UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Seeing and Disrupting: Anti-Blackness, Public Culture, and the Place of Berlin A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Misa Dean Dayson 2016 © Copyright by Misa Dean Dayson 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Seeing and Disrupting: Anti-Blackness, Public Culture, and the Place of Berlin by Misa Dean Dayson Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Sherry B. Ortner, Chair While it is generally accepted in Germany that migration, immigration, and integration are key social issues that must be addressed in the 21st century, the idea of adding racism to this litany is generally rejected. This omission prevents both recognition and analysis of the implicit ways the “logic” of race is inscribed onto conceptions and discussions of culture, nationality, and citizenship. Contemporary images of Black bodies seen in German art institutions and popular media, including the use of Blackface, most pointedly demonstrate this phenomenon. This dissertation, informed by 15 months of ethnographic research in Berlin, Germany, and Europe, intervenes into this silence about race by examining how Blackness is depicted in European public culture. Informed by the theoretical framings of Black Studies and Decolonial Studies, I argue that European public culture demonstrates how a normative, racialized white European subject is constructed through anti-Blackness. Understanding anti-Blackness as the fulcrum by ii which Western modernity emerged, and best understanding it as a structuring grammar of Western society that depends on a racialized hierarchical ordering of human beings—here understood as coloniality— I embark on an ethnography of racial formation. In so doing, I explore the analytical benefits of conceiving of Blackness as an object of knowledge, rather than a subject of fact. I then narrow my focus to non-mainstream art spaces in Berlin arguing that, and examining why, they are places that both perpetuate and challenge hierarchical ideas and practices of race. In such spaces of culture, I forward the idea that ethnography allows us to highlight “the shadows” of coloniality. I argue that this in turn provides a needed articulation of coloniality and anti-Black racism in German and European society in and of itself, and not explicated through theories of political economy, secularism, or nationalism. iii The dissertation of Misa Dean Dayson is approved. Jessica Cattelino Fatima El-Tayeb Todd Presner Mariko Tamanoi Sherry B. Ortner, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv This dissertation is dedicated to Christola Phoenix and Don Dayson. The two beautiful people who first modeled for me what critical thinking and speaking/writing truth to power looks and sounds like. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1. Blackness in the Life and Mind of Europe 23 2. Coloniality in Space and Place 64 3. Black Intervention: Critical Dialogs in Spaces of Performance 102 4. We Create Spaces for People Who Need Spaces: Placing Berlin 130 Conclusion 170 Appendix 178 Bibliography 201 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I do deeply thank, All the artists, activists, scholars, arts workers, and every combination in between, who shared their time with me in conversation for this project. In particular, Mekonnen Mesghena, Wagner Carvalho, Philippa Ebéné, Yvette Mutumba, Noa Ha, Jason Merrill Benedict, Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz, and Sharon Dodua Otoo. Your words and dedicated work were an inspiration and a pleasure to witness. My dear friends in Berlin who generously made the city feel like home to me with open doors, lots of laughter, inspiring intellectual community, delicious food, joyful strolls through neighborhoods, parks and lakes, and helpful navigation through German bureaucracy. I am so thankful to have met you. A special thanks for your invaluable friendship and support of my project goes to Sandrine Micossé-Aikins, Aicha Diallo, and Pablo Hermann. My parents, who are my life-long and loving cheerleading squad. Thank you for teaching me the values of persistence, faith, and loving community. Thank you also for nurturing my insatiable curiosity about the world with lots of books! I would not be where I am today without you. My immediate and extended family for showering me with you never-ending love, support, wisdom, laughter and encouragement. I would not be where I am today without you. My dear friends near and far in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Toronto, Maryland, DC, and New York. Thank you for unconditionally and lovingly nourishing my soul, mind, and body. You all constantly awe and inspire me with the work that you do, and just being the people who you are. I