PRISON WALL EPIGRAPHS: THE TRANSIENCE OF PRISONERS’ MEMOIRS IN ABBAS KHIDER’S DIE ORANGEN DES PRÄSIDENTEN (FOR SUBMISSION TO ABBAS KHIDER ANTHOLOGY)
The peculiarity of prisons lies in the ambivalence of walls as spaces of both disappearance and appearance. While the overt purpose of these boundaries is to limit individuals in their ability to practice the freedoms of movement and speech, epigraphs can be understood as prisoners’ way of disrupting the politics of the prison panopticon. This paper focuses on what can be learned from epigraphs in carceral narratives to understand the significance and difficulties of writing memory in in-between places. Using Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘space of appearance’, I provide a reading of Die Orangen des Präsidenten, a 2011 novel by Iraqi diaspora author, Abbas Khider, to trace how writing on walls can function as an act of claiming space.
I discuss the ambiguity of the wall as a metaphor of both boundary and passage. In the novel, the young protagonist Mahdi Muhsin consults the architectural space for clues about prison experiences. While the walls transmit knowledge about the space’s inhabitants, Mahdi discovers that the architectural modifications hint to the power struggles undergone to make them visible. The presence of individual testimonies on the walls is contrasted with the impact of the wardens’ efforts to erase these stories and the prisoners’ bodies, and with that any traces of the writers’ presence. I argue that the constant mark-making in the carceral complex leaves traces of the silenced prisoner voices, and can be seen as an act of claiming space. The deeply engraved notes are their way to appear in a space whose sole function is to erase their existence.