would not be where I am today without your support of simply believing in me, even when I second-guess myself at times. A special shout out goes to the Brooklyn Harlem Writers Group for sharing your helpful feedback on early chapter drafts of my dissertation. Writing this dissertation was often a solitary exercise, but it took the loving support and encouragement of my entire community, demonstrated in so many humbling ways, to help me see this project through. I could not have completed this project without my village and there are no words available to adequately express my gratitude to you. My partner, Jules, who is and has been my rock. I could not have completed this project without your love and support. Thank you for unfailingly supporting me as I pursue my ambitions. Thank you for holding me down during this writing journey, especially in the moments when I was in tears, near my wit’s end, or just utterly consumed by the process. You somehow always found ways to make me laugh and see the other, brighter, side of the picture. I am so thankful to share this life with you. My committee members: Jessica Cattelino, Fatima El-Tayeb, Todd Presner, Mariko Tamanoi, and my committee chair, Sherry B. Ortner. Thank you for your engagement, invaluable support and encouragement, and helpful critical feedback of my work. Your questions, insights, and vii challenges pushed me to better articulate my ideas, and to continue my scholarly explorations. I look forward to working with you again in the future. My larger academic community: Amy Abdou, Artwell Cain, Philomena Essed, David Theo Goldberg, Ramón Grosfoguel, Dienke Hondius, Trica Danielle Keaton, Kwamé Nimako, Stephen Small, and Gloria Wekker. Your invaluable lectures, insights, and engagement at the Summer School on Black Europe greatly aided in my growth as a scholar. Thank you also to the National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy, for housing this program for a time. It was a pleasure being able to engage with the other students of the program, who are all producing fascinating work. To Saidiya Hartman and Neferti X.M. Tadiar for inviting me into the inspiring, challenging, and invigorating intellectual community you created in your Genealogies of Feminism seminar. The through line of my dissertation took shape in your course, for which I will forever be grateful. Lastly, to Deborah Willis, for telling me to “head West” and go to graduate school, and for your invaluable support while I wrote this dissertation. The Anthropology Department Angels, Tracy Humbert and Ann Walters. Thank you for always helping me navigate the bureaucratic aspects of this PhD adventure on a day-to-day basis with lots of positive energy and humor. Last, but definitely not least, a number of fellowships were instrumental in allowing me to complete my research and dissertation: the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation German Chancellor Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 2011105271, the German Academic Exchange Service German Studies Research Grant, and the 2015-2016 UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship. Thank you so much for supporting my work. viii Curriculum Vitae EDUCATION University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 2012 Ph.D. Candidacy, Socio-Cultural Anthropology Department: Anthropology Specialization: Visual Culture; Race, Memory, Space, and Place; Decolonial Studies; Nationality University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 2012 M.A., Socio-Cultural Anthropology Department: Anthropology Specialization: Visual Culture; Race, Memory, Space, and Place; Decolonial Studies; Nationality Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 2005 B.A., African American Studies and Film Studies Departments: African American Studies; Film Studies PUBLICATIONS 2016. " Black Intervention: Critical Dialogs in Spaces of Performance." Black Diaspora and Germany. Edited by Robbie Aitken, Cassandra Ellerbe-Dueck, and Damani Partridge. Berlin: German Research Foundation (Manuscript submitted for publication). 2015. "50 Years Later: The Visual Legacies and Challenges of the Civil Rights Movement." Contemporary And. May.: 60-61. Print. 2012. “Imagine Us There: Radical. Art. People. Spaces.” The Little Book of Big Visions: How to be an Artist and Revolutionize the World. Edited by Sandrine Micossé Aikins and Sharon Dodua Otoo. pp. 32-53. Berlin: Edition Assemblage. PRESENTATIONS “Confronting the After-Life of Coloniality in Visual Representations of Blackness in Germany” The Convergence of Performance, Race, and Changing (Trans)National Subjectivities American Anthropological Association; Denver, CO November 2015 “Linking German Cultural Institutions to Neoliberal Multiculturalism” November